Chances are, you’re a social media user.
Whether it’s Instagram, Twitter or Facebook or something else, you may have a profile or two. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, but there are a few things to be weary about.
Are social media sites taking over the world?
Is the electronic apocalypse about to commence?
No, they aren’t. At least not that I know of.
However, the generations before us may think differently. Now, I personally don’t see anything wrong with being a part of Tumblr, Instagram, Twitter or Facebook. If you want to post your daily adventures on Snapchat, that’s perfectly fine. It’s the equivalent of our parents taking Polaroids.
As young people, we’ve witnessed this rise since its inception roughly a decade ago. By the time we got into high school, Snapchat, Twitter and Instagram were just starting to become popular. Crazy, right?
I grew up with parents who didn’t want me to constantly be online.
I wasn’t superglued to my phone at the family dinner table, and I wasn’t posting a new status on Facebook every 20 minutes. If you’re one of those people, that’s perfectly fine. To each their own.
Social media allows us to justifiably waste time. I know sometimes when I should be doing homework, social media lets me procrastinate even more than I already have.
The effects of social media on college students were studied in a research paper by Qingya Wang, Wei Chen and Yu Liang of Johnson & Wales University- Providence.
In the study, 35 percent of subjects were undergraduate students and the rest were graduate students at the university.
Out of those participants, 45 percent admitted to spending between six and eight hours per day checking social media sites.
That seems crazy to me, and it gets even crazier.
In the same study, 23 percent of the students said that they spent more than eight hours per day on social media. That’s equivalent to the time spent at a full-time job.
I had no idea people spent that much time on social media.
It’s none of my business what you choose to do with your time, but are we, as a generation, using it wisely?
Maybe our coursework or jobs would go better if we spent a week not having any access to social media. Especially if we spend this much time consuming it.
Personally, I think I spend less than two hours per day on social media. However, I do spend several hours per day listening to a YouTube channel in the background of my homework and while I’m sleeping.
Are those hours included in the aforementioned study? If they are, then I suppose I fall into this category of heavy social media users.
If you aren’t harming or bullying anyone and you’re happy with your life, then you keep on being you and doing what you do.
I don’t think our generation should be ostracized for taking advantage of the technology available to us. Do whatever you’d like. It’s not my business.
bnbauern@indiana.edu
