Damages of Social Media on Daily Life
As I spoke last week about the impacts that dopamine addictions and the short TikTok and Instagram videos have been having on us, this week I will stay on a similar theme of finding what I see as problematic on social media platforms and how these problems have had an impact on my life and those with similar issues with social media.
There is an addiction sweeping across the world right now that has been brought to us by the development of social media in the last 20 years. The way that these videos spark something in people’s brains that makes them just want to keep watching and watching speaks to how these platforms have been developed to lock users in for long periods of time. To share my personal experience with this, I know that I can get very locked into these videos fairly often. Just before I began writing this blog, I spent an amount of time—I don’t know if I even want to mention how long—watching those videos. The odd thing I experience through my dopamine addiction is just how aware I am of it in the moment and still feel oddly helpless. Like today for example, I knew I was going to sit down and write this blog, but when I would tell myself, just one or two more videos, I kept watching for what felt like an eternity, but at the same time, hours easily flew by. I wish there were an easier way to kick this addiction, as I know I’m not the only one struggling but the only solution at this point just seems to be to delete the app, which is what I did with TikTok over 2 years ago, but soon after I went to watching Instagram Reels and the addiction never faded.
One other major impact that I’ve seen in myself and heard about from others is the amount of sleep deprivation some people may experience from the number of active hours they spend on social media. I’ve heard stories from my friends telling me they “didn’t sleep well at all” the previous night, and when I ask them why they might think that, most of the time they say they couldn’t fall asleep, so they just went on their phone. For anyone who knows something about how phones work with your brain chemistry, this is easily the most counterproductive practice when you’re actively trying to fall asleep. The screen’s light and activity sets off things in your brain that keep it active and make it harder to fall asleep. This is something I have been struggling with personally over the past couple weeks too. For some reason, my sleep schedule has been getting really out of whack and I know that when I can’t sleep after 30 minutes or an hour, I will go onto my phone to try and entertain myself until I feel tired again, which I know in the back of my head is not going to help, but I really don’t know what else to do in the situation. While I don’t know of a solution besides maybe melatonin or something else meant to help you fall asleep, I know this is something that many people deal with and sleep quality isn’t something that people really focus on. I believe quality sleep is something people should value, but time and time again, I see more people living off of just a few hours of sleep a night and it’s been proven to damage productivity and motivation in people’s day-to-day lives.
These are just two of many of the issues I see in social media and it’s hard to comprise ways of changing and making things better for those struggling with the same things I do, but I will continue researching and learning more so I can try and find solutions to these problems I know so many people face across social media.
