Why social media are destroying our sense of well-being?

 In today's topic I want to share with you some of conclusions which I've made while investigating what people of success say about abusing social media.

First of all, why should we bother with that? Actually, social media tend to help us with many aspects of our life. Nowadays we live quickly, with permanent pressure, increasing rush and great deal of duties. It creates a bad impression that every time we have less time, so we choose social media to contact with our friends and family. Chatting with them give us a feeling of control - in every single moment we have access to our smartphone, therefore we can easily have a video conversation or just text our close people. Here, we have to ask ourselves - is that a substitution of real, valuable contacts?

If you were born after 2000, you are more likely to be familiar with apps like Snapchat, Pinterest or Instagram. It is only an assumption, because if you came into the world earlier, it doesn't mean that you don't know, how to use these pages. By that I just want to say that new generations see the world from different viewpoint, which causes changes in society's structure. Today is most common to hear teenagers arranging Internet meetings than in reality, for example outside. Our parents and grandparents used to meet people at work, at local events, now, young people rather do that on Internet. In the old days it was more frequent to find love outside the home, today's the most popular places where people are looking for a partner are dating websites. 
     

The main purpose in life is to spent time with the others and to establish relationships. We can do that, if we are in different kind of situations and we have the opportunity to share these moment with another people. For instance, if I go to work first time in my life and there I make friends, it is very possible that I will remember it forever. Instead, if I don't talk to anyone in that place and I prefer to spent my break on chatting, probably I won't have any interesting memories about that special day because I hadn't experienced any new feelings related to socializing. 

Now, I am going to share with you four interesting ideas that shows that social media can harm our mental health and, what's more, even physical well-being. I base this content on one of my favorite books "How to break up with your phone" written by Catherine Price, which in fact I've read in Polish but I will translate some thoughts into English. *

VERY ADDICTIVE SCROLLING

On the very beginning of this handbook the author admits that having a smartphone, in intention of its creators, has a purpose of making people addicted of using it. Steve Jobs himself has forbidden his children from overusing cell phones. He confess that it is primordial to him that they don't use it too much. Here comes a question - why? 

When you check out whether there are new posts on Instagram or you go to New York Times' website in order to see if something has turned up the content is not important. It is all about seeing something new. We get addicted to this feeling.

Aziz Ansar

The smartphone is such a puzzling kind of device which helps us to have access to all social media we are interested in, but on the other hand they very often waste our time and attention. Who would devote one's priceless time in order to just keep scrolling and still find out anything useful? The specialists name this phenomenon "modern zombie" what refers to people that scroll never-ending screen without reflection.

FOMO - Fear of missing out

As the book claims, we are addicted to news. By that we have to understand that FOMO concerns many people and, indeed, it is ubiquitous. Vast majority of the society is not aware that they keep checking their phones because they fear that there is something missing and they can take risk of not staying up-to-date. That's why some feel a need of knowning about everying that's shared. Even if this news is meaningless. Unfortunately, sometimes new posts on Instagram are more important that paying attention to our surroundings. Probably, Internet will last forever but will our relatives too? 

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE THAT CAN'T DEVELOPE HOW IS SUPPOSED TO

Haven't you heard that new generations has been already affected by abusing social media apps on their phones? And, what's more, that any contact with blue screens is not recommended by psychologists till the baby is 2 or even 3 years old? Why this topic is so relevant? Specialists have proved that free use of smartphones, tablets and any other digital devices under 3 year old blocks proper development of frontal lobe. This part of brain is responsible of  concentration, memory,thinking, planning, will to act, anticipation of consequences, tact and recognizing emotions, among other things. It is known that at the beginning of life some parts or brains develope most efficiently and, over time while brain looses some of its plasticity, a man is losing the ability of learning how exploit the potential of brain's functions. We should remember that while our children are young, they experience their best time of developing their memory, concentration, detecting their own and those of others emotions. 

That's why many teenagers feel anxiety, fear, lack of energy and they don't want to spend time with family and friends in real life.  Instead, they keep themselves closed off and they refuse to leave the room. It is very dangerous because it delay accomplishing of social maturity or even makes it impossible to reach. 
Besides, leaving children with a tablet in order to "avoid focusing our attention on them", is not right solution because it doesn't help them to grow, quite the opposite, it affects the ability of independent thinging. 

HARMFULNESS OF COMPARING 

It wouldn't be a good article, if I haven't mentioned what adults' major problem is. Most of them have a belief that the natural order of things is what actually everybody is supposed to achieve. The point is that they do what they see the others do. For instance, finding a perfect partner, travel to exotic countries, having children in a specific age or just eat particular groceries or wearing the newest clothes. Why social media do us harm in this case? If we go to Facebook or Instagram the first what we see is personal life of countless number of people. Instinctively we wonder what we actually have achieved and we still feel unfulfilled. Then why looking at other people's action and keep thinking what we must do? 

In my modest opinion the best we can do is to focus on real action, find out about our real needs and dreams and to live the moment. Just like we do, here, at home, at a couch with a book in hand, in the park with beloved dog, at the table with family enjoying the meal...

Internet will last forever but will our relatives too? 

* I also read and listened about this topic on Internet, so some ideas are from web.