With the recent talks of a possible federal ban on TikTok, a widely used social media platform popular among teens across the world, the highly vocal complaints from the public have been a sign of what has become somewhat of an obsession among the younger generations. Social media is exactly what it sounds like it is—media, because of all the information, entertainment, and news relayed through it, and social, for the concentration on the connection to the lives of others through these websites and apps. But whether this is a good or bad thing for us is a complex question, with various answers depending on where you look or who you ask. At first glance, it doesn’t look horribly harmful—Everyone uses it, after all. That’s why we need to look at more of the story.
Let’s start with the facts. From 2015 to 2022, US teens who say they use the internet “almost constantly” have risen from 24% to 46%, with their average time spent online clocking in at 7.5 to 9 hours per day, with around 5 hours of this being from social media. That is a LOT. However, you’ve probably heard these warnings, these tirades before, about how we use social media too much. But it doesn’t seem to affect me now, so what’s the big deal? Trust me, I get it, I’m one of you—I’m a teenager, and to me that average screen time number isn’t really surprising. It’s easy to become desensitized to the reality of our obsessiveness, but after a closer look, we can see how it does affect our lives. If we take 7 and a half hours as the average screen time usage among teens in the US, and assume that we continue this deeply ingrained habit for years, this screen time adds up and starts looking a lot more scary. Over a 10 year period, 7 and a half hours a day on average will end up being around 1,141 straight days of using your phone! But that isn’t all on social media, right? With social media averaging around 5 of the 7.5 hours of daily phone usage, the time spent on social media during a 10 year span comes out as around 760.67 days. That’s a lot of time out of your life that is spent online—the time that’d be spent on your phone during those 10 years would be similar to the amount of time spent sleeping during those 10 years, assuming that you get around 7 and a half hours of sleep.
So surely, the time spent on social media alone is a big red flag. So why do we use it? There are some very appealing aspects to social media, of course, otherwise no one would use it. It allows us to feel connected to our peers: it unlocks to us the world of trends, and pop culture. So many trends on social media can feel like large inside jokes, something that you can be a part of. Our humour, references, and slang often all start on social media. It’s an entrance ticket to young American culture. However, many teens themselves are conflicted about their own feelings on social media, even as they continue to use it.
Junior Esteven Ayala Rivas says that in his life, from social media he’s seen “A net positive, because most of the time I’m on social media, I’m just texting my friends, or doing something for my job.” This is a valid point, that social media is just a tool at the end of the day, and it can be used in a positive and healthy way. To help you stay connected to your job, for example, is a great way to use social media. Esteven’s only complaint about his way of using social media is that “it’s easy to misinterpret what people mean, people don’t interpret things the way you mean for them too,” which highlights an advantage of trying to focus on in person interactions over online interactions with friends, because it’s easier to communicate and understand each other in person.
“I think overall it’s been a net negative.” comments Senior Jacob McBride, a student at Independence High School, when asked about the overall effects of social media on his life. That doesn’t mean it’s all bad, though. Jacob went on to say that if he had the chance to go back to when he got social media and the option to not get it then, he said he would “have it at an older age, when I kind of understood it more, because when I first got it, I was kind of thrown into it, and I didn’t really know much about it.”
Children are more prone to be taken advantage of on social media, and they are more prone to build unhealthy habits and addictions to social media, as they don’t understand how much is “too much” when it comes to its usage. All they know is that it entertains them, and makes them feel satisfied in that unique way that scrolling does.
The specific ways that higher volume of social media usage can harm us include a greater likelihood of depression, exposure to harmful content, and addiction, which also causes its own issues, like loss of sleep, reduced physical activity, and other health concerns.
When we sit and scroll, we don’t ever have to think, or use our brains. We don’t ever have to be bored. When we send our friends reels, we don’t have to work very hard to maintain contact with people who are far away from us. We get used to a lot of our relationships relying on these apps. When we want news of current events in the world, often we get our information from social media. These sources of news are often intentionally inflammatory, and sometimes flat out false. Although most social media companies claim to regulate misinformation, which isn’t completely successful, they cannot regulate inflammatory or biased information, or propaganda.
What do we lose when this is how we spend our time? Even when we are spending it to connect with people, which isn’t the worst thing, we miss out on the opportunities to use that time to build or strengthen relationships with the people we are with in real time, whether they’re parents or friends. We lose time to learn things through experience, we lose the time that we should be spending being curious. Especially when we’re children, as is often when we are exposed to social media, we need that curiosity, that exploration of the world for ourselves, that we can only get through boredom. And even though many of us (including me) are already addicted to various forms of social media, I believe it is still possible to take a few steps back, one at a time, and to see what we might be missing out on. So maybe, no matter what the government decides about TikTok, we should consider taking the initiative to make the change for ourselves. I know that it’d definitely be good for me (and my grades) if I took some time off from scrolling! Consider trying to reduce your reliance on social media, focus more on having real conversations, create more in-person memories, and on strengthening your in-person relationships.
