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Social Media Addiction: Good Bad or Ugly?
“If you are not paying for the product you are the product“
Exactly what were you doing just before reading the article? May be eating, working, exercising or may be doing anything in your smartphone, tabloid, computer? You were scrolling through your Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Tiktok, Gmail or Yahoo Id? Have you thought what is the benefit of thesoftware developer as you can access to this site for free?
Present situation of Social Media Addicts
Due to easy availability of smartphone or other device now-a-days huge number of people are using and spending time in social media. According to some research, 3 billion people around 40 per cent of total world population use online social media. And we are spending average of 2 hours every day by sharing, liking, tweeting and updating on these platforms. So we can definitely say that a small number of software developers make decision that impact billions of people. Without any doubt social media is a useful platform that does a lot of good deeds. As for example blood donation, sharing different views etc. But is it good enough to cover up the whole bad impact?
“There are only 2 industries that call their customer users. Illegal drugs and software“
How Social Media actually works?
The user data can be used to build models to predict users’ actions and by this companies keep user’s attention to maximize the profit from advertising. That is why what you are seeing in your Facebook is completely different from what your parents are seeing in their id. That means social media shows you exactly the same things you want to see. That’s why in google search, outcompete sentence are completely different. This are the manipulation technique used by the social media to addict their user and psychology that is to leveraged to achieve this end. This often leads to increase depression and suicide rates among teens and young adults. According to a survey:
- 62% increase in hospitalisation for American – female ages 15-19
- 189% increase of self-harm beginning 2010-2014
- 70% increase in suicide – Female ages 15-19
- 151% increase in suicide-Female ages 10-14
There is also a phenomenon where patient wants to receive plastic surgery so that they can be like those pictures with snapchat filters. Another alarming fact about social media is its contribution in spreading false news. Sometime the spreading of wrong information can cause huge chaos and conflicts. As for example fake news regarding COVID-19, propaganda that can used to influence political campaign; or conspiracy theory like pizza gate which claimed that politician were associated with human trafficking.
“It is not about the technology bring the existential threat, it’s the technology’s ability to bring out the worst in society.“
Even the engineeres who invented and programmed this social media doesn’t know solution of the existing problem yet. They know that in upcoming days anything bad can happen. It’s like a ticking bomb. Problematic social media use can be a major problem of upcoming future. So, they come up with some counter measures:
10 Ways To Beat Social Media Addiction
- Turn off notification or reduce the number of notifications you receive.
- Uninstall social media and news app that are wasting time. Use a search engine that does not restore search history
- Use browser extension to block recommendation, factcheek. Before sharing liking or commenting while the information looks surprising.
- Obtain sources of different perspectives including sources one might disagree
- Do not give devices to children.
- Never accept recommendation video on TV/YouTube
- Try to avoid clickbait material.
- Keep devices out of bedroom after a certain time.
- Do not allow social media use until children reach high school.
When was the last time you spend a complete day without your smart phone? Seems like forever, right? We have to keep in mind that social media is not 100% lethal, just we have to decide how we want to use that. Let not the social media control us, our control should be in our hand.
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