Addiction to Social Media "Is Facebook Making Us Sad?" Free Essay

Research shows that most people who are addicted to social media live a depressed and unhappy life. Teenagers and young people are profoundly affected by the impact of social media as they lose their physical communication ability. The stress that comes with frequent monitoring of status, profiles and other updates involving personal life on social media is depressing. Again interacting with people in real life apart from social media becomes difficult for people who are addicted to sites like Facebook (van, Regina, Jeroen, Lemmens & Patti, 480). I have nice been a victim of depression contributed by addiction to Facebook. Due to my history with social media, it is important to monitor our activities n social media by avoiding exposing our personal lives and ensuring a healthy relationship. Also, it is good to make use of Facebook to acquire informative material and information (Hawi, Nazir & Maya, 583).

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When I was in my early twenties, I spent all my life in Facebook updating status, posting pictures to strangers and flirting which affected my social life. My communication and physical interaction with families, friends and the society was affected making me live a lonely life. Additionally, I have been through high feelings of stress, isolation, and low self-esteem as I tried to present a false picture, image and character of myself on the social media. Many are the days I spent a sleepless night just chatting with friends and strangers just to make them happy. Addiction to social media makes most people unhappy, and some end up getting involved in unhealthy practices just to please the online community (Bhagat, 7). High cases of drug abuse, trafficking and theft are associated with addiction to social media as people get involved with wrong people. When friends post pictures of glamorous summer and holiday, parties and meals which we could not afford, most people end up feeling inadequacy and may engage in evil activities to get money for such lives (Ryan et al. 7).The primary cause of Facebook depression is the attempt to be like facebook friends and please them. The desire to live other people's lives like been up-to-date with fashion, having modeling figures and going for parties makes people especially teenagers unhappy and upset (Bhagat, 6). Decision paralysis among young people comes as a result of enormous options on the Facebook comments, chats, messages requests to join groups and many others that a human brain cannot handle at the same time. Additionally, attempt to hide our real self from the people and to paste a false image to the strangers can be tormenting as friends and family members who know us better can see the posts and realize we are lying. Posting photo shops pictures create fear and disappointment in case someone discovers the truth. Also, Facebook depression comes as a result of getting many friends we trust with personal issues and opinions only to end up disappointed when they expose us to the online community (Edwards, 34).

Addiction to social media leads to life dissatisfaction. Facebook makes us long for things that are beyond our capabilities. Dissatisfaction brings stress, depression, and unhappiness in life resulting in withdrawal from the society around us. Addiction to social media primarily Facebook promotes envy and jealous as online community compare their lives with current happiness (Edwards, 38). Most people addicted to Facebook exacerbates negatives emotions as a result of social comparison mainly by wealth, poverty, beauty and race. Additionally, the platforms are related to mental health issues of low-self-esteem, loneliness, social phobia and suicidal thoughts. Some cases of teenage suicide are related to life dissatisfaction and jealous as a result of pressure to live like their friends on the online community. Another effect of addiction to face book is prone to psychological dependence on the technology. People rely entirely on the social media to search, seek and desire for more information. Since most of the information is sketchy, social media leaves a person feeling unhappy and wanting to have more (Hawi et al. 580).

Young people especially teenagers' need a good guidance on how they spend their time on social media for the wellbeing of their health. There is need to balance between online and physical connection to reduce pain and hurts. Distance and false imagination experienced through use of Facebooks affects our psychological and wellbeing (Van et al. 482). Thus, it good to have more physical contacts with friends and family members and create a strong bond and connection rather than presenting our personal lives to total strangers. It is good to make use of face book and their social media platform to gather content that will be of help in life and in academic performance rather than scrolling to view people's status and profiles (Ryan et al. 140). Facebook is not the best source of entertainment or place to spend leisure. It is good to set time to be with families and friends, to set specific time for using face book and where possible to get disconnected from social media an hour or so before bedtime.

Addiction to social media especially face book makes us unhappy with ourselves and the world around us. Facebook brings dissatisfaction, jealous and envy and mental health like depression, suicidal thoughts and social phobia. Happiness is essential in life hence I have learned to separate myself from things that makes me sad among them been face book. It is good to set use technology gathering essential information that makes people grow rather than those than add depression and hurt. Social addiction brings more hurt than happiness to our lives thus it is good to use it responsibly.

Works Cited

Bhagat, Shelly. "Is Facebook a planet of lonley individuals? A review of literature." Int. J. Indian. Psychol 3 (2015): 5-9.

Edwards, Francine. "An Investigation of Attention-Seeking Behavior through Social Media Post Framing." Athens Journal of Mass Media and Communications 3.1 (2017): 25-44.

Hawi, Nazir S., and Maya Samaha. "The relations among social media addiction, self-esteem, and life satisfaction in university students." Social Science Computer Review 35.5 (2017): 576-586.

Kuss, Daria J. "OP-59: Social networking sites and social media addiction: Insights from current empirical research." Journal of Behavioral Addictions 6.S1 (2017): 29-30.

Ryan, Tracii, et al. "The uses and abuses of Facebook: A review of Facebook addiction." (2014): 133-148.

Van den Eijnden, Regina JJM, Jeroen S. Lemmens, and Patti M. Valkenburg. "The social media disorder scale." Computers in Human Behavior 61 (2016): 478-487.