A millennial is a person reaching young adulthood in the early 21st century.
Engagement with social media releases a chemical called dopamine, every time a response is received on facebook or your follow count goes up on Instagram or you receive likes – this chemical is released. And it feels good so young people constantly want a hit of it, they are always on their phones. And if you get unfriended and no likes – this makes you feel sad. Dopamine is the same chemical which is released when we smoke, drink or gamble. Basically, it is highly addictive. And with alcohol, smoking and gambling there are suggestions/restrictions/age restrictions about how much you should intake but for social media – there is a constant accessibility and no one telling you that you shouldn’t do it, and even 10 year olds can access it. This needs to be addressed more, people should acknowledge when they are using social media too much and reframe from scrolling when bored.
Even though young people today constantly talk to friends online, it is becoming an increasing problem that these social media friendships are just superficial, they aren’t real. Too many kids don’t know how to grow deep meaningful relationships. They have fun with their friends but they don’t count on their friends, they don’t rely on their friends and they know their friends will cancel on them if something better comes along. They don’t practice the social skill set enough to have better friendships and they don’t have a good coping mechanism for dealing with stress. Therefore, instead of turning to a person for help and reassurance when they are stressed they turn to social media, to a device. This offers a temporary release but studies have shown people who use facebook more actually have a higher risk of suffering from depression.
Putting your phone on the table at a meeting or out for dinner with friends gives the table a subconscious message that they aren’t that important to that person. But young people today don’t put their phones away because they are addicted. And like all addictions, social media can actually ruin relationships, cost time, cost money and make your life worse.
Another problem is impatience, today we live in a world where we can buy a product and get it delivered the next day with Amazon, where we don’t need to date because we can just swipe right with Tinder, where we can watch what we want whenever we want thanks to Netflix and other movie subscriptions. We need instant gratification and we can get it with pretty much anything. Except for job satisfaction and relationships – two of the most important things in life. Love, joy, job fulfillment, self-confidence and love of life all take time. But the journey is long and difficult and people need the patience and dedication to see it through. Now with young people, we are seeing an increase in suicide rates, depression, in kids dropping out of school and of accidental deaths due to drug overdoses.
Social media and the constant access we have to it through our phones is a temptation. Young people today need to stop going on their phones at every second they can be in when you go to the bathroom, waiting for a bus or traveling on the tube. We must take this temptation away and that is when ideas start to come and innovation is formed when our minds start to wonder we get our best ideas.