Social media – the cocaine of today?
Have you ever tried to quit social media? Were you ever tired of the constant craving for logging on and checking what happened (or didn’t happen) with your friends? Well, you are not alone. Maybe you are afraid that you’re addicted to some sort of social medium or maybe you don’t want corporations analysing your data, many people have tried to reduce the time they spend on social media.
Possible factors that are contributing to why you cannot quit are related to FOMO (Fear of missing out). Everyone is on Facebook and you don’t want to miss out on all the good stuff. Also, the network effects of social media might be addictive too. Network effects mean that a specific network gets more valuable if more people are on the network. This means that if more people are on Facebook, the network more valuable to you.
Researchers from Cornell University have analysed surveys of people who tried to quit social media using the website http://99daysoffreedom.com/. They found some possible factors that are contributing to why you cannot quit social media.
- People who think social media is addictive or see them as habits are more likely to return to social media after having tried to quit. Did you ever go to an internet browser and typed in the url of a social website, even though you didn’t explicitly want to do that? Then you might be more likely to revert back to social media after you have tried to quit.
- People who use social media to check and manage what other people think of them are also more likely to go back to social media.
- If you’re in a bad mood, you are more likely to go back.
- Other social media are also important. If you tried to quit Facebook, you’re less likely to revert back when you have other social media to go back to.
If you really want to quit, you could sign up here. (http://99daysoffreedom.com/) or try to schedule your social media time (once a day for example.) For all others: here you go: https://www.facebook.com/
Sources:
http://sms.sagepub.com/content/1/2/2056305115614851.full.pdf+html
http://www.computerworld.com/article/3014439/internet/social-media-addiction-is-a-bigger-problem-than-you-think.html
Thanks for the interesting read! The thing besides missing out on social events might be the simple fact that you need to have some of these social media. For example, some universities use facebook groups for their courses, which means every student needs a facebook account to participate in the course. Or even the student related groups in which students share their summaries and thoughts about certain university related subjects is something that could be considered a need as a student.
Thank you for this read! In my opinion social media can truly be compared with cocaine. Many people are addicted to it and do not even know it. And the same as with the drugs, once you “tasted” once you are very likely to want more and more. In my opinion this addiction can have a lot of negative effects for individuals and for the society as a whole. Even today we can see a lot of people who already live their lives of Facebook and create a false imagine about themselves, an online alter-ego in order to escape real life. This can lead to isolation and even depression. Therefore, should be more aware about the downsides of social media.
Hi Dian,
Thanks for this post! I agree with Vincent that you need to have access to social media to stay informed about certain topics. To add on, I think it could also be looked at from the perspective that organizations use social media to inform individuals about upcoming events. A Facebook event allows an individual to see the basic details of the event (where, what, when), how many people are going and how many of these are friends. I think the easiness of only needing 1 platform to obtain information about all events nearby is what would also make it hard to completely quit social media.