Overview of Social Media
Social media is a huge part of life now. It is sad to say, but it seems to be the only way people really seem to communicate with each other anymore. Social media platforms come in all shapes and sizes. Some of the most popular platforms include Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr. Each platform allows its users to communicate in different ways. For example, Instagram and Snapchat allows its users to communicate primarily through photos and videos. Twitter and Facebook allows its users to communicate to written posts, shared pictures and videos, and by re-sharing another person’s post. On every platform, posts are organized into a feed for people to look at. All of your friends’/family’s posts would be collected and added to this feed so you could conveniently scroll through them all at once, not missing a single post. Most people check their social media feeds several times a day and others check their feeds only a few times a day. Either way, social media feeds are always long and stuffed with numerous posts. There are so many posts to scroll through in one sitting.
Scrolling Through Feeds Shortens Attention Span
I strongly believe that social media shortens a person’s attention span significantly. The subject of conversation is constantly changing on social media. Posts tend to vary widely in terms of subject content. For example, one post on your feed may be about a political event and then the next post could be a video of a puppy. This ruins the attention span because your mind first gets ready to process and understand the post about the political event, then a few seconds later, your mind must quickly get ready to process and understand the video of the puppy. This process repeats until you finish scrolling through your feed on social media. For big-time social media users, the brain is shifting gears and trying to process hundreds of things in rapid succession in one sitting. One can only infer that the mind takes this a form of practice and begins to adapt to this process. Once the mind has adapted to this process, it will only want to focus on things for short periods of time because it is used to switching the focus of attention so frequently on social media.
How Social Media Goes Against Teachings of Mindfulness
Just about everything about social media goes against the teachings of mindfulness. Mindfulness teaches us to be present in the moment and to focus fully on the things in front of us. How can we fully focus on what is in front of us if we are training our brain to only hold things in focus for a few second at a time? Mindfulness also teaches us to take things slowly so we can enjoy them in their entirety. How can we enjoy things in their entirety if social media is teaching us to jump from one topic to the next? Social media is mindfulness’ worst nightmare. We must learn to use social media properly and in a mindful manner, otherwise we will completely ruin our practice. It is possible to use social media mindfully. Once social media is incorporated into our mindfulness practices, it will no longer be an issue that prevents us from being mindful.
Personal Experience
I personally experienced this attention span deficit, caused by social media, in school. I was on social media a lot. I had never gone on social media as much as I had during this time. I had a 3.9 GPA before I went on social media a lot. I studied hard for every exam and I spent a lot of time doing so. Then I started to go on social media here and there, scrolling through my feeds for a good 10 minutes at a time. This continued for months. Eventually, my exam grades got bad. My GPA dropped to a 3.6. Every time I tried to study, I found that I was not able to concentrate; my mind could not seem to stay focused on one thing at a time. I soon came to the conclusion that it was social media use that kept messing with my mind and my grade. I came to this conclusion because it was the only thing in my daily routine that I had changed and after that change, my grades began to slip. Of course, after I came to the conclusion that I did, I cut social media use out of my daily routine and after a few weeks of seriously practicing mindfulness, my grades went back up to where they originally were. This experience of mine clearly proved to me how damaging the effects of social media could be on mindfulness.
Social media is a huge part of life now. It is sad to say, but it seems to be the only way people really seem to communicate with each other anymore. Social media platforms come in all shapes and sizes. Some of the most popular platforms include Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr. Each platform allows its users to communicate in different ways. For example, Instagram and Snapchat allows its users to communicate primarily through photos and videos. Twitter and Facebook allows its users to communicate to written posts, shared pictures and videos, and by re-sharing another person’s post. On every platform, posts are organized into a feed for people to look at. All of your friends’/family’s posts would be collected and added to this feed so you could conveniently scroll through them all at once, not missing a single post. Most people check their social media feeds several times a day and others check their feeds only a few times a day. Either way, social media feeds are always long and stuffed with numerous posts. There are so many posts to scroll through in one sitting.
Scrolling Through Feeds Shortens Attention Span
I strongly believe that social media shortens a person’s attention span significantly. The subject of conversation is constantly changing on social media. Posts tend to vary widely in terms of subject content. For example, one post on your feed may be about a political event and then the next post could be a video of a puppy. This ruins the attention span because your mind first gets ready to process and understand the post about the political event, then a few seconds later, your mind must quickly get ready to process and understand the video of the puppy. This process repeats until you finish scrolling through your feed on social media. For big-time social media users, the brain is shifting gears and trying to process hundreds of things in rapid succession in one sitting. One can only infer that the mind takes this a form of practice and begins to adapt to this process. Once the mind has adapted to this process, it will only want to focus on things for short periods of time because it is used to switching the focus of attention so frequently on social media.
How Social Media Goes Against Teachings of Mindfulness
Just about everything about social media goes against the teachings of mindfulness. Mindfulness teaches us to be present in the moment and to focus fully on the things in front of us. How can we fully focus on what is in front of us if we are training our brain to only hold things in focus for a few second at a time? Mindfulness also teaches us to take things slowly so we can enjoy them in their entirety. How can we enjoy things in their entirety if social media is teaching us to jump from one topic to the next? Social media is mindfulness’ worst nightmare. We must learn to use social media properly and in a mindful manner, otherwise we will completely ruin our practice. It is possible to use social media mindfully. Once social media is incorporated into our mindfulness practices, it will no longer be an issue that prevents us from being mindful.
Personal Experience
I personally experienced this attention span deficit, caused by social media, in school. I was on social media a lot. I had never gone on social media as much as I had during this time. I had a 3.9 GPA before I went on social media a lot. I studied hard for every exam and I spent a lot of time doing so. Then I started to go on social media here and there, scrolling through my feeds for a good 10 minutes at a time. This continued for months. Eventually, my exam grades got bad. My GPA dropped to a 3.6. Every time I tried to study, I found that I was not able to concentrate; my mind could not seem to stay focused on one thing at a time. I soon came to the conclusion that it was social media use that kept messing with my mind and my grade. I came to this conclusion because it was the only thing in my daily routine that I had changed and after that change, my grades began to slip. Of course, after I came to the conclusion that I did, I cut social media use out of my daily routine and after a few weeks of seriously practicing mindfulness, my grades went back up to where they originally were. This experience of mine clearly proved to me how damaging the effects of social media could be on mindfulness.
