There I sat in my abnormal psychology class. With five minutes left on the clock, the weekend was fast approaching. My professor decided to end the class with a brief discussion on behavioral addiction disorders, specifically discussing social media addiction. My ears perked up and I looked around the room to ironically discover a large percentage of the class on their phones. This was a talk we all needed to hear.
"The process of receiving 'likes' and comments on a photo actually targets the same reward pathway in the nervous system as drugs do," Dr. Richey exclaimed. "People can truly become addicted to social media on a neurochemical level."
Okay, so maybe I wasn't too surprised by this. After all, anyone who has experience with social media can typically agree that receiving 'likes', comments, friend requests, and gaining followers are all forms of flattery. We sit there wrapped up in our egos and think, people really do care about me.
After listening to Dr. Richey's insightful lecture, I thought, what the hay. I deleted all of my social media apps, and even disabled the web browser on my phone so that my only access to the online world would be through my laptop. (Although the deletion of the web browser was only successful for about three of the seven days — oops.)
So to answer the question you have all been waiting for... what happened?
Well, I got my life back.
It might sound like a very cliche answer, but for the first time in years, I was maximizing on my time. As soon as I had the urge to pick up my phone and scroll through a seemingly infinite amount of useless information, I realized I didn't have access to it. In order to satisfy my boredom, I had to take other measures. What were these measures you might ask? Well, homework, for starters.
I became a scheduling queen. Not only was I knocking out assignments days in advance, but I had more time to study, to workout, read, and research. Instead of learning about what Kim K's Starbucks order is, I was learning about topics that would help me in my academic and professional career.
My journey in deleting my social media apps has made some permanent changes in my life. I now only access Facebook through my laptop instead of my phone, and can proudly say I have no other social media accounts. If you find that you are spending an excessive amount of time engaging in the online world, try quitting your social media for a few days. It's the vacation we all deserve.
