We Can Piss And Diss At Social Media All We Want. The Fact Is — It Changes Lives.
Perspective is everything.
Many people swear by social media. Many more piss and diss it. Technology, and specifically social media platforms, have infiltrated our households through invisible bits. These strings of 1s and 0s cannot be stopped by walls and doors.
These data bits infiltrate our physically erected high walls and transform themselves into information that we consume in our rooms through our smartphones.
For the first time in history, doors are used to prevent adults from entering the room, so we can engage in intriguing activities away from their watchful eyes. I do not know why, but it sounds like a revamped version of exploratory sex during teenage years.
There is legit fear in what we cannot control. It applies to what we cannot block out. Bits are bits. 1s and 0s do not care who you are, where you are from, what you do, why you are at home. Bits find a phone and present themselves in ways that capture our attention.
And therefore, adults are worried that their children get addicted to social media. The prospect of having their children scrolling their phones through the day freaks them out.
There are scores of alarming statistics demonstrating the negative, pervasive impact of social media on our teens.
I will quote a segment of this study found online.
Social media addiction is a growing phenomenon not only in the United States but worldwide. The average person spends nearly 2 hours a day using social media, which amounts to 5 years and 4 months of his/her lifetime. In that time a person could run more than 10,000 marathons or travel to the moon and back on 32 separate occasions. For teens, social media time spent could be up to 9 hours every day.
Time wastage is one dimension. Now, add depression to the mix.
The accessibility of mobile technology and social media hasn’t been without consequences. A 2018 study found that teens who spend 5 hours per day using their phones were almost twice as likely to exhibit depressive symptoms than counterparts who dedicated only 1 hour to their phones.
Interestingly, the relationship between excessive mobile use and depression appears to be strongly linked to gender, with 58% more females than males experiencing depressive symptoms.
The actual study presented online is longer than my block quotes. The study is cited at the bottom of this article for your interest.
So, we have the perfect storyboard for all things doom and gloom. Addiction, depression, suicidal inclinations, restlessness, anxiety, plus other negative inclinations are thrown into the cocktail mix.
However, I would argue that no one issue or thing is 100% evil or good. We have to take a step back, actually, many steps back, and think critically about social media and how we are using them.
Are there zero benefits?
I Am Asking An Obvious Question Because The Obvious Can Point Us To A New Direction.
I am sharing 3 stories within my 1st-degree network. They have found blue oceans for themselves through the use of social media.
The beauty of each story is in the vastly different ways they found their success.
A 56-Year Old Retrenched Administrator Turned Instagram Influencer Running Her Own Business.
I wrote a story about Auntie Sim previously, so I will not repeat it here.
There are many points I want to make from her life story: -
- She is considered old in the Social Media world.
- She did not grow up with social media.
- She did not know what social media is until 2020.
- She does not know FaceBook, Tik Tok, Linkedin, Twitter, Snapchat.
- All she does is Instagram and Instagram Live.
The last I spoke to her, she has made enough from her home-based business to send her daughter for overseas education. What an achievement!
At the same time, it made Auntie Sim’s daughter reflect on her time spent on Instagram. When I met them for breakfast, her daughter is no longer posting images of her brilliant day. Instead, she is promoting Auntie Sim’s cookies through Instagram Stories.
She is also thinking of starting her own side-hustle while studying full-time.
A tool is a tool. How we think determines how we utilize the tools in front of us.
And how we think determines whether we become a luminary or an idiot.
A 17-Year Old Who Paid Off All Her Tertiary Education Even Before She Started Studying.
Her name is Sim-Anne (fictitious, but very close to her real name).
I fell in love with her after meeting Sim-Anne for the first time. These are her social media exposures: -
- Started social media at the age of 14.
- Started with Facebook and Instagram.
- Abandoned FaceBook at 15. Amassed 10,000 loyal followers on Instagram at the same time.
- Skincare product endorsement deals started floating at the age of 16.
- Closed $10,000 of commission from influencer-driven sales by the age of 16.5.
- Took 10% of the proceeds to invest in a better smartphone, lighting, microphone.
- Closed $30,000 of commission from influencer-driven sales by the age of 17.5.
This is as much as she would tell me. Then she skipped to the part where she can afford to pay off her polytechnic fees in cash today, without her parents paying a single cent.
Does she sound like a depressed, addicted, anxious teen to you?
So, how did she do it? What is the difference between her use of social media compared to the other teens?
This is the recipe for her success: -
- She does not post images of a beautiful day.
- She does not post images of her pretty face.
- She shoots many videos of herself after a track repeat workout and spoke about fitness.
- She shows trails of healthy living through her images and videos. Some of them are as simple as having a big bottle of water beside her wherever she goes.
- She does not show people the food that she eats to be skinny. She recommends food for people to eat for a healthier living.
This is her path to success.
She continues to attract disparaging looks from onlookers wherever she goes. She continues to do what she does.
And Then, There Is Me. Haha, Whoops!
Here I am, stuck in an embarrassing middle between the 56 and the 17.
I have not experienced massive success from social media at this point. What I can say is from my experience, and I choose to focus on the positive. Here we go: -
- I have received countless invites for Fractional C-Suite roles through Linkedin. Many of them are from startups.
- Many of the stories and articles I have written got circulated into Twitter by friends and connections, many of them I never met.
- A vast majority of guests in my Livestream program became my business partners.
There is definitely something valuable in the world of social media. We have to learn to see them, not diss and piss at them at first glance.
My Takeaway.
Good and bad co-exists.
They are like the angel and demon in our minds.
Many people found success in social media not because they know how to hack it but because they are open enough to embrace it.
And we should.
We should because technology is the ultimate driving force that will change the world.
The disruptors behind their technology always win. I do not see horse carriages, cassette tapes used for distributing songs, multi-volume hard-back encyclopedias today.
It is a world of electric vehicles, Spotify, and Wikipedia.
We can find people to do business with, communicate with on social media today.
If history is any indication, today will become tomorrow over time.
And before social media fades into the background, we should learn to use them for our benefit.
The point is to use social media to change our lives for the better.
Source: Study on Social Media Addiction by Mediakix.
Aldric
About the Author:
As a content contributor, I write my observations from daily life and my business exposure.
Because our life experience is the bedrock of our unique perspectives.