Gianna Kensy, sophomore, said she often feels peer pressure to constantly post on social media.
“On Snapchat, it’s mainly you wanna say what you did every single day. On Instagram you want to brag about what you are doing each week with your friends,” Kensy said. “You are seeing other people do it, and you are like, ‘Oh, I gotta do that too’.”
She spends on average five hours a day on her phone, usually scrolling apps like TikTok, Instagram and Netflix during passing periods, in class and at night.
“I am up to two most nights, and I barely sleep,” Kensy said.
The Problem
Kensy is one of many teens worldwide with altered sleep schedules and feelings of “missing out” due to social media and the continued increase in screen time.
Katie Gruber, sophomore, similarly averages about four hours on her phone a day. She finds herself online much more during the weekends, before she goes to bed and when she wakes up.
Gruber said she has used social media more during high school than in previous stages of her life.
“It is more of a common thing in how people interact and what people talk about,” Gruber said.
The Reason
Ashley Hobbs, psychology teacher, said there is a phenomenon to describe the comparison people make to other people’s lives based on social media: the Facebook Effect.
“As humans, what we are doing right now is we are comparing our whole lives to other people’s highlight reels,” Hobbs said. “And so that is making people think and feel that they are worse off than other people.”
People start to wonder why they can’t do the same things people online are doing, Hobbs said.
“Unfortunately, what that does is it brings down our feelings of self-esteem or even self-worth,” Hobbs said.
This effect can be seen in all ages of people, but it is amplified in teens because teenagers are trying to form a feeling of identity and figure out where they fit in, Hobbs said.
Hobbs said social media is so addictive because of the dopamine release that occurs when people like posts.
“It gives you that moment of happiness, it’s communicating with your reward centers, and so, especially if you have notifications turned on to where your phone is being alerted every time you get a notification, it is also instant gratification,” Hobbs said.
The same effect occurs if a social media user does not get notifications about a post, causing them to be self-conscious and delete posts because they were not popular, Hobbs said.
The accessibility of phones can also be addicting, as they can be accessed whenever desired.
“That is why we often feel almost lost without our phones because we are so used to having the world in the palm of our hands, and that includes social media,” Hobbs said.
Phones also are known to hurt productivity during tasks like homework and even work during the school day.
“There is no such thing as good multitasking. Our brains literally don’t work that way,” Hobbs said. “Yes, you can divide your attention, but then every division you make is decreasing productivity.”
But social media is not all bad, as it can be a great way to stay in touch with people, Hobbs said.
“One of my good friends lives in Germany,” Hobbs said. “I love being able to see regularly what her kids are like and growing up.”
A Solution
Hobbs said to avoid bad habits, users have to be taught while they are still young.
“Sometimes they have to have restrictions that they don’t want,” Hobbs said.
Some student’s parents are trying new strategies to limit technology use by limiting their children’s access to their cellular devices.
“My room is upstairs and where I study is upstairs, and when I am at home I have to leave my phone downstairs,” Samvida Batchu, junior, said.
Batchu said her parents made this rule to prevent her from getting distracted, she said it can be a little bit annoying when she tries to study with friends, but it has been effective in limiting distractions.
Batchu said if she didn’t have restrictions on her phone she would likely be on it a lot more and would have to stay up a lot later to finish homework.
Other students have been trying new strategies to restrict themselves online, one such student includes Naveah Kerber, junior, who turns on black-and-white mode to discourage herself from using social media for long periods.
“It makes it less interesting because there is not as much to look at and so I just go on it for shorter periods of time,” Kerber said.
Kerber said she learned the trick about two weeks ago from one of her teammates, Isla Sattler, freshman.
Kerber said she feels a little guilty when she is on social media, which is why she wanted to limit her usage.
“I feel like it draws my time away from being involved in what is going on around me,” Kerber said. “If more people shied away from it and got more involved in what is actually going on around them, I feel like there would be a lot more opportunities to communicate in person. I just wish that more people would recognize that they are on their phone a lot, and be more in tuned with what is going on.”
Louis Chen, junior, also puts his phone in black-and-white mode to limit his phone usage and deleted TikTok in November to combat his social media use.
“I realized my phone was taking too much of my time especially TikTok and Instagram,” Chen said.
