When I was in my second year of college I decide to delete my profile on Facebook, I stopped using social media for a year. It was an interesting experience mainly because it was not a relief, but a stress’er. In college the best way to get ahold of people and make plans was through facebook, it was how I was invited to parties and new about events going on around me.
We are constantly inundated with information from social media and the internet, but we have also relied on it more than when we were younger. This could be seen as a problem, in the way that we were never taunt how to balance, our parents did not have the same issues as us because of how technology has developed in the last several decades.
As a high school teacher, I see many of my students tied to their phones, it is almost an essential way to connect with their peers and to the world around them. But I have to wonder if this is creating more issues, several studies have show a connection with increased rates of depression and phone use. This is especially prevalent in teenagers. What the teachers of today need to do is not a simple task, we have to change how we teach and teach something that we have not mastered and that is a balance. The balance of our constantly global connected online presence and the physical reality of the world that surrounds us everyday.
I am not advocating to disconnect from social media, but instead learning how to be able to put it down and enjoy the world outside the LCD monitors of our phones and computers. To be able to take time away, to lean how too let go of the snapchat streaks and our instant reply mentalities, so that we can find a balance.
References:
https://www.npr.org/2017/12/17/571443683/the-call-in-teens-and-depression