Pros and Cons of Social Media & How To Perform a Social Media Detox!

We see a lot of debate on the positive and negative aspects of social media nowadays, and it’s actually quite difficult to completely side with one thing on this matter.

Gone are the days when people communicated with each other through conventional means like letters and waited to get their daily news on TV or the newspaper. It’s a new era in which the internet has taken over.

Thanks to technological innovation, everyone has a cell phone and other means to stay in constant touch with their loved ones. The most integral part of communication these days is social media. It’s one of many platforms to get in keeping up with others,

It offers you many opportunities to grow your business, spread your message worldwide, and shop online from the comfort of your home.

But even though the advancement of social networks has played a dramatic role in bettering communication and promoting businesses, there are negatives to this blessing as well.

Some say that social media has destroyed the current and the coming generations and can’t stop criticizing it. In contrast, others deem it an essential part of our daily lives.

So who do we side with? To make things clear for you objectively, we’ll go through the different pros and cons of modern-day social media and unravel the true mystery. Then you can decide how beneficial social media is in your case. Let’s read and find out more in this article.

Pros of Using Social Media

1. Easy and Fast Communication

Gone are the days people would send letters to communicate or wait for the postman to receive a letter from their dearest ones. Social media has made your life easier in this regard. You can easily connect with anyone through social media apps such as Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

Not only this, if you want to look for long-lost friends, you can easily find them within a minute or two by seeing your mutuals. Or you could use the name-search feature, and within a few hours, you’ll succeed in the hunt for lost friends. 

2. Growing and Scaling Your Business

Social media has a very positive role in revolutionizing the business industry. In the past, business owners had to print brochures or advertise in the newspaper to promote their business. Now technology has changed the way of advertisement.

Today, you can run an online store without needing a brick-and-mortar store and promote your products online via Facebook, Tiktok, Youtube, Instagram, etc.

This way, you can reach out to people from any part of the world and provide them with your services from the comfort of their couches. It’s now easier than ever to make money, gain regular customers and scale your business to unimaginable heights.

3. Helps Increase Political and Social Awareness

Another benefit of social media is that it has allowed people to know about all the ins and outs of their political system. In the past, people were kept in the dark and had little say in the state of affairs of their country. They had to conduct protests to spread their word to the country’s prominent leaders, but now they can do it online.

But now, every individual has a voice and can bring issues like corruption, bribery, extortion, and lobbying to the limelight. Social media has become powerful enough to force businesses and governments to play fair in matters of the public. Twitter trends and other social media campaigns have widely helped the common person resolve his issues, which would otherwise be impossible.

4. Easier to Get Employed

Previously, applying for and landing a job was a hard nut to crack. People had to sift through numerous adverts in the newspaper and then by dropping a CV at a specific location. However, today you can apply for many jobs within a few minutes.

Many professional networking sites are now available, like Linkedin. With the help of such social networks, now it’s easier to reach out to potential job opportunities. Both companies and job seekers have benefitted from such an approach.

Talent communities are now becoming popular and have been tapping into the hidden job market online. Apart from that, you can also find local and international Facebook groups that post for various vacancies.

5. Offers Fun and Entertainment

Social media is an excellent platform for enjoyment and entertainment. If you get bored, you can quickly grab the phone, click on your favorite app, and scroll through it. It can be Facebook, Instagram, Youtube or any other.

There are plenty of ways to be amused by these apps. You can follow your favorite celebrities and channels and even learn something new related to personal development while at it.

6. Helps You Spread Positivity

Social media has the great benefit of keeping you in touch with what your friends are doing without much effort. It keeps you in the loop about your social circle, and you can feel well simply by having a sense of belonging in a community.

These are platforms where people come from all walks of life with different mindsets. Each of them goes through different phases of life, and you can learn a lot from those shared experiences. Since the emotions and life experiences you share are contagious, you can easily make others feel good with your powerful words.

Cons of Social Media

1. Becoming More Addicted to Virtual World

Are you an introvert like me? If so, I understand that you like people, but only at a distance. Therefore, many introverts have made their own little worlds on social media, and their friend circle is only limited to online platforms. 

Due to this reason, they become addicted to isolation and do not prefer to leave the house. Different studies show that avoiding socialization is associated with an increased risk of dementia. Social media addiction is also found to decrease academic performance and self-esteem and cause poor mental health.

Moreover, the inability to uphold real-life social relationships causes stress and heart disease and puts individuals at risk of stroke.

2. Cyberbullying

The most dangerous thing social media can do to you is cyberbullying. It’s done to harass or threaten a person. Anyone can do it. It can be a person you know or someone who hacked your personal account and can later use it to blackmail you.

3. Becoming Insecure & Developing FOMO

On various apps like TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook, you’ll see people roaming around the world and living their best life. This can make you feel insecure and fear missing out on the next best thing. You start developing stress and anxiety due to the fun others are having, and you don’t.

This develops resentment toward yourself, and you become a thankless person. Also, watching others live luxurious lives on social media ruins your personality. In such a case, you may see what the others want to show the world, but you never know what’s behind the curtains.

4. Improper Sleep

Did you know your body releases hormones so you can sleep peacefully at night? However, most people can’t stop scrolling social media apps like Facebook and Instagram, even when going to bed.

The blue-ray light from late-night phone use then suppresses the production of melatonin, due to which you get improper sleep. A study conducted by the Pittsburgh School of Medicine has found that there is a direct correlation between sleep disturbance and social media use. So, people who use it extensively are more like to face problems when going to sleep.

Another interesting study found that almost 95% of people check their socials after getting into bed. More fascinatingly, 15% of them don’t actually go to sleep until they have spent an hour on this bad habit each day. Hence, social media, directly or indirectly, is involved in disrupting your sleeping pattern.

5. Exposure to Inappropriate Content

Social media has become notorious for exposure to unregulated content. Unsolicited exposure to violent and sexually explicit content is on the rise. Many people are harmed when they get in contact with such media unwantedly when scrolling their social apps or when getting spam messages from unknown users.

Being consistently exposed to such content normalizes seeing this kind of content. Research shows that people who have higher exposure to violent and sexual content on social media find it funny, exciting and amusing as compared to people who aren’t.

Not only that, even children and adolescents aren’t safe from this. According to reports, 93% of boys and 67% of girls are exposed to sexually explicit content before turning 18 and search actively for this type of content on their social apps and the internet. Frequent exposure to pornography can have a lousy impact on your child’s health and mental development.

6. Lack of Privacy

There are multiple social media apps and platforms where users have provided their intimate information, such as their name, location, birthday, and other necessary details. So, If you don’t know how to hide these details properly, you can risk losing your privacy.

Many incidents of cyberstalking are enabled due to such unprotected information. Even if you try your best to protect your personal privacy online, you still can’t control what your friends share on their profiles.

You often see that you have been tagged in pictures without your consent or permission. And it can be quite frustrating when asking people to remove them.

7. Spread of Fake News and Information

One of the biggest drawbacks of social media is the abundance of fake news and information. Even though fact-checking processes are present on the platforms, they are still in their early stages.

Sharing rumors and fake news on social media is of significant concern and is often done to mislead people about a specific situation. Most of the time, the news is spread to malign the public, especially on issues related to politics or health.

A popular research found that Tweets containing false and misleading information were more likely to be retweeted and shared than those containing the truth.

Even in hard times like COVID-19, mischievous people didn’t stop spreading false rumors and misinformation regarding different remedies, which resulted in serious harm to the health of many individuals.

8. False Sense of Friendship

Social media’s purpose was to make people more social, but it didn’t work that way. Ultimately people have become anti-social, make online friends, and tend to consider them true friends. This prevents real social contact, and you can never develop meaningful relationships in life.

One may have thousands of friends added to their Facebook profile, but at the end of the day, they are completely alone. They fail to come out of their comfort zone and don’t try to battle the social anxiety due to social media addiction. Hence, social media creates a false idea of friendship.

How to Detox Yourself From the Bad Impact of Social Media

If you are stressed by any of the cons of social media described above, then take a break and read the following detox methods.

1. Keep Your Phone Away From Bed At Night

Most people use their phones at night before going to sleep. It hinders their ability to sleep on time. So, if you’re addicted to infinity scroll and stay up late till the wee time, keeping your phone away from yourself at night will help you fall asleep earlier.

You must keep the charging port away from your bed and put the phone on charge before bed. When you prepare for sleep, forget about the phone until the following day. Practicing this tip will be fruitful for you, and soon you’ll get a healthy nighttime rest.

2. Use an Alarm Clock

Now you must think about how you will wake up in the morning without a phone ringing the alarm near your bed. We have a solution for you, get an actual alarm clock and put it on the side table.

This way, the first thing you do in the morning will be to hit the arm clock instead of the phone. This practice can prevent you from using your phone 24/7, and you’ll have a healthy and friendly routine. 

3. Find An Accountability Partner

If you know someone who wants to free themselves from the overuse of social media, you can make them your accountability partner. This way, you both will have healthy discussions on how you spend your day or how much time you spend on the phone.

Positive peer support can help modify your lifestyle habits, eventually leading to less dependence on social media.

4. Check Your Screen Time On the Phone

You can install several apps on your phone to track your screen time. On iPhones, there’s already a feature available that tracks your screen time and keeps you aware of how much time you have spent on different apps.

On the other hand, android users can install the app and check which app they use the most. This self-evaluation will help them keep away from opening the apps and remain focused on their important task. Ultimately, practicing self-control will detox them from the cons of overusing social media.

5. Uninstall Social Media Apps

If you want to reduce the use of your phone, you can uninstall the apps it contains for a day. This will be a one-time practice; sticking to it will change how you use social media. All you have to do is delete all the apps on your phone for a day with the intent of reinstalling them the other day.

When you do so, you’ll feel the change in yourself, develop good habits and spend more time with family members. Once the day is over, you can reinstall the deleted apps. After practicing this tip, we bet you’ll find it doable if needed.

6. Spend Time With Your Loved Ones

Grab your phone, switch it off, and put it in a drawer. Now head to the lounge and sit with your family members; talk to them and ask them if you use your phone a lot.

If they say yes, you spend a lot of time on social media and ask them for suggestions on how to get rid of this bad habit. Having a healthy discussion with them will be fruitful for you, and as a result, you’ll get to socialize with your loved ones instead of using the phone.

Final Words on the Pros and Cons of Social Media Use

To sum up, social media is the master of all online platforms. Yet, like any other platform, it has its own pros and cons. Its positive side includes making your day-to-day tasks more accessible than ever; you can communicate with others in a fraction of a second, keep updated with what’s happening around you, and much more. Children, teenagers, and adults have become rough social media users despite their benefits. They use it 24/7 and prefer to socialize less than before. 

In short, social media indirectly affects humans’ social and mental development. However, it mainly depends on the user whether he utilizes this tool for his benefit or harm. So, if you feel addicted to social media, you can go through a detoxification phase by following the tips given above. Until then, happy reading!