In one way or another many of us have become somewhat addicted to social media. Do you check your Facebook every ten minutes? Do you unlock your phone to check for alerts on who has just liked or commented on your latest post? Are the number of reactions you get from your new status update controlling your level of happiness?
Recent research suggests that social media activates the same part of the brain activated during the use of drugs like cocaine. That’s crazy right? The part of the brain associated with addiction and pleasure is called the Nucleus Accumbens. It operates on two essential neurotransmitters; dopamine and serotonin. Both dopamine and serotonin are essential hormones necessary for happiness and well-being, but over-stimulating them can cause addiction.
So, what exactly is social media doing to us that makes it a cousin to cocaine?
Addiction of any kind has a negative impact on our life, health, relationships and our outlook. When it comes to social media and our devices we check them as many as 150 times a day on average because, like cocaine, the feel-good feelings never last and we want to experience them over and over again.
Social media is a socially accepted addiction. It doesn’t seem to have such a negative impact on our lives, but as more and more research is done it has been proven to have an extremely negative impact- the extent of which we’re still finding out about. And if we’re completely honest with ourselves, we feel that negative impact, don’t we?
Does spending time on social media make you feel good? Yes. Does it make you feel bad too? Yes. Is it distracting from real life? Yes. Do relations in your life feel less important because your social media is first and foremost? Yes.
We’re all realizing the truth about social media. It can be used for good or evil and unfortunately we can’t control its effect on us each time it pops up on our screens. A single status update from a friend can take away our happiness just like a negative media story can.
A yes to any of the above questions means that social media is running you instead of the other way around. No obsession is good. Let me say that again. No obsession is good. Too much of anything can lead to addiction.
Is there a solution? Yes, and it’s about control. You controlling when you check into social media and for how long. Most of us have a million things to do daily. Getting trapped in the vortex of social media should not be one of them.
#Smallsteps
Set two, three or four social media check-in times daily and spend the rest of your time on things that really matter in life like time well spent with family and friends.
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