Photo by Szabo Viktor from Unsplash
By Kate B., Grade 9
If people were asked what they thought most people were addicted to, no doubt they would answer “most people are addicted to drugs, alcohol, smoking, etc.,” when in fact this is not the case at all. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, there are around 35 million people addicted to drugs in America. Now, this may seem like a lot, but there are six times as many people addicted to social media.
Social Media. What is social media? Oxford Languages defines social media as “websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking.” By this definition, there are countless apps that are considered social media. This includes obvious ones such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and Pinterest but also WhatsApp, Tinder, even Spotify. All these applications are social media platforms.
Now, social media has not been around forever. Many people from the current generation find it shocking that their parents are older than the first iPhone, the first computer, WIFI, and Google, because for them it feels like these networks have been around for forever or at least for all their lifetime. The kids and teenagers of the current generation are living vastly different lives than the generations before them. They are growing up around all the technology of the current century. Most students use technology multiple hours of the day for schoolwork and then come home and do more work or spend their free time on technology. With all this time being spent on technology, it’s not surprising that Cross River Therapy is reporting that 70% of American teens and young adults are addicted to social media. When a group of 20 students were asked “How many of them owned a phone,” every one of them but one raised their hand. But even this student is still spending hours on technology, even if it’s to do schoolwork.
There is a part of social media that is not mentioned or even noticed, and that’s the negative effects that social media is having. Specifically, the negative effects this is having on teenagers that are the main users of these platforms. Social media opens the possibility to connect with billions of people, which was previously not possible, but it also means that many teens will compare their lives with what they see on social media, which can lead to many mental health problems. Teenagers need to understand that everyone only puts the best aspects of their lives on social media and very little of it is reality. Technology is so advanced in the current times that anything can be photoshopped and still be made to look real and natural.
Ultimately, technology is going nowhere and will only keep advancing and improving. This means that people are going to have to learn and adapt to both the positives and the negatives that it brings, but the creators of social media also need to see what effect it is having on its users and be held responsible for the problem they are creating.