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Addiction, Bullies, Comparison, and Depression – The ABC(D)’s of Social Media

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Human Wrongs Watch By Hayley Lamb*

27 November 2018 (Wall Street International)* Admit it: you love getting the likes. The comments. The notifications. We all do. But what are these social media apps doing to us, our families, and the next generation? While there are benefits to social media, such as staying in touch with long-distance friends and family, the negative consequences of social media are more than worth our consideration. Have you ever seen a group of teenagers hanging out together, all on their phones? What about a group of college students taking the same staged laughing selfie a million times over? 

The ABC(D)’s of Social Media | Photo from Wall Street International

Parents scrolling through Instagram instead of interacting with their kids at the park, or giving their kids a phone in order to calm a temper tantrum? Chances are, you’ve seen situations like these almost daily and we’ve all been an active participant in similar circumstances, whether or not we’d like to admit it.

According to a study by Common Sense Media, teenagers spend nine hours each day on their phones – and that does not include time for homework, school, etc. The same study reported that children ages 8-12 spend about six hours on their phones daily.

A study by Mediakix concluded that the average person spends more than five years of their life on social media. So what are we are willingly dedicating five years of our lives to?

Collin Kartchner, founder of the #SaveTheKids campaign, claims that social media is one of today’s greatest public health crises. He shares hundreds of stories from kids admitting social media was the cause of their anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, eating disorders, and other forms of self-harm.

He points out that this problem is not just in kids – adults share the same addictive behaviors towards social media and often prioritize it, sometimes subconsciously, over relationships. He accurately compares today’s social media to cigarettes when they were first becoming popular- what was once thought to be beneficial, accepted, and even strongly endorsed in society has become a drug that no one can put down.

Unrealistic Expectations

As we scroll through Instagram and check Snapchat stories, it is easy to forget the basic truths that every social media user should know: behind every popular picture is dozens of different poses, at least a few fake smiles, and extensive editing using filters and photoshop apps. But how often do we look at these pictures and remind ourselves of those truths?

Most of the time, we look at these pictures and assume that it is real life- it was a photo taken at random rather than a planned, posed, thoroughly-edited distorted reality. Decades ago, it was easy to look at a model in a magazine and say, “that’s not real, that’s just an airbrushed model, no one really looks like that,” creating space between yourself and the world’s expectations.

However, with social media, you see your friends, neighbors, and colleagues, and it feels natural to compare yourself to them because you lead similar lives. Through seeing others’ lives on social media, we often create unrealistic expectations for ourselves and for those around us. We see women who are incredibly toned after just having a baby and think, why can’t I look like that? We see husbands who bring their wives flowers every week and wonder why doesn’t my husband do that, does he not love me enough?

We inherently think there is something wrong with us and those around us when those unrealistic expectations are not met. By constantly feeding our brains these unrealistic expectations, we set ourselves up for failure, because although we think we see the whole picture in each post, behind each photo is an entire world that we know nothing about.

Hayley Lamb
Hayley grew up blocks away from the ocean in Virginia and claims that saltwater runs through her veins.
She currently works as a consultant in southern California and loves traveling, music, photography, writing, and spending time with her husband, family, and friends.
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Source: https://human-wrongs-watch.net/2018/12/02/addiction-bullies-comparison-and-depression-the-abcds-of-social-media/


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