Social Media Addiction: There's a Cure

I think all of us can admit that using social media can be quite addicting sometimes. When something good happens, when something bad happens, when you hear your favorite song, see a good movie, read a good news article, got a new job, lose an old job, get a significant other or lose that significant other, we run to Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, etc. to share our news. And because something like this (or something less significant) happens to us everyday, we spend a significant amount of our lives changing statuses and tweeting and messaging. Furthermore, because this happens to our friends hundreds of times a day, we spend an even larger time checking their statuses and tweets and messages.

Before we know it, we have spent hours on Facebook and Twitter, not doing homework, laundry, grocery shopping, calling family members, reading, cooking, exercising or anything that we should have. For most of us, it is not necessarily our intent to waste our entire lives on these social networking sites. Most of the time, it starts as a very innocent break in between assignments or a way to relax after a long day or an honest attempt to get in touch with a friend and before we know it, it's half past 1am and you are writing a blog post for Advanced Computer Applications that you probably should have done hours ago.

The article we were assigned to read for our computer apps class gave some very helpful tips on how to kick the habit of obsessive use of social networking. I thought all of them were very helpful. They definitely take practice and a lot of commitment, but they are definitely manageable. To put the main idea of the article plainly: prioritize your time and do other things with your life.

I can personally say that whether for business or entertainment, I spend an excruciating amount of time on social networking sites. This enables procrastination, doesn't help me get a lot of work done and is distracting at times. The article mentioned above has very helpful suggestions on how to kick the habit of habitual social networking, but I was also interested in the forced restraints that were suggested at the bottom of this article we read in class the other day, such as programs you can install on your computer that blocks whatever sites you want for a pre-determined amount of time, which you cannot take back once its activated. I will definitely try the more voluntary regiments first and then move to more drastic measures if these don't work.

I suggest that everyone in my same predicament try these methods (voluntarily or involuntarily) so that we can all free ourselves from this "obsession and addiction" to social media, because it wastes too much time.

A Week Without Facebook = A Week Without Air

Earlier this week in Advanced Computer Applications class, we were challenged to log off of Facebook and to not log back on for 7 days. For everyone who uses Facebook, we know that is 7 days without status updates, pokes, inbox messages, quizzes, chats and everything that we spend hours doing every day.

Starting out, I thought it would be pretty easy. A week without Facebook would fly by and I would be back on Sunday evening without even missing it. Then, the next day, I got a letter telling me I got accepted to Elon University. Well, there was no way I could go seven days without telling my 1,100 friends on Facebook, right? So, I did. Disappointed in myself, I logged off again...until the next day, when I had to check on Facebook on the time and date of an event I had to go to. I logged off again, pledging to still do seven days without Facebook. But every day since that day, I have always found a legitimate reason to log onto Facebook, if just for 5 minutes.

It is a source of entertainment, networking and organization and it is especially difficult to lose a tool like this for one week. I will try again at some point, but it always seems that the need to communicate and network is always there. We ALL will kick the addiction at some point, but we have to take it ONE day at a time (not seven).

7 Ways the Internet is Ruining Your Life

A few days back, in my previous blog, I praised the internet for how it is revolutionizing the way we communicate and changing the world at a faster pace that ever before. Despite the title of this blog, this premise still does rung true.

However, the internet is not all peaches and creme (or "all facebooks and twitters".) Though the world might be better connected and more productive, the individual is becoming more disconnected and lazy as a consequence of this new digital age we are immersed in.

I ready this very humorous article the other day called "7 Ways the Internet Is Ruining Your Life" on a slightly inappropriate college humor website. But, it did bring up some very good points. The 7 ways that the internet is ruining ours lives are:

1. It's making you stupid
2. It's warping your sense of reality
3. It's ruining your social skills
4. It's making you fat
5. It's turning you into a douchebag
6. It's stealing your privacy
7. It's making you boring

All of these I see as (at least partly) true. Here are my personal responses to each.

1. Even though the internet is an endless source of knowledge and a very accessible point of reference, the way it is being used by our generation is taking our focus away from the knowledge we need and is connecting us to pointless Youtube videos and the "this is what I am doing right at this very second" updates on Facebook and Twitter. We can be using these resources so much better, but there are so many pointless distractions at one click that our brains are suffering.
2. When we are on the internet, we are in a whole different world. On the internet, we can be brave, popular, handsome and carefree while on the outside, we are friendless, war rages and our house is about to be foreclosed on. We are separated from the pressing issues of our lives and of the world and when that happens, we become useless to our families, friends and to the world.
3. Having social skills are developed through interaction with living, breathing people. With the internet, we could interact with thousands of people each day and never actually interact with anyone. In the Facebook and Twitter age, we can be so distant from people that we lack the necessary skills to interact away from our computer screens.
4. Not moving = increased weight. Plain and simple. Get up and get your 60 minutes a day!
5. The internet gives us the opportunity to speak anonymously and to speak without consequence. If we take advantage of this luxury too much, we forget how to turn it off in the real world. We lose the capacity to censor ourselves when appropriate and we submit ourselves to the consequences that come with it. Saying whatever we want, whenever we want to people does not make you independent, fearless or confident: it makes you a jerk.
6. What happens on the internet, stays ON the internet. The internet knows no confidentiality. I have been a user on the internet for maybe 5 or 6 years now, and everything I have done on the internet is neatly organized in a simple Google search. Thankfully, I am a pretty straight-edged young guy, so whatever you find is neither heinous or life-ruining, but for those who like to take shirtless photos on Facebook, picture of you and your friends drinking and post statuses that have more four-letter words than late-night Comedy Central, you might have a problem.
7. For those who can only develop conversation about yesterday's Facebook statuses, quote Youtube videos or teach me how to illegally download the new Lil Wayne album are...boring.

So, I would have to concur: the internet has many benefits, but when used to excess, it can be dangerous to your health.

The Power of the Internet

In my advanced computer applications a few days ago, we watched a video about the vast impact new technologies and the internet has on the world and how quickly the world is changing, faster than at any time before.

The video presented some really great (and mind-blowing) facts about the exponential changes going on in the world right now. For example, (Did You Know that) the most in-demand jobs of 2010 didn't even exist in 2004, and while it took the television 13 years to broaden its user base to 50 million people, it only took Facebook 2 years to do it? The way that information and technology is growing is astounding.

Schools are now preparing students for jobs that don't even exist yet and preparing them to solve problems that aren't problems yet. Half the curriculum that a college student who majors in some sort of technologically-geared field learns will be outdated by his third year in college.

The world is moving and changing at such a fast pace now due to technology, like the internet, that the world has to prepare for obstacles and opportunities that have not even presented themselves yet.

The internet has changed the world so dramatically just within the last five or six years and has dramatically changed the way we find news, communicate, work and even wage war! The changes show no signs of stopping, and the changes will only come faster as time passes and technology grows.