Social media needs to be controlled!

Are your eyes glued to the blue light under those black screens of yours? Is the internet addictive? Yes of course it is!Take a minute to think how long each day you spend looking down at your screens, an estimate of 5 years of your life is spent looking down at your phone.  In this time you could fly to the moon and back 32 times, kind of ridiculous isnt it??? The truth is… technology when used overtime is actually the most powerful way of dragging each of us to be more unsocial, judgemental and have lower self esteem. Now I cannot deny that I am just as bad as everyone else, but I can’t help it and neither can you!  This is just the way the world has evolved in our generation. Technology is taking over our lives!It seems every day there are new things happening in and around social media and technology.  Whether it is a simple thing like: a snapchat notification that can’t be left unopened  a new APP that you want to download only because everyone else has or you are begging your parents to buy you the latest iPhone. So today I am going to talk to you about how we need to take control over technology rather than technology  controlling us in three points:

Number 1  Real life Examples of when we use social media

Number 2  How social media is bad

Number 3  and lastly how it can be controlled.

The majority of us use our phones for capturing special moments right? We see all those tourists clutching their phones and capturing photos of everything they see. Or we are sitting in our favourite restaurant and sending messages to our friends rather than socialising with the people around us.   A recent statistic on worldstream tells us that around 9,000 snapchats are sent per second and over 400 million snaps are shared per day.  We are more interested in interacting with the people through our screens rather than the people right beside us!    It’s like we are living in our own separate bubbles. 4 year olds today know how to turn on an iPad – unlock it – scroll across –  click on Netflix and find their favourite tv shows to watch. Now compare this to when OUR parents were 4 year olds – actually it was 44 years ago when my dad was a 4 year old during this year the world’s first mobile phone call was made in 1973 on a prototype device by motorola weighing a staggering 1.1kg, you got 30 minutes of talk-time and it took around 10 hours to charge!!! The first iPad was announced on January 27th, 2010 at a media conference. On April 3rd 2010 the wifi form of the ipad was released in the United States. The majority of us were either 8, 9 or 10 years old when the first ipad was released.  Where Are those days gone where a child could be given a ball and this would fill their imagination and make fun with it, Today playstations and wii will barely even satisfy us. There used to be no such thing as technology beginning with “I”, iPods iPads iPhones. All your parents wouldn’t even know that these “i” products would of been invented. The point I am making is that the technology world is robbing us so we need to learn to control it.  Do we always want to spoil a precious moment with our phones?

There is no denying the benefits that we have gained from all this technology.  Although there are problems that arise by having this all around us, technology can be devastating to our social, mental and physical health if we allow it, creating many consequences and negative impacts in the way we (teenagers) think. A statistic from “Psychology Today” tells us that more than a 3rd of children under the age of two use mobile media. The amount of children using mobile media increases as children get older. and  95% of 12-17 year olds use mobile media. spending more and more time online changes the way our brains work –  it does nothing to help us in the way we think for creating new things.  The internet has robbed us of our privacy.  Where have the days gone where we could be on phones and laptops without worrying about those prying eyes watching us through the cameras?  The continual NEW apps that generate online chatting cause lots of young teens to be in danger when finally meeting the person outside of the camera lens, this is only gonna get worse with more and more risky apps being released and we will all eventually rely on them to meet new people.  By overusing this causes a lack of social skills, many studies confirm that children learn better from live interaction rather than through screens.our social skills are getting worse with interacting with people because social media is taking control over us. How can we stop this? this takes me to my next point.

Many people believe that technology is uncontrollable so what is the solution to make sure that this so called over-use of screen time is controlled and stop it from taking over our lives? My suggestions would be simply this:  number one “Turn off the APP notifications” – by stopping the urge of hearing those noises on our phones while socialising with friends or family, this would be a sure way to restrict us from checking and being tempted to pick up the phone.Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat are the most popular, and 71 percent of teens say they use more than one social media site. we do not need to use so many different social media accounts just to talk to friends so why don’t we just have a one or two, thats what phones are for ringing people right? what’s the point in social media ? By doing these things it would help us to be more concentrated in classes and when we are with people. My second reason is to learn when to unplug. There is no reason for us to be on our devices 24/7 so why can’t we teach ourselves to break the addictive habit of being on them constantly? Setting specific rules to yourself of when you go online and when you don’t is a must, for example if there is some reason for why you HAVE to be online then, make a certain time for you to do that, so the rest of the time you can socialise and be with your friends or family members outside of those screens.  

So today I have explained how and why I think all this technology needs to be controlled. Even though its has helped us all to stay connected but through a simple click of a button and seeing each other on screens or sending photos in an instant. It is about time we ALL try and make a change –  to TAKE CONTROL over these addictive, obsessive and life dependent devices so that we can stop and reawaken those special memories that are hidden in those separate realities we once had. Has digital science changed the way we live, think and act towards ourselves and others? It’s not  always perfect to have us surrounded by this? There is a bad side to having almost everything we need at the end of our fingertips? It has MANIPULATED the way we live and about how we see the world. Technology DOES NOT autocorrect we must correct it ourselves.