Let’s face it: social media is addicting. Whether it be used as a distraction from reality or procrastinating your homework, hours fly by.
Social Media Steals Your Time
The never-ending cycle of social media leads to many wasted hours. These wasted hours that could have been spent on school, working out, or spending time with friends. When I asked my friends about how they spend their time, the majority noticed it was spent on social media. When then forced to reflect on how they spend their time, many of them had regrets about how they could’ve been partaking in more valuable activities. As your time is drained away on social media, you can develop anxiety as a result of waiting until the last minute to complete tasks and assignments. Anxiety greatly affects people and can be prevented more as you prioritize school over social media. Time is precious, you can never earn time back.
Social Media Steals Your Friendships
Honestly, my Snapchat friends list far exceeds the amount of people I actually share a friendship with. Social media tries to make friendship possible over an app that steals away physical interactions and genuine friendships. When we focus solely on social media friendships, we lose the friends in front of us. I have personally experienced losing friendships over social media. I once had a friend who became absorbed with being the most popular girl she could be on social media; that meant she needed to produce the best photos with the prettiest people and show that her life was superior to others. Social media can disconnect friendship, so it is very important to take time to disconnect from social media to be with friends IRL.
Social Media Steals Your Joy
The classic FOMO is something that we’ve all experienced at least once in our college lives. Our fear of missing out captures us as we scroll through a million social media posts of people having a great time. This fear leads to anxiety and depression as we feel that we aren’t “cool” enough to be hanging out with people or that studying for that exam caused us to stay inside. Anxiety and depression are serious problems that plague many college students. It’s okay to be honest when you are struggling and need help! Unfortunately, social media does no favors for anxiety and depression but potentially worsens them. With social media, we fall into a time waster that can lead to the anxiety of incomplete tasks. Social media can lead to depression as it lowers self-esteem. When we see beautiful girls and unattainable figures, we sometimes begin to judge our own appearance and demean ourselves. This lowers our self-esteem and causes us to fall into a cycle of being depressed over feeling too unattractive for social media. We must come to terms that social media does not define our worth nor our self-esteem.
Social media kills social health. It is a poison to a beautiful soul that deserves love and praise. The next time you turn your phone on, consider your social media choices for your social health.