Social Media:  The addictive habits we do not want to admit – Part 1

I remember once seeing a photo that one of my nieces had posted on Facebook.  There she was striking a pose on a selfie in some scanty bikini.  Of course, there were the accolades of comments, and hundreds of likes from her peers…much to her short lived delight. 

Yes,  I immediately told her to take the said image down.  Hence forthwith…boy, I can be stern huh!  It did not end there…  

This was promptly followed by an instant phone call to her parents.  I know I was not popular with her for a short while, but for goodness sake, she was only 13 or 14!   Her parents however thanked me profusely.  I was gobsmacked, shell shocked even, at the vulnerability of kids on the internet these days.

As much as there are many advantages of social media, and we all enjoy using these tools, there are some habits, even potentially hazardous…yes…hazardous, to be found using Social Media.  The stark truth is no one is immune from them.    

Don’t get me wrong, Social Media is wonderful.  But there are times, I have had to take a step back and evaluate how too close for comfort, I am with Social Media and deliberately put the brakes on.

The point is can we admit some of the following below or have we even noticed? 

 ##1  What are your kids doing?

The minimum age for social media is usually 13 years but it is surprising to find 10, 11 and even 9 years olds using and having social media accounts.  YouTube has a minimum age of 18 although parental consent is required for kids between 13 and 17. 

Recently, a head in a school in UK stated that certain social media can increase early sexualised behaviour in youngsters and leave them vulnerable for sexual exploitation (source:  BBC).  There are some really terrible, gruesome and violent images on Social Media.  Allowing your kids to use YouTube unsupervised is like allowing your kids to go to the video shop (back in the day) and take and watch any film they want unsupervised.  Think about it.

##2  Unbalanced comparison factor

We post a photo and get our ego stroked when we see how many ‘likes’ we have accumulated. Our ‘likes’ are equated to our popularity and the fame we seek.  Our ‘likes’ prove we are faring better than our friends in terms of ‘likeability’.  We even get upset when others do not like our post and have liked others instead. 

##3  Insignificant validation factor

‘Looking good!’, ‘You look younger every day’,  ‘Congratulations’.  With the ego stroked, we await the comments to validate our importance as we go through midlife crisis or reclaim our youth.  For kids, this is the next best thing to being a cover girl or boy.  Are we hypocrites?  We criticize celebrities, but we ourselves become mini celebrities seeking the same paparazzi limelight that those in the media crave.

##4  Once posted, everything is no longer ours

Once you have posted something on most Social Media, the content is never deleted even if you disable your account.  Everything posted on social media is instantly shareable, can be edited and thereby misconstrued.  They can go viral, rightly or wrongly, or brought up decades later when you are running for candidacy – better think twice now about some of your photos!  In short, there is no privacy clause.  This makes it dangerous for kids as seen in the example with my niece above.

##5  False identities

Kids are into this one, but there are also some adults that create false aliases.  The latter may be to spy on some ex or do some naughty acts to mask the double life they live.  Why go through all that bother?  Kids are more into Instagram these days, so that their parents and ‘aunties’ like me, ha, can’t see what they are up to. 

In the work we do in Defying Mental Illness, a lot of the people we meet on Instagram are teenagers hiding behind weird aliases.  It is shocking that they go to Instagram to get advices from friends and peers who are in similar situations like them, who undoubtedly cannot help them. 

It is amazing to see how these kids congregate together talking about self harm and then taking the conversation off line to comfort each other.  Only heaven knows what they gain… or lose!  Kids also lie to make themselves cool to some kid in some other country.  There is also the predatory danger of criminal adults that mask as children for their shameful acts.

##6 Addiction

Before you know it, anyone can be hooked on these Social Media.  There are some people who always seem to be on these media.  1 am, they are posting, 7 am they are liking, Noon they are commenting, 2 pm they are sharing, and so on. 

When do they sleep or eat?  Nonstop, their names are on all the notifications and statuses, till you have to switch these off!  This is because social media is so addictive, and sadly we do not want to admit it. 

We have our good reasons initially for using Social Media – we are marketing, getting leads, keeping in touch, spreading the Good News; but we are also spending an inordinate time on achieving these goals. 

For starters, not many know that it is against Facebook policies to market your business on your personal profile.  If you do, your account can be closed without notice.  Also the more number of followers in a Page or Group, the less your posts appears on the followers’ news feed.  (Apologies, if I don’t like your stuff, the truth is I may not have seen it!).   This is because Facebook wants businesses to pay for their marketing through their ads!

The realities of using Social Media was highlighted in a report in 2012 by Anxiety UK.  They did a survey on the use Social Media and how it affects our emotions.  53% said Social Media had changed their behavior.   51% of these said this change had been negative.  Of these, they also reported feeling less confident when they compared their achievements against their friends.

To be continued…’non addictively’!

If something I said resonated with you then why not share ‘non addictively’, of course on your social media!

About The Author

Zoe

Zoe met Eze (Chuck) in the 14th year of what turned out to be an 18 year ‘journey’ with mental illness. They got married less than a year of meeting with Zoe fully knowing Chuck had a diagnosis of mental illness. In the 18th year, Chuck defied the odds of mental illness. A consultant psychiatrist signed him off the mental health system with a bill of NO MENTAL ILLNESS. The consultant was so amazed by Chuck’s astonishing recovery that he even questioned how Chuck was diagnosed with mental illness all those years before, in the first place! Today Chuck is free from medication, its dependency and hospitalizations. Zoe’s award nominated book, DEFYING THE ODDS, chronicles the highs and ‘lows’ of this journey. Zoe, often writing from the standpoint of a caregiver, clearly understands that mental illness does not only affect an individual challenged with the disease, but also families, marriages and society as a whole.

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