Social Media is Killing Your Productive Time.

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Social media has become quite a regular activity for most people. Whether it is Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Tik Tok, you name it, it has become one of the most popular entertainment industries in the world.

Chances are you have also heard plenty of times how social media may have a quite negative effect on your life. Though it is easy to brush these downsides off as easy to handle or unimpactful, that just won't do anymore. Studies have repeatedly shown that there is a clear correlation between social media usage and lesser wellbeing.

Social Media is Killing Your Productive Time.

Let's first ask: why do we even use social media? What is the sole purpose of social media? Global Web Index researched this, and apparently, it is used mostly for ''passive networking'' (consuming the content rather than contributing). People use it to ''stay in touch with friends'', ''fill up spare time'' and ''to find funny or entertaining content''.

Not too bad of a thing here. There is something wrong though, with the amount of time people spend on social media. ''Filling up spare time'' by scrolling through social media has brought us to spending 135 minutes per day being active on sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc. More than two hours, a day, of nothing but going through the feed looking at how well other people are doing.

Another complaint people usually have with social media, other than it using up your time you could've spent doing useful activities is that people start comparing their own status, attractiveness, and welfare to these unrealistic symbols social media icons create of themselves by only showing the positive side of their lives. This causes us to create unrealistic expectations of our own lives.

Happiness researcher Dr. Tim Bono explains this exact phenomenon:

“When we derive a sense of worth based on how we are doing relative to others, we place our happiness in a variable that is completely beyond our control. It’s nearly impossible not to get swept into the cycle of comparison. Scrolling through the highlight reels our friends’ posts inevitably fills us with envy because of the things we now want." - Dr. Tim Bono

Besides that, spending time contemplating why your life isn't as well as others causes you to spend, again, less time performing useful activities, activities mind you, that could actually lead to that prosperous life you're wondering why you don't have. ModiusHealth states something which lays an easy link between decreased attention span and social media. "Most of us use social media almost subconsciously, jumping on without any clear goals or any real interest in finding something specific. Instead, we are simply looking for “a fix”, some sort of dopamine dump, and a way to kill time while we procrastinate or otherwise ignore our responsibilities.".

When you are sitting at a table, and that phone is sitting there in arms reach, it often occurs to people they just pick up the phone and scroll through social media without even really thinking about it. Doing that per se does not have to be a big deal, but doing it on a regular basis, subconsciously, causes this habit to negatively impact our focus, when we are supposed to work, study, etc.

Which brings us back to the question: ''Why do we use social media?''. To consume. It literally consumes all of your time, meant for productivity or not. It doesn't just consume your time, though. It negatively affects your mental health, being most likely one of the leading causes of the growing depression and suicide rates among teens. There are already plenty of people who have written articles on quitting social media, and why you should do so.

Spend your time wisely, limit time spent on social media and lead yourselves toward a better, joyful, productive life.

Social Media is Killing Your Productive Time.
Social Media is Killing Your Productive Time.
13 Opinion