The meaning of overconsumption is the excessive use of resources, goods, and services, leading to detrimental environmental, social, and psychological effects. This perfectly describes the worlds relationship with social media. These days people of all ages and backgrounds can been seen having an addiction to their phones, TVs, and other devices. The amount of people glued to their screens has increased drastically over the past couple years. Recently, it’s been confirmed by Union Environment Program (UNEP) that human society is overconsuming earth’s natural resources. All the technological additions to earth only harm it’s users.
Overconsumption of media can start simple, maybe a mother lends her phone to a child at dinner. It’s very likely that child will go on to gain a tv, a computer, a phone, a watch, and more devices. Even downloading plenty of social media apps in the process. Slowly as time goes by, this person’s screen time will increase, showing they are addicted media. In modern times it seems social media and having some kind of online presence is the only way to build a social life.
Though the addiction can start young, there are several factors that can keep the viewer hooked to their devices. Social media Is designed to keep its viewers scrolling and invested. It flashes several desirable products and items within its videos. Many of which appear to be regular videos but are just ads. TikTok specifically takes advantage of boredom and lures it’s users into doomscrolling for several hours. It has been reviled TikTok scrolling mechanism was inspired off gambling, slot machines. These can become extremely addictive and in a sense, hypnotic. Often TikTok users speak about the “rabbit holes” they go down. Which is essentially doing extensive research on a topic that is completely irrelevant.
Though there are plenty of ways to overconsume media, it can be encouraged by trends. Trends can mess with the minds of viewers, encouraging them to partake in reckless behavior. However,
the viewer stays under a hypnosis, being fed the little box of content their algorithm feeds them. There are plenty of persuasive videos that encourage users to buy products, excessively spending money to keep up with influencers. The way buying p
One of the many side effects of this addiction is retail therapy. Retail therapy is an extremely unhealthy way of coping with emotions, by buying products online. This only leads to one
overspending money for items that will only be popular for a few months. Looking at a screen for several hours a day can also lead to heightened anger and anxiety, which causes mental stress. Social media scrolling will mess with ones dopamine and attention span, conditioning the brain to seek out immediate validation.
Personally, in public I’ve seen more and more people glued to their devices. This happens in any circumstance, while waiting in line, during conversation, sometimes even when attending big events that would otherwise be exciting to experience. People of all ages seem to be focused on the small device in hand rather than interacting with the environment around them. Average screen times for Gen X is nearly over 14 hours, teenagers being nine to 10 hours. This amount of time online does permanent damage to your brain, altering its chemistry irreversibly.
If, however, you would like to prevent yourself from becoming a mindless trend follower, here are a few tips on how to help yourself grow independent from a your devices. Set a limit on each app using your phone settings, no more than an hour a day on each device is ideal. If your unable due to work, take a step away every hour and look at objects far from you for about 30 – 40 minutes. Don’t consume brainless, empty content that will just drain your energy, practice identifying fake news from real news, and don’t go down rabbit holes researching topics that do you no good.
As a society we need to move on from this digital age and begin focusing on ourselves more. The human body and mind suffer greatly from overconsumption, which can be detrimental to health. Though overconsumption is becoming increasingly normalized, its important to take care of yourself despite common social practices. Don’t allow social media control you.