Social Media Addiction Essay

This means social media has turned out to be a basic commodity to the young generation. Social media refers to a platform that permits interaction between users through the use of Internet access (Kaplan & Michael 62). Social media is characterized by day to day upgrading which causes addiction to young people. This essay underscores the social media addiction to millennial. Social media addiction affects millennial due to easy accessibility of the internet which creates a notable addiction effect in terms of communication and psychological influences. Psychological behavior includes poor restraint on high impulse to users while sharing their personal and private information without making a consideration about the risk involved. Alcohols and drugs are associated with addiction but in the recent past, a new form of addiction has emerged that is characterized by social media addiction.

Despite the addiction to social media causing physical damages like alcohol and other drugs, its effects are mainly felt through emotionally, relationship and behavior. Most of the generation born immediately after World War II had to fight the vices of alcohol and drugs, but the current generation of Millennia ’s has to deal with social addiction (Hammersley & Reid 20). Majority of the young people born between the years of 1984 and 2005 are affected mostly but the Millennial since they embraced the digital world and are now using technology to interact with others making it a lifeline to the rest of the world and are now using technology to interact with others making it a lifeline to the rest of the world. The formation of own self-image depends on the capability of an individual to reflect on one’s feelings, thinking and behavior.

The biggest challenge that social media is that it leads to people depending on the opinion of others in the formation of this self-image. Studies indicate that millennial students are showing higher forms of narcissism where they have exaggerated intelligence and are portraying self-images of attractiveness and academic reputation (Frantz 320). Self-reflection with such narcissism does not go well with current society since it is essential in bringing learned and balanced decisions. The age of the digital world has changed how the millennial are addicted leading to most of them changing the maladaptive behavior amongst them. Neil Howe who came up with term “millennial” has suggested “Homeland Generation”, the name that suits the next generation. However, I doubt whether there is any person who can accept a name similar to one of a government agency.

A survey conducted in the US in 2015 found out that most teens owned an iPhone (Simon and Schuster, n. p. the term it was then used to refer to them. However, spending much time watching TV programs are also not different; actually, it is worse in many ways. For young people to develop social skills, they must spend enough time with their friends. According to results attained in 2014, they revealed that 6th grades that spend five days at school or campus without exposure to mobile phones were able to read and interpret the emotions of others suggestion that mobile phones might cause the skill of you people to deteriorate. In addition, the iGen generation has developed a reading culture that the previous generation; it is common to see this generation reading books, magazines, newspaper, and journals than the previous generation did.

The annual monitoring survey showed that the number of high school students who read non-academic materials almost on daily service dropped from 60% in 1980 to 16% in 2015. Millennial should be cautious and make sure they post the right things as a negative may affect their adult life. Just like drugs and alcohol, social media is very addictive. Some people spend much time on social media than they spend on constructive things like reading or working. Social media addiction also comes with negative side effects such as isolation which also lead to depression. The more people use social media the less happy they seem to be and vice versa. This is connected to information risk that controls information concerned to personal traits and attributes. Social media transform values that can be categorized as positive or negative.

The common users of social media platforms should continue to use the service as long as it is meeting their goals and privileges. According to research conducted in the United States shows that exposure to social media mediums leads to dopamine jolt occurrence that affects the brain by being excessively exposed actively on social media. The occurrence of jolts occurs when an individual makes a positive comment on what is written on the web. Hammersley, Richard, and Marie Reid. Why the pervasive addiction myth is still believed. Addiction Research & Theory 10. Krasnova, Hanna, et al. Privacy concerns and identity in online social networks. Social Media in Employee Selection and Recruitment. Springer, Cham, 2016.