30 Days
“I fear the day when technology overlaps with our humanity. The world will have a generation of idiots” -Albert Einstein
1 in 3 teens is addicted to social media. That probably isn’t a surprising fact seeing as there are 1.15 billion users on Instagram alone. The term social media addiction was coined in 2011 when a University of Michigan study came out saying that many people who used social media incessantly showed symptoms of cocaine addiction. Five years later they would repeat the study and find that 20% of social media users couldn’t go more than three hours without checking their social media accounts.
“Social Media is like crack — immediately gratifying and hugely addictive” -Gary Vaynerchuk
So obviously I am a teenager, and like most other kids my age I next to live on social media. In doing my own research I don’t think I can go as far as to say I’m addicted to social media, but a scary amount of my weekly screen time is divided between Snapchat and TikTok. With all this in mind, I decided to leave all social media platforms for 30 days. To hold myself accountable I’ll be checking in every few days and talking about how it’s going.
DAY 4: It feels like it has been significantly more than four days. The main thing I’ve noticed is it’s taking a lot of brainpower to break the habit of opening my phone then immediately click on Snapchat. Every time I open my phone I click the spot where it used to be and accidentally open soduku.
DAY 6: I’ve noticed that it’s almost isolating not being on social media. People all around me are just sitting on their phones or asking “Did you see her post” or “I know I can’t believe she did that”. It feels like everyone knows what’s happening but me
DAY 9: I’m really starting to question if I can do this. It’s been less than a week and more than anything I just feel excluded.
DAY 13: Today was the inauguration and I’m glad I wasn’t on social media today.
DAY 19: I’m starting to realize I’m a more positive person when I’m not focusing on social media. I’m also realizing that while I say I’m good at listening to my friends, there’s a difference between hearing and listening.
DAY 25: I’m so close to the end but I honestly don’t know if I want to go back. Life is so much more peaceful without it.
So let’s summarize. Over the past 30 days, I’ve had two big revelations. First off teenagers suck at communicating. Secondly, teenagers suck at listening. We literally have the same attention span as a squire and it’s our own doing. Nothing this month was harder than actually focusing for prolonged periods of time. Even listening to someone talk for more than two minutes my head started to wander. Our addiction to 15-second videos and pictures we just double tap and never have to see again is ruining our mental capability to function as humans. I believe that not just every teenager but everyone who has an electronic devices need to try this. Now you don’t have to quit for a month, maybe you just go a day or two. It is so insightful and really makes you look at our current reality in a whole new way.
“It’s not that we use technology, we live technology” -Godfrey Reggio
