Social Media Limit

Should There Be a Social Media Time Limit?

When it comes to social media, a great deal of kids in our society are using it today for extended periods of time. From where we were to know in regards to communication skills, over the years it has gone down dramatically because many people are so invested In their electronics, especially social media that they are missing the times where they would learn how to develop social skills. Many people believe that social cues have taken a large downfall because teens and young adults aren’t very sure how to notice and respond to them. Its just because you can’t develop social and interpersonal skills if you are overly invested in your electronics and spend a great portion of your time in the social/virtual world. To make things worse when talking about feelings social media has a way of ruining them. For example, positive messages are read as more neutral than they are intended to be because over a virtual network you don’t get all the emotions and body language all you get is the words. It’s just a natural thing to do because you can’t assume what is going on with the other person as they typed that message. But then that leads to neutral messages are read as more negative as they are intended to be and messages with a negative connotation are taken way out of line and con often destroy a friendship because you lose that natural interaction to work it out. Also with extended periods of time on a cell phone or social media site, many teens who are already sleep-deprived are becoming more sleep-deprived because many of them are up until the wee hours of the night texting or going off on social media. It is known that a great majority of teens today are up on their phones to the last minute before going to sleep. Being on your phone late at night before you sleep can cause you to stay awake longer because you’re still trying to stay up to the minute getting the latest news as well as staring your eyes because you’re in a dark room with a bright light shining into your eyes. Lastly, spending too much time and being too focused on social media causes people to lose the experience of living in the moment. When you spend a great deal of time on social media you begin to live for it. For example, documenting everything you do and taking pictures solely to post on a SNS. It’s sad but it happens so much today that it’s almost normal.