Smore Reflection
Siavash Ahmadi
Social Media and our "Addiction"
Many would say that we have a very unhealthy relationship with technology. They say that we are not using it for what it was initially created for. In order for this to not become a permanent reality and ensure the prosperity of our future generations, we must limit our use and abilities of technology. What this means is that we need to limit the extent of the things that we can do with our phones and computers. Another thing we could do to ensure that this does not become our future is to limit the amount that we are on our smart phones. I always try to do this when I am hanging out with my friends. My battery dies quite rapidly and when it does, it is over, I do not try to immediately find a charger so I can go back to playing Swype Brick Breaker instead of being with my friends. I also always tell my friends to put their phones away when we are together as well. You can look at your NBA tweets later when your alone at home, but right now we need to be together and enjoy the moment.
I agree that they are many benefits to social media we some people are easily addicted and drawn to it in an exceptionally unhealthy manner. However, I know for a fact that this is an addiction that we can easily control. I know this because I used to be an avid social media user until one day I just stopped. I quit and shutdown my Facebook and now I have no other form of social media. People take this “addiction” to be way more intense and serious than it truly is. If we do not try to stop this so called “addiction”, then it could easily lead to the destruction of the lives of those using social media and their family and friends surrounding them. It could cause so many people to become disconnected from reality which is incredibly sad considering that all a person has to do is delete their page and just stop.
They are many instances in which people have used social media and the power of technology for the greater good of the world. For example, in the online community of Reddit, the people have created a Secret Santa event. Each year approximately 20,000 people participate in a mass gift exchange where in you send a gift to a random person and you receive a gift from another random person. This caused a spinoff in which 3,000 people gave over $20,000 worth of gifts to the troops overseas. Social media can be easily used for good if people could just stop using it for bad things. So many people use social media as a way just to snoop on other people and speak their minds, no matter how inappropriate, with little to no backlash. If we can harness the incredible power of our current technology and our social media platforms, then we could easily change the world for the better.