Social Media Bad

By Ethan Nguyen

A little bit before my first semester of college, I listened to the advice of my dad and some friends and deleted all of my social media apps. The decision was harder than it should’ve been, as I thought social media didn’t negatively affect me too much. Sure, for years I was what many would call a phone addict, but I was still somewhat productive. In high school, I always had done school work on time, maintained above a 4.0 GPA, and finished my chores every day … you know, the bare minimum for an Asian household. But two months into college, I finally appreciated having deleted social media, and I regret not doing it sooner. Using social media for multiple hours a day resulted in me developing a lower attention span and a bad case of procrastination.

I wasn’t always a phone addict though. I got my first instance of social media in sixth grade because everybody else was downloading it. However, at the time, the effects of social media on my mental health weren’t bad yet. My parents restricted the amount of time I spent on any electronics to about thirty minutes a day, but sometimes I could play longer if they felt I deserved it. Writing about this brings me back to a conversation I commonly have. Most kids my age had super cool consoles around then, like a 3DS, Xbox 360, or PlayStation whatever number. Even if they didn’t, kids would watch shows like SpongeBob or be on Disney channel or Cartoon Network, etc. Regardless, the conversation normally ends with the other person telling me that I didn’t have a childhood. Obviously I did, but not the same as so many of these other children. Instead, I spent my childhood with mainly physical things. My dad put me on two basketball teams, which took most of my time. And when I was at home, I would mainly play with my Legos and toys.

Life was like this all the way until high school. Entering high school for me was like finding freedom. My parents started paying for my phone service, and with my high school being within walking distance from my home, my parents allowed me to decide when I would go home. I could have stayed to hang out with my new friends; we would play games and sometimes watch some anime. Anything was fine as long as my parents knew I was safe. However, they were tracking my location like 24/7, but it was a big upgrade from before.

A big difference between my private Catholic middle school and my new high school was the fact that phones could actually be on you during school hours. It may not seem like a big deal, but my middle school would confiscate your phone if the imprint was even seen in your pocket. So high school was a total game changer. In fact, some classes didn’t even stop you from being on your phone during class. I still remember my surprise from my new high school classes. While the teacher lectures, the entire class would either be talking or on their phones, which would never have been allowed in my old school. But it's not like I hated it, I actually liked it. As I said, it was freedom! My parents’ grip on my life was suddenly loosening, and I could finally do what everybody else did. As long as I kept up my grades, right?

Although I had a lot of exposure to social media, the effects of social media on me during my freshman and sophomore years of high school weren’t too bad. My levels of procrastination were mild, and I don’t recall being easily distracted or having less memory. Instead, I feel like I received enhanced versions of those previously stated negative effects during the Covid-19 lockdown. Once Covid began, and everybody was stuck at home, all my friends and I communicated through social media, mainly Discord. We would be on a call all day, playing games and whatnot. My parents were aware of this but allowed it because I had nothing else to do. It’s not like I could go outside. So through the Covid lockdown, my parents became used to me being on my phone or electronic devices, and thus, gradually, I developed unhealthy habits and negative effects.

Social media over quarantine began to be used as a way for me to kill time. It crept up on me, and as the cleverly developed algorithms started to understand me as I spent more time on social media, the more time I threw away as the content matched my tastes. A never-ending loop of media. TikTok's algorithm did this especially well. I personally enjoy watching anime, which I got into when I started high school; it was another thing I began doing once my parents stopped being control freaks. TikTok took note of this and capitalized on the opportunity. It understood which anime I liked, my kind of humor, and much more. It continued to feed me so many things that interested me, and that’s why it became so addicting. For the entire duration of my junior and senior year of high school, my Apple Screen Time reports that I spent from six to eight hours on social media every day, laying down on my bed watching TikToks and Instagram reels. I can recall many times when I had just chilled on my phone for way too long, and the feeling I get when I know that I should be doing something else. “One more video,” I would say, attempting to trick myself into exiting the app. “This is the last one for today,” I would say. But the next video would be so captivating that I would entirely forget my deal with myself. What’s funny is TikTok actually has this feature where if you’ve been scrolling for a long time, it tells you that. Basically, this black guy pops in and says, “You’ve been scrolling for way too long now! Maybe you should get some foo- ”. I don’t remember how it ends because I always continued scrolling and not listening to the guy, haha.

For six to eight hours a day, I wasted not only my time but my mental health. I didn’t become depressed, but I felt highly unproductive and worthless. At some point, I noted that I was having a hard time paying attention to certain things without checking my phone every five minutes. In class, especially online Zoom classes, I would find subject matter that I was once passionate about to be uninteresting and end up watching Tiktoks instead. I would also find myself starting my homework every day around 9 or 10 p.m., because I would rot away on my phone until the voice in the back of my mind, which was getting louder and louder as more time passed, finally convinced me to start my homework. It was particularly hard to be productive after wasting all my time and energy on social media. Being on those apps for the most important hours of my day – like when I wake up, right after I eat, and before I slept – trained my brain to constantly expect more stimulation. So when I would have to study for a test or do time-consuming homework that didn’t stimulate my brain on a level that social media did, I would either end up going back on my phone or half-ass the assignment. It was like Stockholm syndrome. Even though I would feel like shit watching these videos for eight hours a day, I always went back because it was an easy way to get quick dopamine. Instead of finding pleasure the way I used to when I was younger – playing sports, with toys, or simply staying bored – I chose the easy route: social media. And so I graduated with this underproductive lifestyle that was destroying my brain.

During my first semester in college, my dad, who had started getting fed up with me, and a few close friends – who had recently also done this – convinced me to delete social media. It was more like a mandate on my dad’s end, but I believe it’s the decision to stop using social media that makes the difference. I can still totally search ‘Instagram.com’ on Google, and sometimes I do when somebody tells me they sent me something. Regardless, I think that the decision to intentionally stop using social media has helped me tremendously. My phone is practically empty now, prompting me to actually get ahead of my classes and cut out the time I would have spent procrastinating. I can also study or do work for much longer periods of time whereas before my brain would have tired out or gotten bored very quickly. College is seemingly easier than high school, maybe because I stopped using social media.

On the other hand, I do want to note that the harms of using so much social media and technology during my high school years are still with me today even though I have stopped using social media. Just the other week, I noticed that I would pick up my phone and quite literally scroll through my home screen pages on my phone. They’re practically empty though, simply the camera app, photos, messages, Gmail, etc. Just the basics. But I found it so odd that I knew that there was nothing on my phone and that I still had work to do, yet I scrolled through my empty phone looking for something new to stimulate my brain. I even caught myself opening the Snapchat app, even though I don’t have an account, and playing mobile games I used to play as a kid. I ended up deleting them though because they were starting to get distracting. In other words, the absence of social media apps did not fill my brain’s need for immediate pleasure. Unfortunately, I’m getting withdrawals from reducing the usage of my phone.

In the end, I’m glad I deleted those apps later than never because the feeling of unproductivity and laziness was very overwhelming. Although I do feel as though I’m missing a part of myself, I’m much more productive in the things I do now than ever before. I don’t know if I plan on ever redownloading social media in the future because I’m still going through the withdrawal process. But if I ever feel like I’m totally over it and feel mature enough to handle being able to not become addicted again, I’ll think about it. Social media is a very addictive thing, and it is available to almost everybody. Instagram for example is marketed in an innocent way, saying, “Bringing you closer to the people and things you love.” I mean, they’re not wrong, but personally, I was brought a little too close. Now that I’ve stepped away from social media and gotten an outside perspective, I feel that society perceives the usage of social media as having a positive impact on the world. You’re able to share wonderful things with other people, and the social advantages include fitting in with others who also use social media. However, I believe the negative implications of social media far outweigh the benefits. It scares me to think about how so many other people may be struggling with it, or not even realizing that they are.