Imagine yourself, in the middle of the night, mindlessly scrolling, knowing you have things in the morning, knowing you aren’t getting any sleep, but you don’t care. You just scroll, and scroll, and scroll. Who is the most prone to this? Teenagers. What do you think of when you think of teenagers? Traditionally, teenagers are thought of as rebellious, developing, and maybe even big eaters. However, they now are associated with something new- social media, like TikTok, Snapchat, or Instagram.
Social media lures in young users with quick bursts of dopamine, and this causes them to become addicted to the app , needing the dopamine from social media. Consider this, if you found interesting videos/posts, would you want to scroll more to find more interesting posts and videos? Of course you would, and after several videos and posts it gets increasingly hard to stop. Social media companies do this by adding feeds that allow users to constantly scroll and find new videos and posts. It also makes other sources of dopamine less effective, making peoples only real relief come from social media.
People usually say they aren’t addicted to social media, and they can stop at any time. These feelings and actions, however, closely resemble addiction, having the user need it, but saying that they can stop, even though they can’t. This is a common problem which affects countless teeangers across the world. In fact, in the United States, around 30% of users think they are social media addicts. This implies that if this many people would admit they are social media addicts, a whole larger percentage would be present.
This addiction can make people become detached with the outside world, just wanting to be on their phone and look at social media. They try less in school and outside activities because they only care about being on their phone. The addiction is getting worse and worse with new apps that rot the mind, and new brain rotting content. Being addicted to anything is bad, even being addicted to good things, however constantly staring at a phone/computer screen, especially at night, is not only bad for the brain but also for the eyes.
The United States started to ban addictive social media apps, like TikTok, and it has been banned (as of writing this piece) in 34 states. This could help teenagers to stop being addicted, because TikTok is one of the most addicting social media websites, so if it gets banned people would be forced to stop. A problem with banning TikTok, however, is that the creators on the platform won’t have a way to make money, and it would be hard for people who use it a lot to overcome their addiction.
In conclusion, social media is bad for all kinds of people because it can disrupt growth and sleep, addicts rely on only the videos for joy, and it affects more than teenagers. People should try and stop if they are already addicted, or if you somehow aren’t addicted, you should keep away from it forever, or at least for as long as you can. You should also try and stop others from using social media, but not by actions, but the truth of why it is so bad. Social media does have some perks, however it would overall be better if society would completely get rid of social media.
