Candice Thompson
In Motion Staff Writer
It’s 7 a.m. and the alarms on millions of smartphones are buzzing everywhere. Half asleep, phones across the world are picked up, groggily silenced and then attention is turned straight to Facebook, even before sleepy eyes are fully open.
Is this the new norm? According to studies, almost half of all FB users check their accounts as soon as they wake up. Thirty percent of users aren’t even out of bed yet. Considering there are 1.5 billion active accounts, it’s enough to convince anyone that the world has a social media addiction.
The stats are difficult to argue with. Five million images are uploaded to Instagram every single day. According to AdWeek.Com, people between the ages of 17 to 29 spend up to 21 hours on social media sites per week. It seems social media has made people less socially interactive in the real world.
But to what extent and at what cost? The cost of humanity and common sense, it seems. Paramedics taking selfies with dead people, relatives taking selfies at funerals. People performing crazy stunts just to post on YouTube, resulting in serious injury or even death. It may be that more people have died taking selfies than from shark attacks. So far, there have been 12 selfie deaths this year and only five shark-related deaths. According to National Geographic, New Smyrna Beach has been named the shark attack capital of the world. In fact, anyone swimming in the water at New Smyrna has been within 10 feet of a shark, the magazine says. Maybe we should be less afraid of sharks and more terrified of people taking selfies while driving.
Why do people risk their lives if it’s so dangerous? Simply put, posting selfies and getting positive feedback on posts stimulates the reward part of our brains. When researched, however, more than half of the users state social networking makes them feel depressed and anxious. Mental highs followed by a sudden and stagnant low.
How does that happen? Constant competition and needing to be just as good or better than their peers.
Not enjoying the moment they are in, instead, focusing on taking pictures for the sake of social media. Most people are comparing their entire life — the highs and the lows — to their friends’ Facebook pages showing only the extraordinary moments. Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Vine, Instagram, YouTube all combine to make even the most outgoing person feel inferior.
Social media has become the ultimate “keeping up with the Joneses.” It may be time people put their phones down and take back their lives.