Admit it, the first thing we all do in the morning when we get up is check the notifications we've received throughout the night while we were sleeping. We grab our phones, scroll down and see who favorited our most recent tweet, how many likes we got on the Instagram picture we posted before we went to sleep, and even whose birthday it is today (complements of Facebook). For most millennials, there are few seconds throughout the day where we are not thinking about, or scrolling through social media.
Social media has become a necessity, on the same level as food and water for some of us. But whose fault is this? We can't be entirely to blame because we've been raised this way; we don't know anything else.
If you're like me, you may be constantly nagged to "put your phone down" and "engage in a real conversation," but it turns out, we don't really know how. Since we've been so reliant on texting and virtual forms of communication, it's hard to actually sit down and talk to someone without glancing at our phones at least a few times during the conversation. Some even experience anxiety when asked to hold a phone conversation or talk on the phone to someone. Why is this? It is because we've never been taught how to do these things. We've relied heavily on texting and never developed the communication skills our older relatives and parents expect us to have.
The bottom line is: stop blaming us for how we interact, it's not wrong, it's just different.
Sure, social media is somewhat of a burden sometimes. We can get upset if our pictures don't get as many "likes" as we've anticipated, or if we see our friend is active on Facebook, but not answering our texts. It can cause us to overthink and create a problem that most likely isn't even there. But on the other hand, we rely so heavily on social media for entertainment and even news that there's no way we can't be glued to our phones 24/7.
It may not be the most conventional way of doing things, but times have changed and social media is taking over faster than we may be ready for. Good thing we millennials have some practice with it already.
