Impact of Social Media on Us

 - Debjani 

In a twist of irony, the post has come to me through the very medium I am criticising. When was the last time you read a novel? Took a walk without your phone? Met a friend in a cafe without snapping photos for Instagram? 

Reading is perhaps the best way to escape the chaos around us. Yet these days, don’t we find ourselves staring at the same lines for hours, trying to force out a meaning? Even the simple everyday words seem to slip away from us. We all know that this is the impact of endlessly scrolling reels that our attention span is reducing. As the span of a reel/ video is very less, we jump from one reel to hunting for the next best hit of dopamine. The addiction is no less than consuming narcotics. This stimulation further creates persistent neuropsychological change in patterns of our brain resulting in concentration deficit disorders like ADD, ADHD. This additionally reduces our capability to critically think and judge circumstances leading to disrupting habitual patterns like emotional outburst, distractedness and mood swings. As we find ourselves sitting in an empty room, the first thing we reach for to kill time is a cell phone. The spiral of like, comment, share and of notifications upsurges instant sense of pleasure, a feeling that something is constantly accompanying you. This compulsive behaviour in students and young adults has given rise to what they call it- the void, the nothingness that grows out of expectations tied to situations, places, people, that sometimes is unreal to attain. Again, the Gen Z’s fear of missing out(FOMO) comes from being overexposed to idealised versions of reality on social media platforms, while constantly engaging in unhealthy comparisons with the contents visible. This also unearths envy and a sense of jealousy often unrecognised.  

We’ve become addicted to keeping the conversation going, from broadcasting our daily life updates to posting about our latest accomplishment, we now even grieve publicly, letting social media witness what once belonged to our private lives. There has been a sharp decline in our day-to-day activities like taking walks with pets, socialising face to face with our friends and neighbours or carrying daily conversations at the dining table. Do we not realise that we are drifting apart from our loved ones? These situations raise alarm as concerns of anxiety and panic episodes accompanied with depression and loneliness among teenagers and young adults are seen in repeated groove. This addiction to constant social media use is now seen even among older adults, many of whom have stopped listening to the radio or watching television altogether. Many working parents often spend less time with their children because they stay absorbed in social media, and this behaviour is replicated by the children who too become increasingly restrained from expressing their basic emotions.