Obedience

Jacquelyn Glover

Lepper & Haack

English 1117 -32

Oct/12/16

“What would you do with an extra 136 days in a year, would you spend more time with your family or go on a vacation?” Statistics say on average we spend 9hrs a day on social media, meaning we spend 136 days total out of the year on these sites. It’s been over a decade that I have been on every social media site, there possibly is out there. I mean heavy use of it too, nearly every wakening hour to every single night. I find myself strolling through my social media sites, being nosy and looking at what everyone is up to. Usually at night time I find myself getting sucked into the Facebook feed, strolling through un-compulsively. I look up at the clock and its now 2 am, that was 3.5 hours, I just spent on Facebook. I’m not here to bash social media, and I am certainly guilty as the next millennial spending too much time on the web. But, do we even realize exactly how much time we spend on these sites, or the fact that it is extremely addicting. I have proven facts to believe it would be more than beneficial staying offline, trust me, the statics will astonish you and not only that social media sites can do more harm than good.

For instance, majority of the population has some sort of social media page. We go on social media sites for many reasons. We all attend to care what people think of us, and we all want to feel accepted. But also we all want to feel liked. With having Social media, it multiplies those thoughts and feelings without us even realizing it. Also many people go on social media to keep in contact with long distance friendships and family. But on the other hand, It’s not healthy to always be under the knife of criticism. Nor being judged and commented on our lives and usually its often by complete strangers.  For example, according to Kristina Rodulfo, "says "I've spent the majority of my teenage life being addicted to social media, social approval, social status, and my physical appearance.” Rodulfo continued with “It’s a system based on social approval, likes, validation, views, success in followers, it's perfectly orchestrated self-absorbed judgement”. With that being said, how can we see ourselves and our true purpose and talents if we are constantly viewing others. Furthermore, social media gives a human a sense of authority to do something they normally wouldn’t while being behind the screen of a computer or a wireless object. With the technology today our sources to do this, are rite at our fingertips. This creates cyberbullying, Stalkers, and predators the ability to enable their power with these sources. They can receive private information, and have the abilities to track your every move. Not only that, social media spreads like wildfire, meaning if someone is out to get you all they have to do is spread the word on their site, and with an instant millions will see. A prime example of giving humans a power of authority is the video called Zimbardo. This video is about an experiment and how the power of a situation can change them. Twenty-four male students out of seventy-five were selected to take on randomly assigned roles of prisoners and guards in a mock prison. In a matter of just a few days, the “fake” guards actually started to miss treat and humiliate the “fake” prisoners are if they actually did something wrong. Proving that giving someone the power of their situation can change them. But also to make it out to believe what the “fake” guards were doing, was okay since they had an authority over the prisoners. With that being said a person behind a computer screen feel like they have power of authority for many reasons. For one, they can remain anonymous, or create a fake account. Secondly it provides a senses of protection but also they believe there would be no consequences. Lastly, people on social media sites feel like they can do or say as they wish, but also don’t have fear of retaliation for their doings. Social media is a powerful tool for the wrong kind of users and most of us are in so deep with social media we don’t even realize the delusional power and impact it has on our lives.

Another key point, how much do you think we all spend on social media sites a day? I have that answer for you, and trust me it’s pretty alarming! According to CNN “On average we spend 9 hours a day, consuming social media.” Like I had said above, I broke that down into a year to dividing that into how many hours are in a day, giving us the dramatic number of 136 days out of the 365 days in an entire year, we spend our time on social media sites. To me, that boggles my mind. How in the world have we let social media become more entertaining than actual entertainment? As a matter of fact, I remember back when I was younger our entertainment was going outside, playing games, and physically playing with friends. But also having to actually go over and knock on your friend’s door to see if they could play. Now it’s about who’s going to have the next invention of the coolest phone that’s coming out. To only socializing on social media and texting. But also, constantly having our phones in hand and constantly looking to see if we have new messages or new notifications from our social media sites. With all this in mind, it seems to believe social media is more important than actual valuable time. According to Global Web Index-polls “daily time spent on social media is increasing, up to 1.72 hours”. Given these facts, it is safe to say next year’s poll won’t be going down anytime soon. Due to the outrageous numbers, I sat down and truly thought about how much time I am wasting towards something so unrealistic. But also something that is wasting time towards something I could turn into wonderful memories. For instance, cuddling with my children, taking them to places that we would all love and enjoy. But also, just spending that much more time with them in general. In fact, I truly feel sad and selfish that I wasn’t putting that time towards my children and family.

Lastly, I know a lot of people would not confess nor admit, that they spend too much time on social media. But a guy named Brian Gardner tells the truth “I made myself a promise that I would speak honestly here, and this post is another example of something that I think needs to be said. Social media is killing my soul.” He explains that when people overindulge on something it can begin to ruin our lives. Gardner’s something was social media. He also explained that when social media was taking time away from his family and causing him to have resentment, that he indeed has a problem. Gardner went on to explain that some people would assume he has an addiction, which he agreed that he certainly did. Not to mention, he isn’t the only one that has admitted to this either. According to Holly Polvika from bigfuel.com “Parents are armed with Blackberries or iPhones, always in hand, checking email or on the Internet. My daughter used to hide mine. I was so addicted I had to often close down my phone because my thumbs were sore from too much texting.” Lastly, I wanted to provide you with these statistics, other adults admitting they indeed spend too much time on social media as well. According to Global Web Index-Polls ‘As a share of the time we spend online, these engagement figures mean that social networking now accounts for almost 30% of our daily internet activities.” With all this in place, who’s to say that there are still more people out there that have this problem but not admitting to it. To repeat, thirty percent of our daily activities are on social networking, that’s a pretty hefty number and that’s only in one day. That is getting close to half our day being spent on these site. By all means, we must be too blind to see social media is taking over our daily lives. Or maybe that some of our new technology might be creating more trouble than good. In fact, if there was a way to get rid of social media sites, I would bet most people would have a break down and feel lost without it.