WAKE UP and Smell what Social Media is Cooking

There used to be a bumper sticker that read ~

“I am the proud parent of an honor roll student at …” (and they all ended with who the blank cares school name).

These decals always bothered me intensely. It wasn’t because the child’s achievements weren’t worthy of recognition. Good for little Willy and Emma, but they were not the ones promoting themselves on their parents’ Honda Odyssey. They did not request their academic accomplishments share space next to ‘Soccer Mom,’ on the back of the minivan.

Plain and simple – these adhesive emblems were obnoxious. They were less about a celebration of your child’s commitment to education, and more about self-promotion, by their guardians. (In fairness I also despised “Mean People Suck” & “Jesus Died For You” – talk about imprecise & presumptuous).

Weren’t these the precursors to sharing mundane posts on timelines? Similar to asking people to ‘like’ this if you love your sister. When will we be able to escape the reek of desperation these messages clearly illustrate? Yes, I hope your brother-in-law’s, accountant’s, taxidermist’s, dog groomer defeats his bout with gout, however I do not need to read about it daily nor do I need to see pictures of his red-hot, swollen joints.

It has been reported that on social media, people talk about themselves 80% of the time. Therefore, when they receive a notification of positive feedback, a sensation from dopamine is released. This rewards the behavior associated with social media, thus perpetuating the habit of using it. Dopamine’s motivational properties play a role in addiction.

Life before the intrusion of online communities included something irreplaceable – FREEDOM. I remember building forts in the living room, camping in the backyard, 12 straight hours of bike riding, and sleeping the sleep of a worn-out, sundrenched, self-composed youth.

Remember when conversations flowed and people practiced being vague? Now there is always some jagoff on hand to ‘verify’ something by exposing a useless fact he found on his smart device, and next to him is his equally annoying counterpart saying something like “If you see an Apple Store get robbed, does that make you an iWitness? – get it, get it – did you see what I did there?”

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! PLEASE SHUT UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

59% of U.S. teens experienced cyberbullying or online harassment. 90% say they think this provocation is a problem which affects other people their age. 63% say that it’s a major problem. ZERO PERCENT ARE CONCERNED WITH TAKING CREDIT FOR BAD PUNS!

Sorry for the inundation of indicators, but no one cares you had a bagel for breakfast nor are they concerned about the cryptic cliffhanger left in your feed about how “there is some big news today…”

What we should be more interested in reading and digesting is that the most common health problems associated with social media addiction are strain on the eyes (38.4%), anger (25.5%), and sleep disturbance (26.1%). 68% of African-Americans, 57% of Asian-Americans, 50% of Hispanic Americans, and 40% of White Americans are addicted to social media.

Ignoring a problem prolongs it; allows it to become a pus-filled, festering boil like the one on your Uncle Malcom’s hairy rear. WAKE UP and fight the silence encasing the empathetic among us. While our better angels wings have been clipped, they have not been amputated.

We can combat the conflict amongst us. On the contrary, continuation of the construction of these self-absorbed chat platforms will lead to our collective collapse.

Did You Know? A study found that 89% of undergraduate students experience phantom vibrations. This is the perception of vibrations from a mobile device that is not vibrating. People crave receiving notifications so much that they start imagining them.