It may not be hard to remember the last time you were online (You are at this point of time). You may find yourself on the top of everything and people may find you “networking”, while you are glued to FB for 10 hours a day.
While social media is a great way to (procrastinate) connect, it should not overshadow any aspect of your life.
Whether you consider it a compulsion, an addiction, or just an incredibly bad habit, social media, just like anything else, has the potential to negatively impact your life.
How do you determine whether you have a social media problem?
Forget the snarky comments about only speaking in 140 characters or less, and instead examine your social media habits the same way you would examine any addiction.
DARE TO GO OFFLINE
One of the things that make your social media habits difficult to comprehend is that you aren’t opening your F.B. for a reason, you are just opening it because you have that mobile app (and near zero levels of concentration). Some of us who engage in social media for work and even to find discounts and information about essential errands such as grocery shopping eventually spend 2 hours stalking our family members and scrolling Myntra because we can’t find anything (less) productive to do.
Visiting social media sites many times a day and spending significant time on them is alarming in and of itself. When a habit interferes with your daily life, however, you should be concerned.
If you find that you are becoming so absorbed in social media that you are neglecting work or college, ignoring your family members (the ones you aren’t stalking ), and withdrawing from activities you used to enjoy, you may have a problem. When we allow one activity to eclipse everything else, we are living an imbalanced and dysfunctional life.
SIGNS OF TROUBLE
Try to stay away from your mobile, tablet and Laptop for an hour. (You will surely see a change in your whimsical self).
Anxiety, a darkened mood, and an inability to function can indicate addiction, they are also understandable emotions when your primary way of connecting to the world and staying on top of things has been removed, especially when that could have grave consequences.
IS IT A BIG DEAL?
We may think it should not be that big of a deal, because our world has evolved, and we now live in a technological age. Most of us struggle with leading a resonating lifestyle if we can’t log in for a day. If we are unable to adapt over time or simply cannot change our habits, however, that is a major issue.
If you try to restrict your time online and continually fail, you may be developing a dependency on social media. When we are unable to implement changes that improve our lives, something is definitely amiss.
“You are not your status. You are not how much likes you get. You are not the contents of your Linkedin profile. You are not your snap-story as well. You are the all singing all dancing crap of this world”
So now that we have established that there might be a problem, let’s look at what can be done.
