Written by Brian Li
It’s almost been over eight months since the World Health Organization officially announced COVID-19 as a global pandemic. Since then, countries around the world have taken drastic measures to prevent the spread of the virus. Measures such as lockdowns, strict orders, and social distancing have been put into place. People around the world have had to adapt to a limited amount of social interactions. Luckily, in this generation, thanks to free social media outlets, social interactions can be generated online with relative ease. This may not be a new phenomenon, but with the pandemic, it’s essentially become the only source of social interaction people can connect through. However, social media can also prove to serve as a distraction and a negative environment.
Social media has proven over the years that it can be a toxic environment. The cultures and trends it develops has given social media a bad reputation. Social media is designed to be as addicting as possible: The longer you stay on the app, the better. One way developers work to keep people on their apps is to expose them to negative or controversial opinions. This works especially well when it comes to celebrities and other popular figures. Imagine the following scenario: a popular figure does something inappropriate and it sparks arguments amongst thousands or potentially millions of people, who bicker for hours about whether that figure should be “cancelled.” These arguments cause unnecessary stress and strain on people. No one wins, except the app stockholders. With everything moved online during this pandemic, social media is even closer than before. When you got great connection at home and are stuck in a boring zoom call, why not check Instagram or Twitter one more time? However, this excessive social media use is even more important to limit now than ever. Social media has proven to be a great distraction and pulls you away from your responsibilities. Wasting time scrolling away when you have assignments or reports to complete only harms you in the long run. The last thing anyone wants coming out of this lockdown is a crippling internet addiction.
Overall, social media provides a potentially negative environment to surround yourself in and promotes procrastination and other negative work habits. A recent survey by Flixed found that limiting the screen time yielded positive results (Suciu). The following tips can be used to help distance yourself from the online world or improve your current social media use to positively impact your lives:
Delete the social media apps:
The average person has an account on 8 different social media platforms (Kepios). The simplest way to reduce social media use to delete a couple apps, so that they aren’t as easily accessible to you. It’s no longer a click away. If you are tempted to redownload, go one step further and deactivate your account for a certain amount of time.
Refresh your timeline:
Controversial content is another time vacuum. Clean up your timeline by unfollowing or muting accounts with enraging, dubious, or controversial content. Make sure the accounts you see have content that makes you happy.
Set timers and limits on how much time you want to spend on social media:
Certain apps within the app-store or sometimes built in to your device allow you to set limits on how much time you spend on social media. It gives you a notification once you have reached your limit. It is then up to you to get off social media (it won’t lock you out of the app).
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