The average teen spends seven to nine hours on their phone each day and three hours on social media. Most of us know it's a problem, and we know how to fix it, but for some reason, none of us have the guts to delete our social media accounts.

In one of my classes the other day, my classmates and I were asked to think of something that we would like to give up and try to live without for some period of time. The whole class agreed that we would pick our phones or social media. But then we went into a discussion about why we couldn't actually give up social media. If everyone else had social media and you didn't, you would feel like you were missing out; you wouldn't know about everything that's going on when it comes to Instagram or facebook or twitter. However, my class decided, that if everyone were to give it up and delete our social medias at once, our lives would be so much better.

The problem is that no one is willing to delete their social media unless they know they'll be able to get it back and they know plenty of other people are deleting it too so they aren't missing out.

This just proves how dependent we are on social media! Teens couldn't live without an app where people post pictures? They are so reliant on social media that few would even be willing to try deleting the apps. Studies have shown that when teens feel uncomfortable in a situation, they immediately go to their phone; it's as if it's a source of comfort. This way, instead of standing alone and awkward, the person looks like they have tons of friends, all communicating instantaneously on social media.

But what is wrong with standing alone for a few minutes? When did self-image begin to play such a huge role in the lives of teens? When social media came out, that's when. When celebrities show off perfect hair, skin, makeup and outfits that are achieved through professional designers, editors, and artists on social media, they imply that everyone should look that way; that the way they look is pretty; it's what you should look like. But this puts false hope on young girls, they feel like they constantly aren't good enough, constantly are trying to be like someone else, do what everyone else is doing. Social media is forcing teens to not want to be themselves, to not like themselves, they want to be someone else.

Not only is social media destroying confidence and self-love, but it forces the teens who use it to always strive to be as good as someone else. They'll see how many followers another girl has, and realize it's double her own followers, and then feel like she's not good enough and has to get more followers. Or, in surveys teens have said that they are constantly competing with their friends to get more likes on pictures, more views, more comments.

But lastly, social media ties back to the issue of technology taking over our lives. Technology has its pros and cons, the pros including anything from developing new medicine and being able to make new scientific discoveries to communicating with people across the world. However the cons, like endless amounts of time staring at screens and less time outside playing or being athletic, are tied directly to social media. Social media is simply sitting alone on a phone. There's no intelligence needed, it's not for an educational purpose, the main goal of social media is to allow people to communicate and expand on friendships.

But it is becoming too much; it's allowing teens to sit in their rooms all day and do nothing but scroll through their phones. Nine hours a day. Nine hours! That's more than the average person gets of sleep! So imagine this. When you go to bed, a teen is on his or her phone, seven or eight hours later when you wake up, he or she is still on his or her phone and hasn't left since you went to bed. That teenager has just been scrolling through social media and watching pointless videos, and will probably still be there scrolling and watching by the time you get to work or school.

The craze of social media and all the unhealthy things it's doing to us needs to stop. We need to figure out a way to control it or we need to just get rid of it all together. So I challenge you to either limit your social media time to one hour a day, or get with all your friends and decide to delete your social media. You don't have to delete your accounts, just delete the apps themselves. If you decide to get rid of your social media, use the hashtag #deletemysocialmedia and share the idea with everyone you know! Let's spread the word and make this right!