Will You Give Up Social Media?
By Alison Hunstad
As a twenty-one-year-old graduate student, I find that I am often torn between keeping my social media accounts to stay updated with others and deleting my accounts to focus on school and honestly, open up a lot more time within my day. As most of us know, social media has positive and negative aspects depending on how it is used and how much of it is used. For me, I find that social media is more of a hindrance than a benefit. Graham (2014) provides many reasons how social media is making us, as a society, unsocial. What individuals present on social media is typically just-a-glimpse of who they are in real life. Our society is at risk of becoming even more separated as our connections continue to become more virtual and less in-person.
Auxier (2020) discuss how society feels about social media and that impact it has on us. Specifically, this article states that, “64% of Americans say social media have a mostly negative effect on the way things are going in the U.S. today.” Further, these individuals claim that this negativity is due to the misinformation, hate and harassment, and the lack of fact-checking. Although we all have different experiences, these things are taking place and the rates they are occurring are just increasing. Even with all of this in mind, I have not deleted my accounts.
When completing research on this topic, I came across a study that helped explain this problem. Stieger and Lewetz conducted this study in 2018 which examined the impact of one week without using social media. Interestingly, the main limitation of this study was that it was hard to find participants who were willing to give up social media for a week. This study found effects similar to that of alcohol and drug addictions (i.e., craving and relapse). Results of this study suggest that many social media users have a desire to stay connected with friends, and without this connection, individuals develop a fear of missing out. However, are these social media connections more important than the connections that are right in front of us? Social media has become part of our everyday routine and might be on the verge of taking over.
So, before you close out of this blog, stop for a second and ask yourself if you could go one week without social media. If you believe the answer is yes, give it a shot. And during the week without social media, continue to grow the in-person connections that you have. Social media might have positive aspects, but we cannot let it turn us into unsocial beings.
References
Auxier, B. (2020). 64% of Americans say social media have a mostly negative effect on the way things are going in the U.S. today. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/10/15/64-of-americans-say-social-media-have-a-mostly-negative-effect-on-the-way-things-are-going-in-the-u-s-today/
Graham, A. (2014). How social media makes us unsocial [Video]. TED Conferences. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5GecYjy9-Q
Stieger, S., & Lewetz, D. (2018). A Week Without Using Social Media: Results from an Ecological Momentary Intervention Study Using Smartphones. Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking, 21(10), 618–624. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2018.0070