By Will Livermore
When was the last time you sat down to eat a meal without staring at a screen? How about the last time you woke up and didn’t grab your phone? When was the last time you did anything and didn’t imagine how others saw you?
Social media has told us that being you is being wrong.
Social media has told us that likes are more important than friendships.
Social media has told us that we need it to be popular.
There Is No Online Love
Social media has prevented actual, meaningful connections from being created. The main reason for this is how easy it is to use. Why go the extra step when you can take the elevator?
The average person spends 141 minutes on social media daily. That is almost 10% of the entire day spent scrolling, messaging, and “connecting” with others.
This “connection” is not something tangible and results in a great societal divide.
The digital age has made us all more isolated and less willing to seek compassion.
Escape into the Labyrinth
Social media might be an escape from reality for some people, but it may not be all that it seems. Social media platforms have destroyed our dopamine receptors. There is only one reason why these companies spend billions and billions of dollars on their platforms: they want you to spend all your time on them.
There is no such thing as free time on social media.
The reality is that the escape of social media is a bigger rabbit hole than everyone realizes.
What Have We Lost?
We have lost the small connections with each other. We have lost the value in each other.
Are we truly connected, or are we just plugged into the version of ourselves that we put online?
Social media has stopped us from thriving together and instead has separated us.
The gap will only grow larger if society stays on its collision course.
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As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.
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