Staff Writers
When it comes to social
media, how much is too much? A poll was taken of students who looked at their
screen time and phone usage. In the past seven days most students have said they
spend at least four hours or more per week on their devices, highest
being an overwhelming 53 hours. The apps that students used the most were
Instagram, Snapchat, Tik Tok, and YouTube not far behind. The average time
spent on the most used app was 1.7 hours. Being on your phone obviously takes
up a lot of your time, but what about when you’re not on your phone? How many
notifications do you get? Students said that they get anywhere from 20-243
notifications per day, 76 being the average.
So students
spend a lot of time online. How do they feel about this? 70% of students said
they liked social media, 20% said they were conflicted, and 10% of the students
said they didn’t enjoy social media. If such a large percent of students liked
social sites, why do 70% of them want to reduce the amount of time they spend
on these platforms? Quite possibly people only say they want to reduce their
time because “they want to be a better person”. Does anyone turn into a “bad
person” after spending an extra hour scrolling through Twitter?
We are
pretty attached to social media, and we never realize how long we are on our
phones until we see the numbers. While we do enjoy this time we spend online,
it is often time that could have been spent participating in more fulfilling
activities. There could, however, be a good reason for its influence in our
lives. If you leave an app like Snapchat, you are immediately are out of the
loop. People make plans, share stories, pictures, and thoughts on platforms
like these. This is a major way we communicate now.
Things are
never going to be the way that they were. Most of us don’t share vacation
pictures via slide projector anymore, or show up at someone’s house to hang out
without texting first. Social media is definitely addicting, but it’s a big
part of our lives.
