Waking up, what is the first thing you do? You grab your phone, check your messages, view your mailbox and then open your social media apps and spend a lot of time browsing through content. Why do we commit so much time to this morning routine? It is not so much that we read important information, but it is more about the feeling of not wanting to miss anything that has happened since yesterday. Most people see technology as a tool, something that humans can use to reach certain goals. But when technology is highly involved in our life, we tend to let technology control us. We become overly dependent on technology.

According to a study conducted by Flurry, the average hours spent per day on a mobile device is 5 hours while millennials now spend up to even 9 hours a day on social media platforms. A day comes with 24 hours, subtracting the average sleeping time of 8 hours gives us 16 hours. The average time spent on your mobile device equals 31,25% of the time you have available each day. According to a news article from The Telegraph in 2011, a student ‘addiction’ to technology is ‘similar to drug cravings’. They found that four in five students had significant mental and physical distress, panic, confusion and extreme isolation when forced to unplug from technology for an entire day. They call it “information withdrawal syndrome”.

Another report from the American Psychological Association (APA) stated that being constantly connected increased stress. Immediately checking and responding to your emails is bad for your health. This urge to immediately reply to your boss, co-workers or clients is named “workplace telepressure.” Removing the barrier between your work and private life disrupts the balance. Work follows you even after you are done. A fixation on work email can contribute to physical and mental burnout.

Moreover, 45% of the parents feel disconnected from their children because of technology, according to APA report. Not only parents can feel this way, also friends. Often when millennials are physically in the same space as their friends having a meetup, they are distracted from reality by being constantly on their phone. They are talking to other friends while neglecting their friends right in front of them. Why? Because everyone else is also doing it. It has become the norm.

The number of meaningful relationships a millennial has is scarce. The majority of millennials are active on social media. According to the Pew Research Center, an average Facebook user now has 338 friends. This number is, of course, a lot higher for millennials. Having so many (digital) friends, keeping contact with lots of people at the same time, and negligence of friends mentioned in the paragraph above, makes you feel easily replaceable. You feel having a lack of personal attention.

Last but not least, millennials are raised with the message that they can do anything they want. They are the generation that will change the world. So we grow up with the thought to really have an impact on this world. Articles popping up daily about another successful young entrepreneur. However, the reality is far different for the most of us, where success is not reached instantly.  Now add social media, where everyone portraits themselves as the best version of themselves, often unrealistic. Millennials spend so much time browsing through all the content on social media and watching how perfect and impactful other people’s lives are, that they become insecure when they compare it to their own life. Because they are comparing a perfect illusion with reality.

“Millennials will be the smartest, most developed and successful generation the world has seen so far”. This is the general thought of the rest of the population when they think of people born between the early 1980s and the early 2000s. Because of the rapid development of technology during this period, millennials are (expected to be) familiar with using technology. Which is true for the most part, in my opinion. Technology has been intertwined with our lives from the day we were born. Millennial’s technical competence, the rise of technology and high welfare during their upbringing are the main reasons for why the expectation for this generation is so high.

We, as millennials, love technology, we cannot live without it. Too much, and it becomes an addiction. You hate that you love your social media addiction, but there is not much you can do. By removing your connectivity to the rest of the world, you feel anxious, alone and untethered. We are the first generation that grew up in this technology-focused environment. Whatever problem we encounter, we will also solve it for the generations to come. So, my final message is: keep on using technology but stay aware of how it affects your life.