On the Throes of Social Media Addiction

Social media has wormed its way up with how we conduct business, talk to people and perform tasks. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google + and Pinterest are some of the social media giants that have become integral parts of our daily lives. While many of us find these social sites useful, some users find them too pleasurable to the point of obsession.
It’s easy to see why people get hooked with social media. You have a wide audience, you to talk about yourself with almost no censorship and you feel instantly connected with your peers. These media have made telephone, letter writing and even text messaging seemingly old school. With Facebook, you can automatically post photos for your friends to see, rather than manually message them from your mobile phone. With Twitter, you only need to see the recent twits of your favorite celebrities rather than scan magazine articles. Instagram has even replaced the old-fashioned way of creating collages and scrapbooking.
Social media certainly made it more convenient, easier and faster to connect, but it has also replaced real-life interactions. The number of likes, retweets and comments have become the benchmark for this digital age’s self-image and confidence. At a glance, social media is nothing but a product of constant technological evolution; it also leaves considerable impact to people who just can’t get enough of it.

Social Media Addiction is Real
If you scroll through your Facebook or Twitter feeds, you’ll find concrete evidence of friends and followers who are possibly addicted to social media. Do you really need to know what Mary had for breakfast, or what John and Stacey fought about, detail by detail? Does Jane need to check in every time she leaves an establishment until she comes home? Do you really need to know at what level your Facebook friends are in Candy Crush?
You may find interesting information about your friends’ lives through social media, but often than not, you’ll find more of the mundane and superficial tidbits that your feeds can surely live without.
To illustrate how social media per se affects the majority of the internet users, consider the following statistics:
65% of adults sleep beside their smartphones, or place them under the pillows
An average American spends 16 minutes of every hour in social media sites
62% of Facebook users age between 18 to 34 log in to their Facebook accounts even before washing their face in the morning
16% of Twitter users under the age of 25 rely on Twitter for their daily dose of morning news instead of tuning in to the television or reading a newspaper
57% of social media users chat more online than they do face-to-face and in real life
Indeed, social media has made it apparent that it is more addicting than alcohol and drugs, and social media addicts feel like their days, nights, and hours aren’t complete without logging in to their social networking accounts.
You can read more of this article in our April 2014 issue of ModelsMania.