Sharing, Scrolling, Sinking by Paige

Sharing, Scrolling, Sinking by Paige - March 2022 Scholarship Essay

Social media is a vortex. An endless blackhole of influencers, advertisements and other content catered to our short attention spans. These apps and websites are designed to capture our attention quickly, devour it, then discard of it after a sixty second TikTok or tweet with a reading time thirty seconds. We all think that we're the exception to all of the dark cons that come with social media. Yet, we all still get pulled into a stream of useless information, just there to be monetized and take up or time. Sure, you may intend to only open up the app for a few minutes, but a few minutes turns into an hour, then several hours, and before you know it, it's dark outside and you're still in the same place as before.

Some may argue that social media can be used as a good communication tool, and that it has brought us closer together. It's true on social media you can find pen pals from across the world. Many have even been so lucky as to find their soulmate on certain dating apps. While this seems like a positive outcome of social media, that is because we have only scraped the surface of the towering iceberg that is social media. Social media is inherently functional in a positive way, but that changes when these apps are used by the wrong people.

Bullying: it's no secret that it happens, and it's no secret that social media can increase it's intensity. Everyone is braver behind a screen and keyboard. After all, no one can get physically violent with you through a computer. On social media, the power of freedom of speech has been abused. People can be ruthless in their hateful comments left on social media posts. This type of cyberbullying has led many to dangerous acts against themselves or others which most certainly could have been prevented or never would have occurred without social media. I feel that many of us teenagers put so much of our self worth into social media. On multiple occasions I've compared my body to those of countless instagram models, or been jealous of the parties and hangouts I see pictures of on social media. Social media can make it easy to feel connected, but it also makes it easy to feel insecure and lonely. Social media is putting our mental health in jeopardy, which in turn affects our education. If we're depressed, we won't want to pay attention in class. If we're anxious we may be too nervous to ask questions or speak up.

Looking at another angle of the social media iceberg, it is evident that someone can also develop and addiction to the vortex. It is so easy to take out your phone and scroll the hours away, decompressing from another difficult day. But if we do this too often, we develop a pattern of intermittent reinforcement. Each time we get a notification that someone liked our post, or find a funny video that we'd like to save, this registers like a small reward in our minds. After enough reoccurrence of these small routine rewards, we begin to crave them, and get upset when we don't get them. If a post gets less likes than usual, we could spend hours trying to figure out why. Was it the time of day you posted? Is the app lagging? Or on a sadder note, is it just not good enough? So the next time we post, we spend more time making it, then more time checking in again and again to see its progress. You may be wondering why this is detrimental to our education. That's because of the rule in most schools prohibiting the usage of phones during class. Obviously, we come to school to learn and scoaif media does not have a place int he core curriculum. However, if we have gotten used to our intermittent reinforcement, to reassure ourselves of the relevancy we have on social media, then we will have cravings to access these apps and websites during school hours. Some people can resists this temptation, but many can't. So they find loopholes, by accessing their accounts through their computers. They end up distracted from lessons, missing directions and falling behind.

We need to learn to be less dependent on social media. It is clear that these apps and websites can also be a dividing factor for our society, as they garner more arguments and bickering online. Even young kids are becoming too engrossed in the pitfalls of social media. We have to remember to look up from our devices and realize the beauty around us that the world has to offer.