Does social media tend to isolate people?
While I think that social media is great, it can have some damaging effects. To me, it just seems too constricting to the actual art of conversation and takes up so much of your time. This being said, I have friends who actually have every single form of social media. The big question that adults ask themselves and wonder about their teens: does social media isolate them?
In The American Journal of Preventive Medicine, it said that people who spend up to 2 hours a day on social media had twice the odds of perceived social isolation than those who spent less than half an hour a day. You might not think that you spend up to two hours a day on social media, but it's split up into chunks throughout the day. 5 minutes here, 3 minutes here, 2 minutes on the way to your next class. You only think you spend that much time on your phone if it's two hours straight.
"But I'm a very social person. I have 434 friends on Snapchat and Instagram!" This sentence is one of the biggest oxymorons I've ever heard. I'm a pretty social person without social media, and I don't even talk to 434 people let alone know 434 people really well. Some people feel left out of interactions in their lives and that's why people choose to talk to others online.
This can also affect your own self esteem. You go on your app of choice and see friends hanging out at the beach or downtown, having the time of their lives. You are sitting at home with a bowl of chips watching your favorite Netflix show. It makes you feel bad that you aren't social enough with your own life and that others our leading more fabulous, exciting, lives than your own. It also makes you compete with others that you might not even know.
Finally the last thing social media does is create a distance of intimacy. Your parents might be checking their Facebook at the dinner table which leads you to check your Twitter and by this point, no one is talking anymore. You no longer talk about your feelings or your life, but instead with strangers online. So what do you think? Are we being isolated by social media?
In The American Journal of Preventive Medicine, it said that people who spend up to 2 hours a day on social media had twice the odds of perceived social isolation than those who spent less than half an hour a day. You might not think that you spend up to two hours a day on social media, but it's split up into chunks throughout the day. 5 minutes here, 3 minutes here, 2 minutes on the way to your next class. You only think you spend that much time on your phone if it's two hours straight.
"But I'm a very social person. I have 434 friends on Snapchat and Instagram!" This sentence is one of the biggest oxymorons I've ever heard. I'm a pretty social person without social media, and I don't even talk to 434 people let alone know 434 people really well. Some people feel left out of interactions in their lives and that's why people choose to talk to others online.
This can also affect your own self esteem. You go on your app of choice and see friends hanging out at the beach or downtown, having the time of their lives. You are sitting at home with a bowl of chips watching your favorite Netflix show. It makes you feel bad that you aren't social enough with your own life and that others our leading more fabulous, exciting, lives than your own. It also makes you compete with others that you might not even know.
Finally the last thing social media does is create a distance of intimacy. Your parents might be checking their Facebook at the dinner table which leads you to check your Twitter and by this point, no one is talking anymore. You no longer talk about your feelings or your life, but instead with strangers online. So what do you think? Are we being isolated by social media?
Signed,
Midwestern Redhead
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