By Meghan Durkin (VI) <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I fill my time with endless technological stimulation; when the weekly notification pops up, informing me of an alarmingly high screen time, I\u2019m embarrassed. I balance my phone on my laptop to watch two shows at once, fall asleep clutching my laptop more often than I\u2019d like to admit, and wonder how numerous hours have passed, it\u2019s dark, and I\u2019m still on a \u201cquick Netflix break.\u201d
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It\u2019s normal though, right? Everyone is constantly on their phones; there is simply no downtime from technology. Phones offer a nice distraction, an endless Band-Aid that coats our worries with instant gratification and content. That\u2019s our normal, and I find it fascinating.
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So, when the recent buzz around The Social Dilemma <\/em>surfaced, I grabbed my phone, opened Netflix, and sat down for a watch. The documentary explores the negative impacts of social media, from its ramifications on mental health to its addictive properties. Not only does The Social Dilemma<\/em> stress the cruel motives behind social platforms, but it also uses the creators of these platforms to deliver the message. These creators range from former executives at Twitter and Facebook to the former president of Pinterest and numerous other early team members from the world\u2019s most popular social media platforms. It\u2019s scary that even those who helped build these \u201ctools,\u201d fear the damage they\u2019ve inflicted. Unfortunately, there is no group more at risk from these technologies than teens; the platforms we\u2019ve inherited present one of our greatest challenges as a generation, especially in terms of mental health. As The Social Dilemma <\/em>mentions, the rise in suicide rates for teens has skyrocketed since the birth of social media. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide rates increased 56% over the last decade, an distressingly rapid increase. Though there is nothing new to the claims that social media is \u201charmful,\u201d The Social Dilemma <\/em>got me thinking: if we know how harmful it is, why can\u2019t we stop using it? Here\u2019s my thought: we can\u2019t stop using social media because even those who tell us to \u201cput the phone down\u201d can\u2019t help but force us to use it more and more. Take Pingry\u2019s social media presence for example. While we are constantly told to get off our phones, or focus in class, the school itself uses social media platforms to endorse itself or inform its community. With the addition of Pingry Plus this year, a platform directly aimed at students, the irony cannot be lost. The same people that urge students to waste less time on our phones, give us more reasons to use them. Thus, more than anything else, The Social Dilemma<\/em> opened my eyes to the greater hypocrisy of social networking. The platforms are created by those who denounce using it, are criticized by schools who profit from it, and complained about by older generations who swarm to the platforms. And through it all, we are the generation that ultimately suffers for it. It\u2019s terrifying to think we never free our minds from our screens; we inhibit the wandering of our thoughts and contemplation of wants by filling our space with social media. We watch videos while we eat breakfast, listen to podcasts while we walk, and play music while we exercise. Though, I\u2019d like to think it\u2019s not exactly our fault. These platforms, created by an older generation to monopolize on the weakness of a younger one, are meant to be addicting. Even Netflix, the greatest time-suck of them all, knows we aren\u2019t the ones at fault. By Meghan Durkin (VI) I fill my time with endless technological stimulation; when the weekly notification pops up, informing me of an alarmingly high screen time, I\u2019m embarrassed. I balance my phone on my laptop to watch two shows at once, fall asleep clutching my laptop more often than I\u2019d like to admit, and wonder […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"1080","footnotes":""},"categories":[65,217],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial","category-meghan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3796"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3797,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3796\/revisions\/3797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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