If you tried to tell me you have never been guilty of spending an entire evening on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram or YouTube, I wouldn’t have an easy time believing you. It is way too easy to get distracted by these platforms when you sit down at a computer to do homework, and all of these time-wasters have such easy access.
Social media poses other problems beyond procrastination, like a reduction in face-to-face interaction and an emphasis on creating an online persona that can become a fake replacement for real life. When you have to check social media multiple times during the day and scroll through your phone while walking (and a result, never talk to people in class because you can’t get off your phone), it is unhealthy. Doing this makes you “check out” of real life.
I recently considered how I could stop spending so much time on social media. I felt I was missing out on the “real world” by focusing on a screen. Not able to bring myself to delete any of my social media accounts, I decided to try doing a huge cleanup of the accounts I was following on Twitter and Instagram, my two biggest weaknesses. “Unfollowing” and “defriending” my accounts allowed me to spend less time reading pure junk. I also started following several news outlets on Twitter, artists on Instagram, and poets, literary journals, and interesting bloggers on Tumblr. For the first time, I feel like even if I do spend some time each day browsing social media, I am widening my mind and reading and looking at things that are important.
I have also made a conscious effort to separate time for myself to peruse social media, instead of looking at my phone every spare second I get between classes. There are a lot of interesting people using social media as their outlet. Reading or looking at what they have to share is wildly entertaining and important in making our world smaller and encouraging the sharing and acceptance of views, as long as it does not take away all of the time we could be spending in our real environment.
I recently saw a commercial for the new Nexus tablet where a little boy is planning to give a speech to his class and uses his tablet to help him every step of the way. He looks up inspirational speeches on YouTube, reads self-help pages about how to overcome fears of public speaking and even receives an inspirational message from his mom that pops up right as he is about to give the speech. It reminded me of my recent new stance and strategy toward social media. This boy used his tablet to help with his homework, and the resources of the Internet led him to go above and beyond.
My first thought upon seeing the commercial, however, was that it was pretty unrealistic for a kid to use their tablet for anything other than gaming. The only way to really use social media as a tool for enrichment is to be mature enough to let it broaden your horizons instead of shrinking them.