Social Media Addiction & How to Overcome It

Vocabulary Review 

Overwhelmed - adjective: Feeling like you have too much to do or too many emotions to handle. 

Example: After working all day and then cooking dinner, she felt overwhelmed and needed a break.

Uninstall - verb: To remove an application from your phone. 

Example: My phone was too full, so I had to uninstall some games.

Hormone - noun: A chemical in your body that controls how you feel. 

Example: Dopamine is a hormone that makes us feel happy.

Euphoria - noun: A feeling of intense happiness and excitement. 

Example: Winning the championship filled the team with euphoria.

Evil geniuses - noun phrase: Very intelligent people who use their intelligence for bad or harmful purposes. 

Example: In many movies, the villain (the main bad guy) is an evil genius who plans to take over the world.

Use something against someone - phrase: To use information or a tool in a way that harms or controls another person. 

Example: If you tell a bad person your secrets, they will use them against you to control you.

Scrolling - verb: Moving up or down on a computer or cell phone screen. 

Example: She spent an hour scrolling through her social media feed before bed.

Mindless - adjective: Something that is done without thinking or paying attention; without purpose; without using the mind. 

Example: Sometimes, I do mindless tasks like washing dishes when I need to relax.

E-shopping - noun: The activity of buying things online. 

Example: During the pandemic, many people started doing more e-shopping instead of going to stores.

Not all that bad - phrase: Not very bad.

 Example: The movie wasn't all that bad; I actually enjoyed some parts.

Self-esteem - noun: How much you value and respect yourself. 

Example: Doing well in school helped improve her self-esteem.

I don’t think anyone will reach their deathbed and be overwhelmed by the regret of not spending more time on social media. In fact, a recent study observed that 40 percent of people regret all of the time they have spent on social media, and another study found that most people (64% of Americans) believe that social media has a mostly negative impact on their lives.

Well, if this is the case, then why don’t we just uninstall these apps from our phones? What makes social media so hard to quit even though, for many people, it is something we regret?

Dopamine

If you don’t know what dopamine is, many people call it the "happy hormone" that is released in our brain when we do certain activities. When we run, hike, finish reading a book, pass an exam, or do something productive, we usually get a really great feeling, some call it satisfaction, some call it bliss or euphoria, but really it's just dopamine pumping through our brains. It's our body's way of teaching us that an activity should be repeated.

However, this part of our brain that releases these special "happy hormones"  can be easily tricked. The evil geniuses who created social media have used this function of our brain against us to keep us addicted to scrolling and turn us into mindless, advertisement-watching, late-night e-shopping zombies that make them money.

If you don’t think being addicted to social media is all that bad, then what if I told you that you will probably spend around 19 years of your life on social media. Several studies have estimated, based on social media statistics, that people will spend roughly 18-20 years of their lives on social media. So what can we do to beat this dopamine addiction?

Beating Social media addiction

If you're on board with the idea of quitting, or at least limiting your social media use so that you don’t waste 19 years of your life on social media, then you may want to consider some of the proven strategies that psychologists recommend to beat social media addiction.

Awareness:

Step one is to make yourself aware of your current behavior. The easiest way to do this is to go into the settings of your cell phone and check your app usage, and if your phone doesn’t have this feature, you can download an app to track the time you spend on your phone. Once you identify how many hours you spend per day and per week, write it down somewhere and make it your goal to lower that number every week.

Downsize:

Step two is to downsize. Downsizing means to reduce the number of social media apps that you use. For example, if you have 15 different social media accounts, consider limiting yourself to only 5. It might seem hard to uninstall 10 social media apps, but think about how much time you will have in your day to do other things, like go for a walk, or read that book that you keep wishing you had time to read.

Detoxing:

Step three is to do a social media detox. A social media detox involves temporarily not using any social media. I know it sounds boring or maybe even impossible, but start small, try going for a short walk or cleaning up the house for an hour without using social media.

Offline times:

Step four is to set strict offline times for yourself. An offline time is when you agree to not use social media during certain hours of the day. A great way to do this is to say to yourself that after 9pm you won’t use social media until after you eat breakfast or have your morning coffee.

The benefits of not using social media

Contrary to what you might believe, it IS possible to live without social media. And not only is it possible, it's better! University of California Davis  (UCDavis) says that social media is the leading cause of mental health issues today. Additionally, people who regularly do digital detoxes say that they are happier with their career, have better relationships, have more and better sleep, more self-esteem, and the list goes on.

I know it might seem hard to imagine your life without social media, but remember… 19 years. Do you want to spend 19 years of your life scrolling, watching others live the life you want to live? You can do a lot in 19 years, and I hope social media scrolling is not it.

Questions:

Do you use social media?

How much time do you think you spend online per day?

Do you ever lose sleep because you can't stop using your phone?

Have you ever learned something on social media?

Is social media all that bad, or can it be a good way to relax?

What are some hobbies that you would like to try but don't have time for?

The article says that you might spend 19 years of your life on social media, what are three other things you could do with an extra 19 years?

What are some activities that you enjoy doing which make you feel really happy?

Do you think social media makes us more connected with others, or the opposite?

Should children be allowed to use social media, what could the pros and cons be?