Society has a newfound addiction that has overtaken our minds. In some ways, the addiction is a healthy one but with every addiction comes major drawbacks. When I say unhealthy addiction, I am talking about social media.
Growing up, I can remember that all I wanted to do when I got home from school was first – eat a snack, of course, but then hit the computer to update my MySpace song and log on AIM to talk to my friends. As time progressed, social media advanced. MySpace and AIM faded out as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and finally, Snapchat came into creation. As these platforms advanced the more dependent we have become on them.
Don’t get me wrong; social media has huge benefits as well as its drawbacks. As we grow older we lose touch with our friends that we made in grade school or the kids we used to play with in our old neighborhood. If it were not for social media, I would have no clue what these folks are up to, let alone look like. Social media is also an excellent platform to get a message out to a wide audience and bring attention to a topic that is important. I, for one, use social media as my news outlet although I don’t know if that is the best decision.
But like I said, addictions also have major drawbacks. Some people have become obsessed with their appearance online and forgot about their image in real life. We have become consumed when posting a picture with how many likes we will obtain or how many re-tweets we accumulate. We forget to enjoy the little moments in life because we have to capture the perfect photo to post online. It even humors and scares me to see everyone Snapchat and drive. Do we really need to let everyone know we’re on the way to Wal-Mart and saw a dog on the way?
We also judge a person on how “cool” they are based on their social media account. Is a person really popular if they accumulated a lot of likes? Social media has given society a false reality of what life truly is. I don’t know of anyone who posts about their bad moments of their life because god forbid someone knows that you’re going through the struggles of life.
Don’t get me wrong, I am on social media every day. I have fallen into the trap of letting social media consume my life as well as many other people have. I appreciate social media from the angle of knowing what my peers are up too, but I also am disappointed on how dependent we have become on it. I would like to see what everyone would do if social media became obsolete for a week. Let's get back to focusing on each other instead of likes.
