. How many times a day do you check social media on your phone? How many hours do you think you spend on social media a day? This article will share what a healthy and an unhealthy amount of social media is, the negative and positives of its consumption, and some opinions from our students and teachers.
Social media impacts everyone whether you are an adult or a teenager, regardless of gender. A study was done and according to statistica.com, a teenager spends an average of 4.8 hours on social media daily. Girls tend to spend more time on social media than boys do, spending 0.9 more hours online with a total of 5.3 hours to 4.4. YouTube and TikTok are the leading social media platforms and are considered some of the most popular apps that teenagers use. These apps expose younger people to cyberbullying and inappropriate content which can lead to an increase in depression and anxiety across the country.
Brownhealth.org also says that it can cause a large number of psychological issues like social anxiety and inappropriate content exposure in children. Social media apps like TikTok are also designed to be addicting. As you endlessly scroll through hundreds of videos you get a boost of dopamine and other hormones that cause an increase of happiness in your brain. When you are exposed to these hormones you want to continuously use these apps because they make you feel happier.
Some experts wonder if there is a healthy amount of social media. Verywellhealth.com claims that social media is okay if monitored for under two hours per day. Keeping this strict regime can make sure you are still productive and get the appropriate amount of sleep but you don’t left out if there is important information. A good way to make sure you aren’t distracted is by disabling your notifications and setting screen times for apps but if you want to rid your mind of distractions then you can simply delete the app.
One of our language arts and media literacy teachers, Ms. Ashbeck, said she also gets distracted by social media often. “At home, I get really lazy and scroll through social media when I should be doing my laundry or washing my dishes.” This proves that even adults can be sucked into the stronghold that social media has on our society today. Adults between the ages of 25-34 can spend around 2 hours and 40 minutes on social media per day. Evidence suggests that slowly as you get older social media screen time goes down, but will that change as upcoming generations take their place?
One of our sophomores here at Lodi, Delaney Collyard, admits that maybe a change of pace could benefit her. “Honesty I do think it would be beneficial for me to get rid of like Instagram… But sometimes I also like seeing what my favorite celebrities or artists are doing.” She also acknowledges that she wouldn’t delete Snapchat because it would strip away her ability to talk to her friends outside of school.
In the end, we talked about some of the positives and negatives of social media, how much you should be getting, and what one of our students and teachers feels about social media. Now it is up to you to decide if you want to change your online presence, screen time, and the way you view our world.
