Social Media and Relationship

Have you ever thought about how much time you’ve spent on social media? How many countless hours, minutes and seconds you’ve spent checking your story on Facebook or scrolling passed all of your friend’s pictures on Instagram? In our society today, we are addicted to our phones, computers, tablets and other technological devices. We spend a lot of much time on our devices checking social media pages and this can really have an impact not just on yourself, but the relationships you have.

When you go out to relax, you can be sure to see at least about 60 percent of the people sitting around you are on their phones or have them sitting close to them. How sad is it to see such a shocking number? I unfortunately, am guilty of spending too much time checking my social media accounts at inappropriate times, for example, on a date with my girlfriend. For some reason I am stuck to my phone and have to constantly check for updates no matter where I am. The sad thing is that I’ll check an app, close it, and then reopen it not even a second later—that’s how obsessed I am. Since there are a growing number of users on social media and most of them are young people, can social media affect relationships? ABSOLUTELY.

In the past few years, social media has become one of the most powerful tools of technology. With power comes great responsibility, but there aren’t always positives to power. Social media was originally created as a means of networking, but has become so much more. People across the world can connect through small screens with the use of the internet and social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter. Sure, that may sound great and all, but being able to connect to over a billion people through a screen can become addicting and overwhelming. The constant checking of social media can actually drive you insane.

It’s crazy to think that a form of technology could be as addicting, in a sense, as a some people are to drug. Spending countless hours refreshing your feed is draining and it literally sucks the life out of you. Hey, I’m not necessarily bashing social media, I think social media could be a great thing and I am a long-standing addict, but I think us younger generation need to learn how to put us phones down once in a while. Taking a break from social media is as refreshing as taking a cold shower on a hot day.

As humans, we sometimes are unaware of what we are doing, almost like a subconscious thing. I have been addicted to social media ever since my University days when I made my first Itsmy.com account. Now, after graduating I am still glued to my screen and scrolling through unimportant things. If social media is so powerful now, what does the future hold? It’s hard to say what’s going to happen in the future of social media, but I can tell you if it’s anything like what we have seen in the past four or five years, we should be worried. We younger generation are the future of this country and if we can’t put our phones down for one second to have a normal conversation, then who knows what’s going to happen to real-life human interaction.

If you feel like you are missing out on the world because you aren’t seeing the latest trends floating around Twitter, Instagram, facebook or the pictures from snapshat, I guarantee you are going to be okay and I promise you aren’t really missing much. Go put your focus and attention on things that actually matter in life, like your personal well-being or your friends, family and romantic relationships. Don’t let social media suck you into the tornado of fakeness; focus on where you are in the real world.