Social media has become a huge part of people’s daily lives and is a useful outlet for meeting friends, expressing thoughts and making professional connections. 

Although social media allows us to stay in touch with friends and family, it has become a waste of valuable time. 

According to TechJury, 83% of all internet users were engaged with social media between April and September of 2020.  Of these users, only 24% found it has a positive effect on their work.

This increased dependence on social media is not a good thing and we must combat it.

Gradually, social media begins to affect mental, emotional and psychological health and leads to social media addiction.

According to McLean Hospital, social media platforms are designed to be addictive and are associated with anxiety, depression.

Social media finds its space by filling a lonely void in a person’s heart and providing a feeling of comfort. 

It can show people what they want to see even if it isn’t reality. This causes people to become obsessed with social media. 

A social media obsession can force people to correlate their self-worth with the number of likes and comments on their posts.

This just wastes time that you could spend doing something more productive like school work or learning a new skill.

I understand social media has great benefits. 

Without social media during the nationwide lockdown last year, we wouldn’t have been able to stay in touch with many of our friends and family. 

While social media dependency was a problem before COVID, the pandemic has heightened it. 

Last year everything was online, even classes and appointments, and people were constantly judging and rating themselves by monitoring activity on social media.

But if you spend too much time on social media now, you may find it difficult to interact with people in person when you have to do normal social things like go to job interviews. 

Social media undoubtedly has some great qualities but it also increases anxiety levels and can make people feel depressed and desperate.

Too much of a good thing is a bad thing.