How social media takes away our humanness

hi

i’m armin and wait hold hold on one

second

all right where was i okay so obviously

that was scripted and i meant it in a

lighthearted way

because it can be amusing when we

recognize our own faults

what is not so funny is when our faults

limit our real-life interactions

we have all been the person to whip out

our phone at the wrong time but rarely

are we called out for it

why is that we are the creators of

social media

we have accustomed to this irrational

idea that replacing real conversations

with online communication is okay i’m

here to prove to you

that it is not social media has begun to

encroach upon our humanity

to the point that it even takes away our

humanness

now you may be wondering what this

really means the dictionary says that it

involves the nature of people

technology and more specifically social

media are quite evidently

not in our nature not only does it

change what we do

but it changes who we are the instant

you were born were you inclined to send

a snap to your friend

or to cry looking into your mom’s eyes

the name social media also misses with

our minds a little

and making us think that what we’re

doing is social in reality

it is the polar opposite in order to

identify how social media brought us

here

we need to examine our past so let me

give you a brief overview of how social

media came to be

the first recognizable source of social

media was six degrees

founded by andrew weinrecht in 1997

aiming to help friends communicate in a

more convenient way

online the first renowned source of

social media

facebook was launched seven years later

by mark zuckerberg

it helps close friends keep in touch and

distant friends stay in touch

but by communicating online it becomes

unnatural

this attitude we have is commonly

misconceived as okay

as humanlike and natural the intentions

have been lost

we are letting social media take us to

places we never wanted to go

and we are stuck trapped in a maze

full of crossed wires and do not know

which way to turn

which path should we take

now it is easy to get lost in thinking

about these thick

questions as they are deep and

unanswerable

on the contrary i feel that smaller and

easier questions can help us see the

issue from above

i asked many of you the spring va survey

a couple of

thin and answerable questions to help us

see from a broader scope

out of the 145 respondents approximately

90 percent of people

said that they used their phones for two

hours or more on each weekday

and another 40 percent used them for

four hours plus

on the weekends over 60 percent use them

for 5 hours or more each day

adding up to 10 hours in total now when

we find ourselves mindlessly wasting our

time on these machines

how is it fair to tell our parents we

can’t come to the table for a family

dinner

as my charts indicate health and

humanness are directly related

according to the majority of you guys

social media takes up too much of your

time

due to the ongoing pressure here in the

technology capital of the world

many of us are sleep deprived social

media

almost always has a negative impact on

the amount of sleep we get each night

and less than 15 percent said that it

never affected their sleep time

this data also shows that students feel

that their grades would be better

without social media

although we can all agree it has a

number of social benefits only some of

your real self is shown online

you can pick out your identity and

change who you are

online interactions have become junk

food for our brains

and have us hooked how much more direct

could i get in that

i just supplied you with relevant and

relatable statistics

that you could be a part of that you are

a part of most of you feel that it takes

away from your sleep

that it is dehumanizing cal newport a

professor at georgetown university

states that there is a growing amount of

research telling us that if you

spend your day in a state of fragmented

detention to take quick

glances or just check your phone it can

permanently reduce your capacity for

concentration

quite ironically this act of trying to

be a well-rounded human

but taking care of your social profile

is actually dehumanizing

all the attempts to stay in touch

distance you from being social

keeping in touch with our friends is

good if used in a healthy way

communicating in real life is much more

valuable than doing so online

next time you open your phone to message

a nearby friend about how their day was

or send a picture of your face with no

context i urge you to set up a time to

meet and hang out

this shouldn’t take more than 10 or so

seconds and is a great first step

in retaining your humanness

if this is too hard for you at the

moment and you need time to adjust to

this

virtue of spending less time online try

sending yourself a screen time

if your parents haven’t already if they

have maybe ask them to lower it a bit

to challenge yourself and strive for a

better you

social media or social life

ted talks or tick tocks you need to make

a choice

you