Writer's Choice

Reflection Paper on Social Media Usage

Student’s Name

Professor’s Name

Subject

University

Social media has increasingly become a part of our everyday life. The people around us use social media for several purposes such as general networking with others, finding funny and entertaining content, filling up spare time, staying up-to-date with current events and relevant news, staying in touch with what their friends are doing, meeting new people, researching or finding products to buy, sharing their personal opinion, sharing their photos and videos with others, or just because most of their friends are already on the social media, to name a few. Some of these activities are fairly natural but others can cause strong emotions in us. For instance, positive connection with friends and family is important for both mental and physical health, and connecting to them through the Internet is way easier particularly for old people who are alone and often immobile, but at the same time cyber bullying is a reality too.

Therefore, for all of these and many other reasons, social media impacts our lives in one way or another. For example, too much keying can affect hands and wrists of the user. Similarly, eyestrain for staring at the screens is also a common occurrence. Lack of exercise and a lot of distraction must be made a part of the list too. Still, there is no simple answer as to if social media usage is good or bad for our health. Social media addiction has become a real-time phenomenon today. It has many positive and negative effects on us because it is such a pervasive influence on modern life now. Importantly, escaping the Internet has become harder due to the fact that everyone carries a smartphone or other devices wherever they go. Increasingly, people (including me) spend a lot more time online on social media websites such as Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

My favorite social media websites include WeChat, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and YouTube. Among them all, I use WeChat the most. It is a messaging and calling app. I primarily use it for calling my friends and family members, who stay away from my place, particularly on the weekends. Therefore, my biggest push to WeChat at any time of the week is that I miss my people, and online connectivity is the easiest and cheapest method to connect with them in today’s world. However, if I would average the time that I spend on this app then it would be one-and-half hours of chatting and video calling my friends and family members per day. Some of the my people also use Facebook messenger for calling and messaging each other but, fortunately or unfortunately, I do not have a current account on this website. Therefore, I do not use it for connectivity purposes.

On the other end of the discussion, I also use social media apps such Instagram, Twitter and TikTok for fun purposes especially when I am free and do not have any particular thing to pull through a certain period of time during the day. Among all of them, Instagram is my favorite. The app is all about sharing pictures, and thus, has an appealing interface. It is not slow or messy despite having so much visual content. Also, unlike Facebook, there is no flood of information on this site. Therefore, I love spending time on Instagram. Again, I use it more on the weekends, and averaging the time on daily basis will get me the same answer, i.e., one-and-half hours of Instagram scrolling everyday. Because I am not a big fan of Facebook, therefore, other than the Instagram I somewhat like to spend some time on Twitter too, i.e., half-an-hour a day.

TikTok is another social media app, which I primarily use for finding funny and entertaining content. It is the best platform for short-length videos to land. The available content is mostly fresh and unseen because the app provides everyone with the opportunity to capture and present their creativity. On average, I spend one-and-half hours on scrolling TikTok everyday. I also use YouTube for approximately one-hour on daily basis. The major motivation behind spending time on it is to watch gaming videos, which I am very much fond of. Also, the website is great for bookmarking the favorite videos. I can also watch them offline while traveling to and from my school/workplace (please choose one).

Simultaneously, I work on keeping my social media usage habits healthy. Although it is not an easy target to obtain with all the factors such as lack of exercise, laziness, and almost no social life, but I have managed to balance my real and social media life to some extent. Primarily, I use the social media websites at scheduled times. In this way, I do not let it interfere with my studies/office timing (please choose one) and offline relationships. Also, I have made a rule of not arguing with any person online. Thus, I managed to keep myself save from the negative side of the social media. Additionally, I have strictly developed the habit of not using social media while driving. Even when I have to wait for a green signal in a long traffic jam, I do not go on my social media accounts. Instead, I listen to my favorite songs on the car stereo. I know it is a little old fashion but I have found it to be a really effective method of not using phone when on the driving seat.