The Endless Scroll Addiction
In today’s society, when we look left and right we see the same thing: people are addicted to their phones.
Five years ago, we only saw kids and young adults who are social media addicts. But now social media doesn’t choose any age. Once you have an internet or data connection that’s it, you’re vulnerable to this addiction. It’s your phone screaming to you “Welcome to the club!”
Compared to other deadly drugs the endless scroll addiction doesn’t affect us physically. But on the mental side, it takes its toll. This addiction affects our:
Confidence and self-esteem
It’s a no-brainer that social media affects confidence and self-esteem. We seek validation by posting our new stuff, sharing good and bad experiences, wealth, physical looks and so on.
What we don’t realize is by doing this it damages our confidence especially when we are facing or communication with people without the use of our phones. We thought that seeking validation through these apps makes us more confident, but it’s the opposite.
All it does is it feeds our ego.
Every time we got those “likes” we feel happier because of the dopamine hit in our brain. Well, people have also said that when we seek validation through social media, we lack attention in real-life.
Have you ever seen someone post the bad things they’ve been through on social media? It’s rare to see that while endlessly scrolling. All we see is the other side of the “coin” which is happiness. What’s worse is some people build up these fake lives to get more validation.
Nowadays we see more people becoming insecure because of the impact of social media.
Building Meaningful Relationships
It is so rare these days to find and build meaningful relationships.
Before the internet era every time we eat together with our loved ones we use that time to talk to each other and discuss or fix problems. But now it’s different, go to a restaurant or a cafe you can see families or group of friends using their phones to communicate with other people instead of talking to who they’re with.
Failure to build relationships also comes down to confidence because when we can’t express our true feelings, it’s a sign of insecurity or lack of self-esteem. And lack of communication, when we are addicted to our phones, we forget the true meaning of communication.
Building meaningful relationships starts with proper communication and privacy, but it will be difficult if we are addicted to our phones. If we can’t put our phones down to have real-life human interactions we are in deep trouble.
Mental health
We all know social media addiction can affect our mental health. I find it very disturbing that more and more people are suffering from depression and anxiety. I guess this is the toll that we have to pay for technological advancements.
Scrolling through social media affects our mental health because we put more value on “likes,” searching for friends that turn out to be fake, making comparisons and the experience of cyberbullying. For us to overcome this effects, we need to balance the use of social media. Also, we must understand that we are different from each other and nobody is perfect.
So what can we do about it?
Social media apps are built this way. As the headline from BBC says “Social media apps are 'deliberately' addictive to users” these apps are programmed to be addictive for financial gain and exposure.
We don’t need to debate why they are built that way. It’s all about common sense. If you’re a developer and you want your app to become successful, then you need users to be addicted to it. It is part of their business model. So as a consumer what we need to do is just take a break.
We have seven days a week and 24 hours a day. It won’t damage our reputation if we take a break from endless scrolling. Don’t allow these apps to hack your mind besides life is best experienced without technology.
Enjoy the nature and be present. Stop the endless scroll addiction.
