Everyone with any kind of social media page has heard this statement: “You know, being on social media for too long can be really bad for you.” Typically, we just continue doing what we were doing on Facebook or Twitter and are like, “Yeah right. Sure I may spend a lot of time on it, but I’m fine.” We also hear a lot of people who say they are taking an extended break from social media to focus on different aspects of their lives, but they end up back on it a week later saying “they just couldn’t do it.” Why is it we just can’t put the social media away?
People joke around that they are addicted to their social media sites and we laugh about it and joke that we are too. All joking aside for a moment, though, and you have to start thinking, hey, maybe I am a little addicted… One article I found called “Why Social Media is Bad for Your Mental Health” that talks about the cons of social media said, “Addiction arises because of the fact that the social media activity stimulates the pleasure centers in your brain, which are thus activated, for example, when people click the ‘Like’ button on your profile, reply to your comments, or make comments on your photo.” When we post something, we crave the attention that it will generate once people lay their eyes on it. We even put a value on our self-worth sometimes depending on how many “Likes” or “Favorites” a post gets. If a post is unsuccessful and gets only 10 “Likes”, we feel kind of deflated, but when it gets 30, 40, 50 “Likes”, we praise ourselves on a job well done. Some see this kind of thinking as detrimental to a person over time.
Some other negative aspects of social media the article discusses are a lack of attention span, stress, and fatigue. When we visit Facebook, we are having so much information thrown at us in just a few minutes that it gets exhausting for the brain to handle. You think you were tired after that hour and a half long class on English literature in 16th century Europe? Well, the same thing happens to your brain after spending a lot of time on social media sites. The brain just has a hard time processing what you are seeing. Also, because we jump from one thing to the next to the next on these sites, it creates in us a lack of attention because our brains are so conditioned to spending so little time on something you were reading or thinking about. Obviously, this can affect your performances at work and school if not addressed.
Now, mental, emotional, and physical factors aside, I know I am not the only one who gets annoyed when people argue with complete strangers over a slight difference in opinion, or when the same person keeps posting selfie after selfie, or when another person posts long drawn out statuses about nothing in particular. It seems that this is all social media has turned into now. I’m here to tell you that that statement is not true, and there is still some hope left for social media sites.
Now that we talked a lot about the negative aspects (which is all we hear about now), it’s time to talk about the many positive aspects of social media use. Another article called “How Social Media has Changed Us: The Good and the Bad” states many positive ways to use social media. The immediate access to information we get while using social media is extraordinary. There is always something trending, and it is a good way to “Like” your local or national news source to stay updated on politics and local and world news. All of the blogs and posts people write also offer a different perspective on an event than what a news station will give you. Let us not forget that we can so easily stay connected to people via social media. That longtime friend who just moved to the other side of the country? Friend them on Facebook. That cousin you haven’t seen in ages? Send them a message. Run your own business? Create a Facebook page and reach out to people from all over. One last feature of social media that the article described as positive is the development of Hashtags. Hashtags can keep people “tied to a specific trend, event, or topic, and filter out everything that didn’t relate to the hashtag.” This can keep your posts and what you see particular to what you WANT to see and know about on social media.
Like anything in this world, there are good and bad parts of social media. While doing this research and writing this article, I started to wonder that maybe social media isn’t so bad; it’s just how we choose to use it. So, maybe next time you go to post that 10th selfie of the week or engage someone in an argument for no reason other than boredom, ask yourself why you are doing it and what you are really gaining from it.
Leanna Shipman 