Factors That Influence Social Media Use

My main problem that I possess when it comes to my phone dependency is how to fill my free time with efficient activities like reading, homework, or other things. When I went through school without using social media, I was much more attentive in class and I did not really miss the connection I had with my phone. I also discovered that I do not deal with the “fear of missing out” because in actuality I did not miss out on a single thing. Identifying this fact enabled me to understand that thinking I need my phone because something important could potentially arise is a complete lie that I feed to myself to give a “valid” excuse that I need to be connected to my phone at all times of the day. This challenge revealed to me how detrimental social media could become if I keep using it extensively. I have read several articles about how media are physically altering our brain in a bad way and leading to a lack of essential skills in people, mainly in the millennial generation. This made me question if new media has contributed to the rise of social anxiety in individuals or aided the downfall of literacy in America today. This project has truly opened my eyes with my personal media use and the potential risks that can spawn from abusing

“How young is too young for cellphones in school?” by Donna St. George says there was “near-silence at lunch when [a] middle school allowed phones for a week.” These middle-schoolers were so absorbed in their phones they did not have a normal conversation. If teens are so obsessed with their social media life that they cannot function normally when given a phone, they will not make conversation and will have weaker relationships. Teens are literally withdrawing themselves from normal social life to become “social” online. As stated in “Is Technology Killing our Friendships” by Lauren Tarshis, “1 in 4 teens are online almost constantly.” This “1 in 4” could be doing things in real life, rather than staying online nearly endlessly. Therefore, youth is more into their social media than actual

People rely on technology to survive in today’s society. People feel like they have to always be on their phones to be accepted, but they are missing life as it passes right in front of them. For example, I tend to get annoyed when I try to have conversations with my little sister and she sits on her phone not talking or paying attention. I have to take her phone to get her to look me in the eye and talk about things. People in today’s society lack socializing skills and that is all thanks to technology.

Nowadays, social media has a big influence in our society. Who is didn’t use social media? Almost everyone use Social Media. Indonesia ranked 6th as the most Social Media users. After China, US, India, Brazil, and Japan. Our teenagers are so active in social media. Maybe they could be online in social media almost 24-hours per-day. But there’s a good and bad effects of social media. So, there’s some of bad and good effects of social media that we will discuss here.

Suicide rates have increased in teens over the past few years. Along with suicide rates increasing, mental health of teens in general has been a widely discussed topic. A huge contributor to these issues is social media. Over the past couple of years, teens have been diagnosed with mental health disorders such as anxiety and depression at a much higher rate. These issues are prevalent for teens all over the world. The increase in diagnosis of disorders is largely due to the rise in popularity of many social media platforms.

We know that texting does not necessarily take up that much time in one day, so we assume that a lot of that time is spent on social media and the internet, when you could easily be doing something more productive with your day. When people need to get things done is usually when they tend to go on social media the most because it is how they choose to procrastinate. With the younger generation, social media is definitely something for students to do instead of doing their school assignments. It isn't just something that people do as a distraction though, social media has become a habit for people. They go on it at the dinner table or when hanging out with friends and many other occasions where they should be off of it and enjoying the moment. Or they go on it while they are driving, which is obviously not the responsible time for it. But it is growing so rapidly and people are becoming addicted. People lose the fascination they had of the world around them when they were little and spend their passing time on their electronic devices. “If we practice hard enough, we can become thoroughly interested in even the simplest things of daily life, the way a child would. The smallest things would become so meaningful...” (258, Dickerson). Sitting on your phone in the car and scrolling down your twitter feed could make you miss something as simple as a

When I was 16 years old, I spent a summer at a Christian camp as a server. Although I was excited at first, I was nervous because while at the camp, you were not allowed to have your phone. The first couple days were hard, I struggled with the idea that I couldn’t talk to my friends all the time, but by the time the camp was over, I lost my desire to use my phone. Even after I left the camp, I began to use my phone less and less. I was able to put my phone down for hours at a time without having the desire or need to check on it. It wasn’t until college that I started to be on my phone all the time again. The fact that I was once again away from my friends and family created a constant desire to be on my phone to keep tabs on them. When I joined a sorority freshman year, all of our announcements and information about events were posted on facebook which made me redownload facebook and become addicted like I was in middle school. I am constantly checking all forms of social media several times a day because in my mind I am “in the know” and have a firm grasp of what is going on with my life. On Tuesday, November 14th I decided to download the app and have it track my media use for a few days before I did the social media fast. I found that I was on my phone for about 4 hours a day and had about 115 pickups. I wish I could say I was shocked, but because I am constantly checking facebook for sorority updates and talking to my friends via text and snapchat, I am not surprised

“…are symptoms of how technology captures our attention and disrupts our connections” (Goleman 5). The more people are on their phones, the smaller the opportunity is to look someone in the eyes and have a human moment—to talk, to share, to comfort. Living in Seattle, I’ve used public transportation plenty of times and in all those times, I’ve noticed no one is looking at one another or outside—everyone is glued to their own phones. Go into a crowded room full of people—regardless of age—and the majority will be on their phones instead of communicating with one another. “You know it’s not right to check your phone when you’re with someone, but it’s addictive” (Goleman 8). While some may see nothing wrong in constantly checking your phone, the majority recognize it is an issue, but decide to overlook it. The ability people have in quickly overlooking a major issue, despite age or gender, proves the level of addiction towards our technological

Cell phones are used every single day by millions of people across the world. But do we use them more than we should? Many people think that our generation is addicted to technology and cell phones, and I agree with them; everyone is addicted. Kelly Wallace, wrote a Times article “Half of Teens Think They’re Addicted to Their Smartphones” and said that “Most adults, teens, and children use their phones for sometimes 24 hours a day”. Thousands of teens and children fail in school or lose sleep daily because they are always on their phones nonstop. I think that I'm not as addicted to using my cell phone as some of the people that I have met, although I usually use it every day to text family and friends rather than using it for social media

Cell phone use and texting reduces the quality of interacting socially and can be dangerous for young adults too if the only way they interact is through social media and there phone, even if you do not have your phone out with you it can still reduce your social interaction. Hearing notifications from your phone like rings, and alerts can even make it difficult to concentrate. Your cell phone hurts your productivity, because people want to be reachable in case there is a emergency, but when you keep getting notifications it cuts off our productivity.

Social media has drastically changed how people communicate. How many people remember how it feels to hear the phone ring in the house or receive a letter in the mail? Today’s youth know nothing other than text messages, tweets, and Facebook. Social media and the social entertaining websites of today have affected social behavior in many ways. While there are many advantages to this technological advancement, these advancements can also result in many changes in social behaviors. Some of the few prominent changes in social behavior, due to social media, are lack of communication skills, changes in self-esteem and cyber

Social media is now part of our daily lives. We seem to have become attached to our devices and have made it part of our daily routine to use them. In my life, social media didn’t really affect me. I used to live in a wifi-free home, meaning that I didn’t have access to the internet. Both my mother and my father believe that internet is useless and kills your brain cells. Later they saw that I started to get lots of internet-required homework so they decided to install a wifi box at home. To be honest, I get very distracted now that I have internet at home. I don’t get things done as fast as I used to and I don’t use any of my time efficiently. Sometimes, after being on social media and watching cat videos for too long, I feel like I have no motivation to do anything. Now, I am more attached to my phone, but that will change.

A test conducted in the UK of 5000 people, showed that there was a significant difference in which people who had smartphones spent a greater amount of time solitary and sedentary when being compared to the minority of those who did not possess one. A common argument against this is that phones help you stay social and keep in touch with other people as you are always able to interact wherever you are in the world. Various individuals know that they should not use phones for extended periods of time can harm them so they make routines or know how long they should use it

Technology separates people because it nurtures addictions. For example, in her CNN article, Sandee LaMotte says that the overuse of cell phones has made people addicted to them, and as a result, has negatively affected people’s relationships with friends and family. Specifically, she says that people can get ‘nomophobia’ characterized by anxiety when they don’t have their phone on them. This can cause depression, which in turn distracts people, and affects relationships, because no one wants to have face-to-face conversations. LaMotte quotes Caglar Yildirim, who created a scale to test addiction ‘ “[Overuse of phones] might negatively affect your social life and relationships with friends and family," [...] those who score high on the test tend to avoid face-to-face interactions, have high levels of social anxiety and maybe even depression” ’ LaMotte believes that addiction to phones can reduce physical time with other people, to an extent at which it can harm relationships, and slowly tear people apart. In another example, in her 2011 social media article, Deborah Mackey that addiction to phones and social media can limit the amount of time people spend with each other. Mackey states that a large percent of people use their phones while with friends or family, and many even use their phones at meal times.

It is an obvious observation that most people always have their phone with them including in their place of work. “Employees estimate that they spend about 4 hours a day (half a work day) managing multiple inboxes.” (Ott). The main issue with this is that there are so many interruptions through out the work day. If you are working on something and are continuously getting side tracked on social media or answering emails, you will take longer than you should on your main task at hand, and you are leaving a lot of open possibilities for mistakes. As Ott states “Peers and Power are triggers that can cause addictive behaviors that we see on social media platforms.”.