Felicia Ahlestaal

10/10/21

The world wide problem

Scrolling and checking social media have in the last decade become a popular activity. About three billion
people have a social media account on such social media websites as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook,
Youtube, LinkedIN, Snapchat and Pinterest. Social media helps us stay in contact with friends and family
where you can update your status and count the number of “Likes”. The average person spends about 145
minutes a day on social media and people aged 16-24 spend around 3 hours every day on social media
( Dean, 2021). For many people the use of social media is not a problem but there is a percentage that is
increasing that are becoming addicted to social media. Today psychologists have evaluated that 5 to 10%
of Americans have the criteria for social media addiction (Hillard, 2021). People are being overly
concerned about social media, and are dedicating so much effort and time on media that it damages other
important areas in life. We see social media as a reward therefore it releases dopamine straight into the
body system everytime we use it (Hillard, 2021).This is creating an uncontrollable urge to log in to or use
it where it is becoming a problem for our society where it affects people with severe consequences.

Social media addiction, like any other substances or disorders, has a mood modification where the use of
social media can lead to change in emotional states and affect your mental health. You can feel depressed,
feeling of dissatisfaction and a loss of anticipation. These feelings negatively affect your mood and can
worsen symptoms of anxiety, stress and depression. When these symptoms start to occur it creates a
downward spiral where you use social media even more to get the reward and that is the only thing that is
important in your life. These serious health problems will make your productivity fall where it can affect
daily life. For example, the productivity in school or work decreases ( Hillard, 2021).

You are missing out on real life when you have social media addiction. When people use social media
people aren’t socializing correctly and are not interacting with people in real life which makes them hide
behind a screen, isolating themselves from the real world. The “friends'' you have on social media may
even not be your actual friends and be strangers. According to the Norwegian ENT specialist Professor
Jablonski “Social contact helps us to cope with stress and major life changes lika a divorce, redundancy
and moving house and knowing that we are valued by others is an important psychological factor in
helping us to forget the negative aspects of our lives and thinking more positively about our environment
“. Also if you don’t socialize in real life it can increase your risk of developing repeat heart attacks,
autominne disorders, high blood pressure, cancer and slowed wound healing ( Diggory, 2018).
Furthermore, social interaction is important for us humans to understand how the real world works and
how we as people can handle things.

Social media addiction is also contributing that people care more about the shallowness where
comparison is a major problem. Social media allows users control over how they want to present
themselves to others. The users can edit their pictures to have a different appearance only to seek
validation from others by likes and shares. People can edit themselves thinner, shorter, clearer skin and
much more, which results in a frustration in the person that escalates into comparison and trying to
achieve that “ ideal appearance” with extreme methods. A study made in 2019, found that when female
users looked at platforms for around one and a half hours per day it was always related to an increased
desire to be “Thin, a heightened awareness of how they think other people judge them and motivation to
exercise for the purpose of losing weight” (John and Graff, 2021). The continued desperation and stress
of comparing yourself affects people on a daily basis where it can evolve into health disorders such as
anorexia and depression (John and Graff, 2021).

In conclusion, social media addiction is benefitting with a lot of problems for people. The reward our
mind is seeking from social media is creating problems such as mood modification, isolation from the real
world and contributing to comparison with others. This results in negative consequences for our mental
and physical health such as depression, eating disorders and anxiety. To avoid this it’s important to seek
the solutions of social media addiction to avoid the problem that surrounds our whole world.

Sources:
https://www.addictioncenter.com/drugs/social-media-addiction/: Jenna Hillard, October 8 2021

https://backlinko.com/social-media-users : Brian Dean, October 10 2021

https://www.explore-life.com/en/articles/the-importance-of-human-interaction-and-relationships :
Katherine Diggory, December 2018

https://theconversation.com/too-much-social-media-can-be-harmful-but-its-not-addictive-like-drugs-
157082 : Bev John and Martin Graff, March 23 2021