Can you imagine your life without social media? Without immediate access to your friends, family or to the world? What would life be without internet or wifi?
I’ve been looking for some of my high school friends in facebook, and some of them don’t have account or some of them are not active. Really??? There are people still not connected on social media?
I would salute to someone that doesn’t have an account on any social network. They’re free of the negative effect of social media. They’re not infected with what I called “social disease.”
I remember before joining Facebook, there is always an invite on my email. But I don’t pay attention to it. It was Friendster before that I had, before facebook.
But now I think social media invaded the whole world. Before it was only email that we connect socially. Now there’s tons of social platform to choose.
Social Media is good, i use it always. Its a powerful tool and a positive force that we can use. But there are some negative side of social media, and for sure everyone of us are affected.
- It causes depression and anxiety. Some people have poor mental health because of using too much social media. Spending all hours on social networking affects our mood and physical and social being. On all of the things and information we see on social networks, our lives and way of thinking are affected. Other peoples post sometimes cause us to compare our lives with others.
- Cyber bullying. Lets face it every time we see something on Facebook or other social media, we react. We like, comment, share and put hearts and emojis to show our reaction. And because we don’t see the person face we face, we tend to react without realizing the effect on the other person. The effects on some people drives them to commit suicide. Cyber bullying is real not only on kids or youth but even in adults.
- Addiction. Who among you wakes up in the morning and check your status on Facebook and it the last thing you do at night too? I admit I’ve done that too and sometimes still do it. This social media is taking over our lives. Some people might not accept that they are addicted to it. But when was the last time you did not check your phone for an hour or two. We are always tempted to check our phone even it doesn’t ring. We wanted to see how many people like our post or did people commented on our post. It is highly addictive and we end up having obsessive checking behavior.
- Social Isolation. Social network was created to connect and bring people together. But it became a source of isolation. Some people tend to feel temporarily fulfilled with online interaction, and to not make real person, face to face socialization. That really in the end left them isolated.
- Sleep Deprivation. Have you gone to your phone just to check one thing and end up browsing for hours. Your hands keep on scrolling and scrolling that time had pass by and you forgot to sleep. Excessive use of social media, and exposure to blue light late at night affects our sleep. Lack of sleep affects our overall being not just physically, but mentally and emotionally as well. Loss of productivity and distraction are some of the result. And other health issues arises like obesity and heart disease , if we don’t have enough sleep.
Personally I feel that social media had conquer us and we’ve been defeated by technology. It is disrupting our lives.
Its a positive tool that is good for us to use but with caution. There are negative effects on our lives that sometimes we mostly disregard.
SOCIAL MEDIA IS HEALTHY IF WE USE IT IN MODERATION.
