How often do you find yourself scrolling through your phone during the day? Perhaps while waiting in a queue to pay for shopping? Or in the waiting room before an appointment? These seem like legitimate times to do so, right? But how often do we really check our social media even when we’re not waiting in a queue or doctor/dentist’s office?
I think many of us would be surprised by how much time we ‘lose’ daily being distracted by our phones. From ensuring we haven’t missed any emails, and checking-out the latest posts on Instagram, to wanting to stay up to date with the news or look something up quickly on the internet, we can still find ourselves busy half an hour later because we keep finding another useful link that may be the answer we’re looking for?
Social media covers a lot of ground these days. It’s not just the internet anymore. It’s Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok, even using WhatsApp nowadays can fall under the umbrella of social media. And I’ve probably even forgotten a few! I believe it is very much a modern day ‘problem’ and I refer to is as a ‘problem’ deliberately because it has truly changed our lives dramatically – and the jury is still out about whether it’s for the better…
According to the statistics that Deyan Georgiev from TechJury has been able to gather, an average user generally spends approximately 2 and a half hours on social media. Indeed, teenagers can spend anywhere from 7 to 8 and half hours a day engaging in some kind of screen time! That’s A LOT!
I find it ironic that we adults can spend up to 2 and a half hours a day on social media and then complain that we don’t have enough hours in the day to get things done! We’re also now getting an inkling as to the detrimental effects of social media on the impressionable minds of our young. Depression and suicide have generally never been so high, which is a tragic reflection of our society at large. How are these youngsters supposed to learn healthy social interaction skills for their interpersonal (not to mention, romantic) relationships later in life?
Perhaps we, the ‘grown-ups’ in this scenario, need to step up and set the example. Despite not being a huge social media user myself (I tend to read but rarely post), I realised that even I would find ‘unplugging’ for an entire weekend quite the challenge! How many of us could honestly do so easily? This is how I came up with the idea of The Summer Challenge. I challenge all of us to try unplugging for one day – not even an entire weekend, as that may already be setting us up for failure. Hence, one day where we turn our phones off completely or simply on silent. Those of us with young children or elderly parents may want to quickly glance every so often to ensure we haven’t missed a message, but otherwise, NO checking out the latest news, posts, or any social media platform apps, including unnecessary WhatsApp messaging! You get the picture.
How about we agree to give it a go – one simple day this summer, in the month of July or August – and see if we’re up to being the example that our ‘kids’ so desperately need..!
