Does social media tell you how to feel?

You may often smile when you receive a text back from someone you like, adore, love, or maybe even someone you barely talk to. This is most likely a satisfying feeling one gets when the other person replies. As well as when you’ve posted something, you start to see the likes and comments on your feed pile up. Many people have subconsciously made social media into a source of dopamine. Dopamine being the chemicals released in the body which is connected to happiness. At this point in time, social media has made itself into the backdoor of people's minds, always living, it’s interacting with people’s daily life outside of computers and phones or whatever we use that’s connected to the internet. For example, having to think twice about what you're going to wear because you'll most likely want to take a picture of your outfit and upload it for the world to see. Even if you’re “internet-less” for a few hours and bored, you’re maybe imagining what your own followers or people you follow are doing. The reoccurring thing here is that we tend to find happiness by looking at our phones. Seeing other people's life and seeing other people's happiness makes it the people’s own. Although there are some in our generation who use social media daily and make it a routine to check their accounts, there are some who are connected very obsessively to social media.

Now, an obsession can lead to one common thing in today’s generation, that being an addiction. Addictions, according to the American Psychiatric Association, are: “a complex condition, a brain disease that is manifested by compulsive substance use despite harmful consequence.” Okay, now even though our phones are not a substance that can be intaked in any way, it is no less dangerous. Creating content (as in pictures and videos to post on social media) that a person puts up to get views and likes, has become an overwhelming addiction to some. Such addiction might even be a more catastrophic than the ones we see now. 

In a film titled: “The Mobile Revolution,” a group of men who have been living together have been affected from such addictions, one of them shares his experience with it, saying: “I kind of regret everything I've done over the past months, I spent too many hours doing stupid stuff, I mean seriously, I knew I made a mistake when you drop out at least two colleges.” The loss of time, presence, even awareness are all things that happen because of an addiction, and it’s something people actually do now. A roommate of his describes how, “The internet's like a 24-hour thing, like everyone's posting on it constantly you just get this constant, like feed of information and I guess that's kind of when I got addicted to like, that stream of information.” The point to make here is how the internet is consistent, how social media is almost everlasting and fastly generated. That there is something new to see almost every second or maybe even faster than that... actually definitely faster than that. The video calls this “addiction to social media” something else, they call it a Social Media Validation, a little scary sounding don’t you think? 

So what? you may ask. “A little too much of a distraction is Instagram to my life, I know, I get it mom.” You already know at some point you’ve said this to your parents or have been told this by your kid. What if it wasn’t just a distraction? But a way of life?

A teen or adult that doesn't reach the like count they wanted, or doesn't see the people comment or enjoy what they post, their response? Regret? Sadness? Disappointed? Dissatisfied? It's all of those and more. When people chose to post something, it was almost like they wanted to know what the world thought of them. Sometimes, what the other people have to say is aggressive, violent, but not at all physical. Such interactions can lead to much higher risks. In an article in the American Journal of Public Health, a section labeled: “Social Media and Suicide: A Public Health Perspective,” it was said that, “There are several specific ways that social media can increase risk for pro-suicide behavior. Cyberbullying and cyber harassment, for example, are serious and prevalent problems. ... A review of data collected between 2004 and 2010 via survey studies indicated that lifetime cyberbullying victimization rates ranged from 20.8% to 40.6% and offending rates ranged from 11.5% to 20.1%.” Although cyber bullying or suicide is not the main idea that I’m talking about here, it does tie in pretty close to my point. Teen and adults seemed to have turned to social media as a means of attention, to be their mirror, a mirror that talks backs and has an opinion, no matter good or bad. Using it as an someone's own opinion, using it as their self-esteem for the day, as their dopamine booster, as their mood that they’re feeling. 

Social media creates an extension of one’s self, allowing a person to be seen anywhere, talked about freely, judged instantly. Now, it might be said people are addicted to social media, but social media is people too. So here’s a trippy thought, couldn’t it be said that social media is technically addicted to itself. Because it’s a constant loop, a person behind a screen, which could talk and comment, or could post something and see them.

Recap, the addiction to feeling better about how they look, about feeling worthy of someone’s time to stop to like and comment their post is becoming a dangerous addiction. Not because of using social media, but because not knowing what could go wrong when it’s not the result they expected. 

From this, it can be brought to the attention that a lot of people have noticed this new and “trending” problem. With this attention, groups and organizations have been formed in order to help. Not only to help now but to prevent the future from decimating by a danger the world turned a blind eye to. To mention again, as this topic of addiction and suicide are closely related, the most recent article I used also adds prevention, call lines, even groups to help. It’s suited for this generation, like “YouTube also has many videos devoted to suicide prevention, including those in the form of public service announcements,” and something else that could really help bring in more people is, “The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline's lifeline-gallery.org Web site [which] features an innovative social media platform in which suicide survivor stories are presented by animated avatars (a graphical representation of the user or the user's alter ego or character). Which if you ask me, it’s pretty dope. The site animations not the program. Well, yes the program but not why it exists… you know what, it’s cool and we’ll leave it there. Moving on please, site users can create and design the appearance of their avatars, write a description about their personal experiences with suicide, and then record their voices or choose a computer-generated voiceover to narrate their stories.” With solutions like this, the world could possibly prevent a worldwide catastrophe. Please don’t forget about this. Don’t sideswipe this problem that could affect this generation, your friends, family, loved ones. Don’t let it get to the point where you would have to shield and censor your kids or grand kids in the future of technology that used to be for fun, timeless interactions. Be part of the change and not part of the “Well that’s not me,” or “Hasn’t happened here.”