Do you know about the addiction to Social Networks?

Long before now, people never thought of a time where communication, connection are limitless, information flows ceaselessly and fun is easy to experience at the comfort of your home. Back then, when a message wants to be passed, the carrier has to move from one place to another most times far distances, but now the job is just a click away. What has made all these things easy is called "Social Media".

Since the first introduction it has been of good usage but now it seems the reverse is what is happening. People are said to be addicted to social media and is it possible to be addicted to something digital?? Let's find out together.

I could remember some years ago, my mom would sit and look at me while using my smartphone while smiling and laughing to myself. What was I doing? I was scrolling through the reels of Instagram watching educative and hilarious contents. She always complain that I spend too much time on the internet and it was not. I couldn't understand what she was saying then until now that I have come of age and becoming independent.

Back then, I spend almost 14 hours on social media. It was very bad but I never knew the consequences of spending so much time with the screen of my smartphone. Back to the present, I can boldly say that I have minimised the time I spend on Social Media to 4 hours a day. A great reduction right? Yes ..... This is including Steemit which is a web 3.0 social media platform where I create contents, engage and earn.

To answer in reference to my past, I'll say that I often check the media for latest news every single day. 20% of my time on social then was just to read and watch trending topics on the web. But now, I sincerely don't have much time to do. Most times in a week, I check new/trend updates once or sometimes not at all.

Monitoring the social media time for Children and teenagers is very important and here's why.

Why monitor?

1. It can help to protect the mental wellbeing of the kids. An excessive use of social media is said to have been linked to the increase of loneliness, depression and anxiety.
2. Ensuring physical and virtual safety from cyberbullying, fraud and exploitation of any kind.
3. Balance health and fun. Limiting screen time with physical activities, sleep, exercise and recreation.
4. Enhances responsible behaviour by inculcating digital citizenship, power of privacy and confidentiality.

Honestly, I don't really have any viral moments since I'm not exactly a social media or internet personality. Although there was this one time I shared a post on X formerly known as Twitter which ended up getting way more attention than expected because I had a low amount of followers and audience.

It was just something simple of which I didn't know would connect to many people. Next thing was my phone buzzing with notifications of likes, retweet, bookmarks and more, enlarging the conversation. This moment might not be definition of "viral" to you, but the simple sense it was definitely a highlight to me...

I would have dropped the link to the post, but unfortunately I lost the account scammers.

It's a sad reality, but yes, social media can be ridiculously addictive to a person. I mean, think of it when you're constantly bombarded with notifications on latest things happening, sure, you don't want to miss out. For me I've turned off the notification from all social media apps on my phone.

Research says that Social Media/internet utilize our brain's reward system, releasing feel-good chemicald like dopamine which keeps pushing us back for more. To be real, the system is programmed to keep us engaged, but to some extent at the expense of our mental health.

To sum it all up, whatever has an advantage, also has a disadvantage. The social is totally meant for us to be engaged but when we use that opportunity too much by spending excess time on these platforms it poses a risk to our mental health. I hope you would reduce your screen time now if you spend more than expected and also urge you not to make it an habit if you're disciplined already.

NOTE: All images in this publication are mine. They were designed using Pixellab app.

Thanks for reading....

I invite @alli001, @entity01 and @us-andrew to participate.

Cc,
@helengutier2