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Social Media - The Cat That Could Soon Turn Black

Sometimes I wonder what modern life would be like without social media along with all the benefits and cons that it brings. You wouldn't, for better or for worse, be able to pinpoint people's exact locations at any given time (yes, I'm looking at you Snapchat), be able to share an article, photo or some thoughts with hundreds or thousands of people in seconds, nor be able to access news from around the world within seconds. 

For many of us, social media is so ingrained in our lives that we cannot imagine life without it. It is a brilliant invention, after all, and no doubt has many benefits, although carrier pigeons might have something to say about that. But, jokes aside, does it have an alarming influence on modern day society?
In short, I think we all recognise its dangers. Online gaming addictions are rife in more developed countries, in the UK alone, it is estimated that of the 46.6 million regular web users, between 2 and 5 million of them are addicted to gaming. The furore around the game Fortnite in the last year or so tells you all you need to know about how much power games are having. 

Popular social media platforms are also having a more and more distinct impact on us all. I can't pretend to know all the science behind it, but a mate recently mentioned something which resonated with me, the possibility that social media has impacted our concentration, through scrolling and ignoring information that we don't need. This in turn impacts our concentration when trying to take in information for long periods of time, or with things like driving. 

These don't really outweigh the strength in communication it has given us on their own. It is undeniable that the human benefits of social media, both in individual cases of solving crimes, and donating to charitable causes on a wider scale, have enriched the world that we live in now exponentially. 

But its' main flaw, in my humble, is that it has simply affected our happiness. 

To prove my point, I have a little anecdote, from around March this year. Shock horror, it involves my own mental health - but in brief this was me at my lowest. I went to my local GP, in the hope that he would be able to prescribe me some kind of drug to help, or at least suggest a radical solution.

"My main piece of advice would be to cut down on the use of social media, as it has, and is having, a huge effect on mental health in general in society."

I scoffed at this. After all I'd felt in the previous few weeks, I'd expected him to take it more serious than that. "You're telling me that to cure mental illness you want me to delete apps on my phone and live like normal again?" I thought. 

So I did nothing, I ignored the advice he had given me and crudely thought that I had an incompetent, uncaring GP who thought social media was the cause of all the world's problems!

Fast forward 8 months, and I realise that his single piece of advice was one of the truest statements I've ever heard. Moreover, I've even now got half a mind to apologise to him, even though I'd done nothing visibly wrong, but simply for my dismissive attitude to the impact of social media. I have done this a few times in the last few months - completely delete my main forms of social media off of my phone and focus on the real world in front of me. 

Those days, the most recent of which was earlier this week, are some of the best days I've had all year. And it's made me so much more self-aware.

I feel like our current generation is stuck in one massive addiction. If you delete social media for a few days, you'll miss so much - which tempts people to keep coming back for more (Snapchat streaks that increase day by day are a torrid example of this). Imagine if we drank as much as we (on the whole) use social media, imagine if we smoked the same amount. We'd be labelled alcohol addicts, or persistent smokers. Yet despite how dangerous social media can be, the attitude seems to be the more, the better. 

I am not denying it is has usefulness - there are many benefits that I briefly touched on before. But it's getting ridiculous now.

We need to become more self-aware of a dangerous addiction, before it is too late and has permanently affected us all.










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