About a year ago, I suddenly discovered that it became much more difficult for me to concentrate on one task than usual. Having decided to deal with this problem, I simultaneously learned about how giraffes sleep, what useful things you can buy on Aliexpress for $2, how to tie a scarf in 30 different ways, and what to do if you suddenly get lost in the forest...
Thus, several more months passed in the infinity of available information. In the morning I found myself on Facebook, on the tram I commented on supposedly necessary business communities, in the evening I read interesting characters on Instagram. Everything is interesting, partly motivating and even useful.
The phone lived its own life and jumped into my hands. Everything is automatic, like brushing your teeth, crossing the street or scratching where it itches. Until one day I discovered that I had nothing to be proud of. Under the bed there are Bermuda triangles of lost time, on the road there are oceans of half-thought thoughts and unfinished plans, and in my head there is a viscous, cooled porridge with disgusting lumps.
An unfulfilled morning yoga workout timidly peeks out from around the corner, and an old dream is gathering dust on the chest of drawers - sharply sharpened, pleasant-to-touch drawing pencils. All this is sacrificed to a small thin white box with a screen.
Less and less time for what really matters.
This fun unequal fight
Having realized the scale of the problem and having taken some Validol, I sat down to think about what could be done about all this. It’s simple - for starters, at least pick up your phone less often. Yeah, right now! It’s like not thinking about the white monkey - now hanging in the nets (what a word, right?) has been added to the pangs of conscience and surprise at one’s own weakness of will.
What to do?
Conscience ate me from the inside, sadness drooped the corners of my lips. It was urgent to at least start using my favorite method - the “idea of small steps” and apply the simplest solutions. I wanted to get rid of automatism and, if possible, make it difficult for myself to access social networks. The problem was that for work I still needed to be in them and respond quite quickly to messages in instant messengers. Unlimited Internet on the phone, needed for business, also did not add optimism to the decision to put an end to the problem of distraction.
Simple tricks to get started
First, I’ll tell you about a few simple tactics that I did. If this problem is also relevant for you, try it, surely something will suit you too.
- I gave three key work contacts a backup connection with me and turned off instant notifications for all messengers except one (I probably need to turn everything off, but I can’t do that yet),
- I set a digital password to access the phone (it helped for the first week),
- I removed the Instagram icon from an easily accessible panel on my phone and hid the application somewhere far away (it helped so much that I abandoned Instagram a long time ago!),
- I started putting my phone in the far pocket of my bag and making sure to fasten it,
- Now I make sure to put my phone out of sight when I'm working on the computer (it helps a lot!)
- Every time I log out from all networks and mail on the computer and keep no more than 4 tabs open at the same time,
- I wrote a list of pleasant and useful things that I can do instead of surfing the Internet,
- When I need to concentrate, I turn on completely silent mode on my phone.
All this is good, of course, but it’s too easy to lose control of yourself and return to telephone and social network slavery.
Getting rid of addiction: deep motivation
Then I began to look for the most convincing arguments that would really help me deal with this addiction. The crystal clear “social networks are eating up your time and concentration” has not been impressive for a long time. We need something more emotional. This is what I ended up with (and yes, I know, you can argue with all this :))
Truly cool people aren't on Facebook.
Directors of large companies, experienced surgeons, successful salesmen and negotiators, talented scientists or violinists - they all have their own, focused and rich lives. There is no time to prove something or build relationships with a bunch of strangers.
We forget about the depth
Smooth phone surface and easy, effortless glide. People seriously and willingly review bright, colorful books like “Encyclopedia for Women” and are pleased to note that it has everything - how to take out a loan, how to throw a child’s birthday party and how to make a great presentation for a company. A video of unboxing small items from China is gaining millions of views. During work hours, people eagerly share “7 things every manager should know” and “5 tips to advance your career.”
We believe in TV stars and pop singers, paying almost no attention to brilliant scientists, doctors, and teachers.
They're watching us
Just think about it - what can we learn about you by looking at your search queries over, say, the last year? What about carefully analyzing your friends’ lists? Do you know that Facebook permanently saves not only deleted posts and comments, but also editions of unpublished texts? Often we see what they want to show us and form the opinion that they want from us. In the noise of voices, thoughts and events, it becomes even more difficult to hear yourself and figure out what is really important.
I don’t want to exaggerate, just as I don’t plan to give up Google or Facebook, but what I really recommend is watching the short series “Black Mirror” - in each episode we see a new forecast for the development of our digital future.
Concentration? No, you haven't heard!
Imagine: 10 years ago we could work on one task or study for 3-4 hours straight and didn’t even think about checking Facebook!
Now we have been defeated by Mrs. Imaginary Busyness. Here she is - plump, with large red beads on her neck and cunning in her eyes. She laughs because of your insomnia and purrs joyfully when she hears the next “I don’t have time to do anything.” Next to her are always her faithful assistants - Multiple Choices. They fly around like black flies and poke themselves right into your face - look at me! - choose me! - I'm the most beautiful! - with me you will earn a lot of money!
Have you ever just looked at your Instagram feed on the way to work and already feel kind of tired? Here it is - constant switching from patch to patch in action.
Enough. I want to have the luxury of single-tasking. Make eye contact throughout the meeting and never look at the screen, carefully finish reading a long useful article, look at people in transport and try to guess their stories, without being distracted by working on articles... Work when you need to work and rest when it’s time to rest.
Causes of breakdowns
Wow, so many useful arguments!
But still, why am I losing my temper?
And everything seems so right, so good.
For myself, I found three reasons for breakdowns:
Fatigue
A tired person has much less self-control and is much less critical of other people's opinions. A tired person is easier to manipulate, and he performs most of his actions without thinking, automatically. My simple recipe is to get enough sleep. Let this be your main responsibility for the near future. Everything can be remade and changed. The main thing is to get enough sleep...
Reluctance to complete a task or not knowing how to complete it
When I have no idea what to write about, or how to approach a complex “elephant,” my pens reach for the entertainment-procrastinating bookmark on the computer. Unfortunately, I haven’t come up with another, more pleasant means than strict control and awareness. But strict control, by the way, only works when you are not tired. So once again - get enough sleep!
Boredom
If the task is interesting and I know exactly what to do, then there is no time for boredom or distraction. If my thoughts are at a dead end or my work doesn’t make sense, then I use every opportunity to get distracted. The solution is not so simple, but it is there - as little boredom as possible. If there is no escape from subjectively useless work, I arrange competitions with myself or try to meet a predetermined time.
Instead of output
We forget very quickly. Our body gets so used to feeling tired that it forgets how it lived before. Every year we become more and more distracted and forget more and more that we used to be able to work on one task for hours without any problems. It seems to us that constant switching of attention is the norm. But is it? What's the point of waking up early if you spend an hour scrolling through Instagram? Is this really the life of a dream?..
Better read the second part of this topic - about
If the information in this article concerns you in one way or another, let’s share your tips in the comments. And write - is it necessary to make a separate post about wonderful books on this topic?
14. 10.2015
Blog of Ekaterina Bogdanova
Good afternoon, readers and guests of the “Family and Childhood” website. Today we’ll look at the topic of teenagers’ addiction to social networks. Social networks are absorbing more and more children and teenagers every minute. Having discovered this wonderful world, schoolchildren almost move there.
That’s why they spend all their free time online, for six to ten hours at a time. And not only on the pages of your own school, where you can, for example, find out about homework, school events and parent-teacher meetings - this is, of course, useful, but not very interesting. The kids climb everywhere they feel like it, and only they themselves know what they do there.
The networks have everything: cartoons, movies, games, music, not to mention dating and live communication - with real and virtual friends. It’s more convenient to exchange a few words with your desk neighbor on his VKontakte page than to call on the phone. And telling a girl (or guy) “I like you” is much easier in the virtual world.
What a pleasure it is to find the page of your favorite (or vice versa) teacher and write something for him on the wall! The nature of what is written, of course, will depend entirely on the attitude towards the teacher.
Parents look at this hobby for their children differently. Some - through their fingers. Others - with understanding and approval. Still others - with irritation. The fourth - with relief. There are also those who consider networks to be a natural disaster, with which there is no point in fighting. They're probably right. The passion for virtual communication in the modern world has become a pandemic. Almost everyone is susceptible to “network disease” (in its various stages).
They communicate online, find old friends, meet new ones, prepare for exams, look for work, buy goods, earn money, even make revolutions. This is an integral part of our life. The only question is whether such delight (and sometimes dependence) is safe at a young age.
If we talk about the pros and cons of social networks, then the arguments of their supporters and opponents are approximately equal. And both are right. There are undeniable advantages, including the ability to search and find friends, salvation from loneliness, help (even virtual) in difficult situations, increasing one’s own status, etc. - everything suggests that social networks today are the most convenient and mobile form of human communication.
What primarily appeals to teenagers on social networks?
First of all, this virtual world has unlimited possibilities and is also easily accessible. That is, you can use them at no cost and in any volume, without getting off the couch. It is common for any person to try to follow the path of least resistance, and social networks provide just such an opportunity. Click your mouse a few times and the world is at your feet.
Do whatever you want with it and enjoy it. Meet interesting people, listen to music, play online, ask for advice, express your opinion, communicate based on interests - and you will be happy, which in this context is synonymous with self-realization. That is, something that is often lacking in real life.
Unlike the real one, the virtual world is more structured. On social networks it is much easier to find people of the same “blood type”. Let's say that in the real world they are scattered at a distance of thousands of kilometers, and in the virtual world they are united under the roof of one community. And sometimes a congenial person lives in the same city, or even on a parallel street, and you would never have become friends with him or even known about each other if not for a social network. Under favorable circumstances, virtual friends become real.
But the attractiveness of social networks is not only the opportunity to “get hold of” new friends, but, above all, its unlimited freedom. There, no one imposes anything on anyone - you choose for yourself which direction to go and with whom to communicate. Be yourself or be who you always wanted, but couldn’t. Or, on the contrary, to finally become that real person whom you actually carefully hide from other people’s views and assessments.
Apparently, this is what primarily explains the wild popularity of social networks and the desire to plunge into them - because in the real world, very often there is no such choice. You have to do not what you want, but what you need. To avoid being a “black sheep” among your peers. And in the nets it’s dry, warm, and flies don’t bite. And if suddenly some stray troll happens, ban him and that’s it.
Therefore, it is quite understandable that teenagers, who often suffer from complexes and misunderstandings of adults, prefer virtual communication. It's very simple: it's more comfortable there. Especially when there are actually more points of contact with online friends than with the real environment. But unfortunately, it often happens that a social network sucks a person in such a way that the main experiences occur in it, and life outside it is nothing more than a forced burden.
Having barely woken up in the morning and not even having time to open his eyes, the “poisoned by the network” rather turns on the computer to see if there are comments on his yesterday’s post or status. At school or college, he mainly does not study, but presses buttons on his iPod, pausing from time to time to look at the network - something new has not appeared.
And when he gets home in the evening, he again rushes headlong to the monitor - because he needs to review his friends’ feed and the latest updates in the community, read comments on his posts and comment on others, respond to comments and comment on the answers.
A person gets a thrill from his social demand, nothing else matters - not the grass on the street, not the sun in the sky, not training, not a family that lacks the attention that is so generously distributed to Internet friends. Against this background, there is more and more talk about addiction to social networks as a component in general.
Psychology of online communication
We live in an age of unprecedented development of IT technologies
, science is moving forward by leaps and bounds, opening up more and more opportunities for humans every day.
Just recently, no one would have thought that communicating with people could be so simple.
After all, what could be easier than sending a Viber message to a friend who is abroad or to a mother living in the village and instantly receiving a response? But any medal, as usual, has two sides. Here's the second one, called social addiction
, we'll talk.
There is evidence that a modern person spends an average of 5 years and 4 months on social networks in his life. For comparison: food costs 3 years and 5 months.
For example, how does a person with alcohol addiction see the world? As a rule, for him there is only one joy in life
, for which he lives, works (he needs to earn money for alcohol), for which he happily goes home in the evening.
He does not notice all other things or they are of secondary importance to him. And so with any addiction.
At first you log into your account once a day, after a week three, and after a month, perhaps several times an hour. Even to the detriment of your daily activities.
Where you can get away from your problems, at least for a little while, and feel like you’re part of this vibrant, successful society.
Where you can fantasize a little yourself, show yourself better than you really are.
After all, a former classmate living, say, in Minsk or somewhere else far away will not be able to check whether this is really your Mercedes or you just took a photo in front of someone else’s car, and a former classmate who has not seen you for 15 years will not really understand do you look that good or is it photoshopped.
Unfortunately, returning from social life to real life can be even more painful. After all, not everyone here is so bright and interesting, and you yourself are not quite the same.
As a rule, a predisposition to addiction to social networks is observed more often in lonely, withdrawn people
, those who have problems communicating in real life, as well as people who do not have any hobbies or interesting activities that can distract them from the Internet.
But they are most dependent.
So, signs of social media addiction in teenagers:
- The child spends a large amount of time at the computer, without even being distracted by eating or sleeping
- Due to his passion for networks, his success in school is deteriorating;
- The teenager prefers virtual friends and almost never goes out;
- The teenager's interests are limited only to the computer.
- The teenager becomes very irritable, or, conversely, shows complete indifference to others.
You can get rid of addiction if you switch the child’s attention to something else. To do this, first of all, you should pay attention to your family’s lifestyle - whether you devote enough time to your child, because often children become obsessed with the Internet precisely because of a lack of parental attention and love.
Another reason is failures in communication with peers. In this case, it is necessary to help the teenager gain self-confidence and find a way to expand his social circle.
Like any disease, adolescent addiction to social networks is easier to prevent than to treat later. Therefore, it is better to practice prevention. Take care of your children. That's all for today. Bye, bye everyone. See you again on the pages of the “Family and Childhood” website.
Manifested by an uncontrollable attraction to something. Today I want to dwell on its variety - psychological addiction to social networks.
Modern life is such that few people do not have a profile on one or more social networks. Twitter, Facebook, Odnoklassniki, VKontakte, Instagram. There are also narrower social networks - for doctors, programmers, webmasters, lawyers, and educators.
Treatment methods
- The first thing you should do is limit your time on social networks and try to communicate more in person. Make a schedule of your activities and include a visit to a social network as a separate item. Turn off notifications that come to your email or phone.
- Spend more time outdoors and focus on the world around you. Read an interesting book instead of a news feed that has nothing to do with the real situation. It is important that the individual understands what reality is and what the virtual world is. In case of serious addiction, it is better to consult a psychologist, especially if the Internet addict is still a child.
- In addition, it is very important to prevent addiction to social networks among young people at the state level. The government should monitor and verify information on social media. The programs of many educational institutions have already introduced various seminars on rationalizing the use of social networks and correct behavior on the Internet. It is important to understand that addictive behavior directly threatens a person’s safety and health.
- Adjust your diet and sleep patterns. Stop thinking of yourself as a flawed, useless person. There are millions of people around you who also feel lonely. You just need to find the strength to communicate live. There are special psychological courses that help raise self-esteem and learn how to present yourself correctly in society. Unfortunately, if a person does not want to admit the problem, then treatment will not be successful.
- In severe cases, when serious mental disorders develop, such as multiple personality disorder, schizophrenia, aggression, patients require inpatient treatment. Patients are isolated because they can already harm not only themselves, but also those around them. They are prescribed tranquilizers and undergo psychocorrectional treatment.
Do you need social networks?
Here are just a few examples of the positive influence of social networks in our lives:
- social networks help us exchange information, experiences, communicate with friends, like-minded people who are hundreds of kilometers away from us, and always be aware of everything that is happening in their lives;
- they allow you to quickly find out about new vacancies, since many companies post them on their pages, and even get a job if you strive for this;
- thanks to social networks, many people have found new friends, and some have found their soulmate;
- they help you travel, saving on travel and accommodation;
- it is social networks that help many talented young people gain popularity, receive support, recognition from complete strangers;
- For some, classmates or VKontakte have become a source of income, they also help those in need raise money for treatment;
- Social networks nowadays provide assistance to law enforcement officers: very often I see notes in the press that the police managed to find some underage girl who ran away to a gentleman, and the presence of the gentleman himself and his identity were established through correspondence on social networks.
This list of merits can be continued for a long time. But there is one huge disadvantage - the problem of addiction to social networks.
Doctors' verdict
This state of affairs led to the fact that at the World Congress of Psychiatrists recently held in St. Petersburg, scientists proposed that addiction to the Internet and social networks be considered a chronic disease that requires serious treatment.
Addiction to social networks is similar to alcohol or drug addiction - they develop according to the same mechanism. The only difference is that with addiction to social networks there are no signs of chemical dependence on toxic substances. Therefore, such people rarely come to the attention of doctors. This was stated by Alexander Kibitov, head of the laboratory of molecular genetics at the National Scientific Center for Narcology ().
And the chief narcologist of the Leningrad region, Evgeny Krupitsky, compared people’s dependence on social networks with diseases such as diabetes, hypertension or peptic ulcers. All of them undermine human health and require long, often lifelong, drug and psychotherapeutic treatment and rehabilitation.
Of course, this view of users’ excessive love for social networks also has opponents. First of all, these are representatives of social networks. They believe that the problem of addiction to social networks is far-fetched and there is no separate addiction to social networks. We can only talk about dependence on communication. Man is a social animal. Therefore, there is nothing scary or unusual in the fact that we love to communicate. And social networks help us do this in a more interesting way - we can communicate with people from different cities and countries, easily exchange photos and videos with relatives whose existence we didn’t even know existed before the invention of social networks.
Psychiatrist Alexander Fedorovich also shares a similar point of view. You can’t compare your addiction to social media with alcohol or drug abuse, which destroys your body and psyche. By communicating on a social network, a person gets his portion of the “high”. But then everything that brings us pleasure and what we like to do regularly can be classified as a chronic disease.
What do you think, friends, about the wild popularity of social networks and virtual reality in general among the population of our planet? Can we already talk about addiction that requires treatment, or is this normal behavior of modern people? Are teenagers and young people addicted to social networks? Do you or someone you love have an overuse of social media? How, in your opinion, should (if indeed it is necessary) be dealt with?
I also ask you, friends, to take part in the continuation of the mini-survey on social media addiction.
A previous survey showed that 52.5% of participants are addicted to social networks, and 29% simply like to spend time on their favorite social networks
.
At the same time, 74% of respondents spend time on VKontakte and 13% on Odnoklassniki
. Other social networks are less popular: from 1 to 4% of survey participants hang out on them.
Do you always keep your phone within sight of you so as not to accidentally miss an important message?
You can spend hours “sticking” to VKontakte
just reading the news feed? Then this article is for you.
What is the worldview? Find out about this from ours.
What is so attractive about social networks?
People involved in developing the functionality of social networks do everything to make them better, more interesting, and more colorful every day. So that when a person goes to the site, he spends as much time there as possible, and preferably also forks out money and buys something.
Communicating on social networks is much easier; there is a certain facelessness. After all, you can register not only under your own name, but also under a fictitious pseudonym, and instead of a photo, place an avatar (picture) or someone else’s photo. You can write whatever you want, insult, “troll”, but you won’t have to really answer for your statements!
Some people view social networks not only as a source of obtaining necessary information, communication, and self-realization. They can go in and wander aimlessly through profiles, add acquaintances and other people as friends, participate in discussions, read statuses, news, look at photos, play games. Of course, there are many discussions in which people share their experiences, where they are helped to get an answer to an important question. But there is also a lot of communication about nothing, monosyllabic comments, emoticons, and sometimes banal rudeness.
Portrait of a person prone to network addiction
People who are insecure and have a limited circle of friends are predisposed to becoming dependent on social networks. Those who would like to communicate, but their opinion in real life is not valued by others.
If a person has a serious hobby to which he wants to devote all his free time, then he is unlikely to look through 20 albums, but if there are no hobbies, and there is a lot of free time, then this is the right path to the formation of such an addiction.
Another category of people at increased risk are people who have one negative quality - envy. How are others doing? Worse? Better? And if you carefully look at all the photographs, and also at friends, relatives, classmates, employees... Gradually spying on someone else’s life becomes a habit, and then it’s not far from addiction.
Addiction creeps up unnoticed
This addiction does not develop immediately. I tried this drug once, twice, three times - and that’s it, the substance became indispensable for metabolism. Social media addiction can take months and sometimes years to form. At first, a person logs into his account once a day, after a week - several times a day, you see, and after a few months he updates his page several times an hour to the detriment of his main job. And even if now the time spent on VKontakte or Odnoklassniki activity is insignificant, it is not a fact that in the near future a person will not become addicted.
Many people whose work is directly related to the computer do not even leave their social network profiles at work (of course, if management allows it).
I remember a joke on this topic:
Boss to secretary: - Gather all employees for a meeting urgently! - By intercom? - No, through Odnoklassniki, it will be faster!!!
But do we need to look through 100 photographs from the life of a friend whom we haven’t seen for 5 years and, having his phone number, haven’t called each other? Maybe it would be better to devote this time to learning a foreign language, communicating with parents, a loved one or children? Or simply get some sleep (we so often deny ourselves this, giving time to classmates or VK). Social networks consume an incredible amount of time, which could be directed in a completely different, useful direction.
There's even a joke like this:
He lived a calm life and managed to do everything. No, well, you should have registered on VKontakte!
Parallel virtual life
I will not be mistaken if I assume that you, your relatives and friends have at least one social network account that is used daily (and more than once a day). For many, a personal page has become a second “I”, and their favorite social network has become a second, parallel life. Everything that is most significant to us is collected here - our loved ones and friends, valuable photographs with memories, a collection of favorite music and important videos. Even if we are dissatisfied with the social network, it is difficult for us to leave it completely - where will we put all this “good”?!
However, new social networks are regularly created for the dissatisfied and bored. And traditional social networks are developing, adding new services to retain users. In a word, everything is being done so that you and I can live.
At the moment, the most popular social network in Russia is VKontakte. In March 2014, its monthly audience was 52.1 million people. VKontakte users send 2 billion personal messages and give 1 billion likes per day. On average, a user spends 42 minutes a day on this social network site. Other social networks have slightly more modest indicators.
How to determine that a person is addicted to social networks?
Do you have an addiction to social networks? The answer to this question will be positive if you have at least half of the listed signs. If there are several, you also need to think about whether it’s worth spending so much time on social networks.
- an obsessive, irresistible desire to go to your page on a social network, view the latest news, look through photos, show some kind of activity;
- complaints from family members, cohabitants, and employees that a person spends too much time on social networks; significant financial expenses, unnecessary purchases “via the Internet”;
- the inability to say in advance how much time a given person will devote to a social network, loss of temporal control during a computer session;
- a feeling of irritation if at the moment it is not possible to log into your profile (there is no Wi-Fi in this area, you need to urgently complete some task);
- As addiction progresses, problems may arise with school, in the family, at work, when the addicted person stops paying due attention to them and spends more and more time online;
- he can eat in front of a computer monitor, spend less time sleeping, just so as not to miss anything new.
Social media owns us
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We trust information posted on social networks more than information from official sources. At the same time, many trust such data unconditionally and do not include the “inner critic”. It is becoming increasingly easier to manipulate mass consciousness!
When meeting a person in real life, we often “get through” him on social networks. And employers study candidates’ social media pages before inviting potential employees for an interview. According to Superjob in Russia, 48% of employers who took part in the survey are guilty of this.
Social networks directly affect a person’s self-esteem, Australian scientists have found (). If we do not receive feedback from other people on the information posted on our page, then our self-esteem, the meaning of life, the sense of belonging and control may decrease. We will feel isolated, excluded from society. Positive reviews—likes and comments—are especially important. It’s interesting that, having received a negative experience from one social network, a modern person does not run to look for friends and interlocutors in real life, but registers in a new social network!
Another feature of social networks affects our self-esteem. Many users try to present themselves in the best possible way, embellish reality, and even resort to deception. Looking through our friends' feeds, we see that everyone around us is happy, rich, has a great figure, travels a lot, and lives a busy life. What do we have? An ordinary boring life with small joys, debts and extra pounds! This state of affairs often leads to despondency, takes away the taste for one’s own life, and reduces self-esteem.
Sitting on social networks has a negative impact on physical health. Spending many hours on social networks leads to a sedentary lifestyle (for example, teenage girls sit and lie for 19 hours a day), obesity, problems with the heart, blood vessels and bones (especially in teenage boys). Often active users of social networks have no time to eat properly and they satisfy their hunger with unhealthy snacks, which leads to gastrointestinal diseases and obesity. First of all, this lifestyle destroys the health of adolescents and young people. In the future, it is unlikely that lost health will be restored.
Features in children and adolescents
The dependence of young people and adolescents on social networks is more pronounced than among middle-aged and elderly people. Firstly, this is due to the fact that most teenagers do not yet have the same burden of responsibility and life experience as older people; they do not need to devote a lot of time to family, cooking, or financial security.
Secondly, social networks are a popular trend, and therefore many boys and girls, in order to keep up with fashion and keep abreast of all the news, try to spend a lot of time on social networks, which, in turn, draws them in. It’s not for nothing that they’re called “networks.”
Teenagers and young adults who have not yet formed their own individuality are overly dependent on the opinions of other people. They post photos of themselves to attract attention and approval. They get used to living “for show,” and there is not much good in this.
— Dependency in facts and figures
1) More than 1 billion of the world's population are registered in various social networks.
3) On average, each owner of a smartphone with the corresponding applications spends 130 minutes a day on social networks.
4) 70% of smartphone users check their social media pages every day.
5) 50% of smartphone owners check their pages even at the movies.
6) 4 out of 5 registered users check their social media accounts within the first 15 minutes of waking up every morning.
How to get rid of addiction?
Only a few manage to get rid of this addiction simply and painlessly. Only those who can boast of fortitude, those who have realized how much of their invaluable time they are wasting instead of devoting this time to loved ones, achieving their dreams, and self-education.
But if you are determined to change your life, try to regulate the time you spend on a social network in advance, do not go to your page “just like that.” Write a list of things that you absolutely must do. And only after you have done everything, you can go to your favorite social network as a “bonus”.
Another effective method is communicating with friends in the real world, not the virtual one. Agree on some kind of joint excursion, an outing into nature, or just a get-together in a cafe (only one where there is no free Wi-Fi network). And try to devote this time to relaxation, communication with friends, and never look at your phone!
In the modern world, a child knows how to use a computer from early childhood, and accordingly, he masters the Internet very quickly. People have long mastered the most hidden corners of the World Wide Web. And this creates addiction to social networks. As you know, there are currently many sites designed to search and communicate with people who know each other in real life, or aimed at virtual dating between men and women. Such sites are extremely popular and have millions of users.
Addiction develops gradually, and often a person will not even be able to recognize its first signs. Each user has his own reasons why he gets used to it. But, as a rule, the main impetus is still loneliness. At the same time, the development of the World Wide Web and its widespread distribution makes it even more lonely. After all, many entertainments can be replaced with people you like, and the value of live communication has long faded into the background. This is no wonder, because on a local network you can be anyone, create any image that is close to a person, that is, anyone can become what they have long wanted, but for some reason could not.
Unfortunately, people do not understand that addiction to social media. networks pose a huge danger to society as a whole. After all, interest in a particular site or even several subsequently develops into a pathological need to follow all its new products, that is, to be constantly online. You can expect that people will become so interested in life on the Internet that they will hardly talk in real life. In addition, many sites designed for communication become a good place to make money, as they host various toys and services that are provided for an additional fee.
Some scientists compare addiction to social networks with diseases such as alcoholism or drug addiction. That is, it is almost impossible to control it and recognizing the presence of the disease on your own is extremely difficult. That is why this kind of addiction can be conventionally called a disease, because the desire to use the Internet never disappears. And if access to the local network suddenly disappears, then a person may experience despair.
Internet addiction: treatment
In order to get rid of a bad habit, you need to gradually wean yourself from spending most of your free time at the computer. The best cure would be to replace the local network; for example, you can entice yourself with walks with friends in the fresh air. Who knows, maybe in this way you will wean not only yourself, but also help someone you know. In addition, every person in life has things or desires for which there is never enough time, and now there is a great reason to complete it all.
Show your friends your interest in communicating with them, try to call more often, find out about their affairs in real life. You can make plans for the evening together, for example, visit different unfamiliar places every day. If, nevertheless, without your favorite social network. network cannot be used, then you should set a limit for an hour or two. And once a week you can spend time in the fresh air and surrounded by your loved ones, completely excluding the World Wide Web from your life. In addition, addiction to social networks can be easily cured by a new hobby, for example, reading books with an exciting plot. These simple rules will help you get rid of your bad habit without much difficulty, and you will be able to fully experience the beauty of live communication.
A major epidemic is growing in modern society – social networks. It is the most dangerous at the moment; even a plague in the Middle Ages or a flu epidemic cannot compare with its contagiousness.
The fact is that the disease proceeds unnoticed, capturing more territories. Humanity turns a blind eye to problems with it. Even schoolchildren have accounts on VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, and Instagram, which adults infected them with. Only a few pay attention to this and begin to act.
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Telephone manias
Mobile addiction - a person carries his phone with him everywhere, twitches terribly if the handset is discharged or breaks, cannot imagine how he can not buy the latest model, downloads all the new ringtones and games and generally considers the mobile phone a part of himself, and without it he feels incomplete. SMS addiction - the “patient” writes hundreds of messages a day, even when it is easier and cheaper to call. Infomania - a person is in constant readiness to receive new information. Checks email or mobile phone every minute. The brain is not able to digest such a volume of information, highlight the important and forget the unnecessary. As a result, he gets hooked on the “drug” and constantly demands more.
Gadget addiction is the desire to buy the most fashionable technical innovations (addiction is the same as addiction).
They become the main sign of social status and a source of joy. For the sake of a new toy, a person is ready to give up vital things.
5.1 People are afraid of live communication
In Russia, there have not yet been any special studies on mobile phone addiction. But the addiction arises primarily not from talking on the phone, but from the various opportunities that a cell phone provides: SMS, MMS, dating on a mobile phone, the same games...
Mobile addiction, like Internet addiction, is a fear of live communication and the absence in the real world of what evokes positive emotions in a person. And he is trying to replace them with the Internet or the telephone. Nowadays, more and more people are enrolling in communication training groups. People are afraid to call each other, talk to each other, afraid to meet - they just don’t know how!
The reasons for addiction to alcohol, tobacco, sweets, or cell phones are the same. A person tries to “hook” his pleasures onto something in the outside world. People who go into virtual communication are not taught from childhood to value real feelings and communication. The family didn’t show them how important it is to be loved and understood.
16 pages, 7515 words
The influence of role-playing computer games on the formation of a person’s psychological dependence on a computer
... to the formation of psychological dependence on role-playing computer games. Chapter 2. Empirical formation of computer addiction in people with different types of character accentuations computer role-playing game addiction 2.1 ...
5.2 The British are cell phone maniacs
British scientist David Sheffield studied the relationship of hundreds of students with their mobile phones. The conclusion is that pipes cause “a real manic addiction in some people, which is harmful to health.” And here are the data of English sociologists:
· 90% of English people aged 18 to 25 admitted that they “take their pipes with them everywhere.”
· 40% said that they generally “cannot live without their mobile phones.”
· 35% of respondents said that cell phones help them “get away from their own problems.”
· 32% tried to limit the time they spent on a cell phone, but were unsuccessful.
· 17% try to constantly keep the “pipe”, if not in their hands, then in their pocket.
· 13% feel irritated if someone picks up their favorite toy.
· 8% of mobile phone owners take a “friend” to bed all night, according to psychologists at the University of London.
· 7% decided that the phone was to blame for “the loss of important personal relationships or the loss of a job.”
How to get rid of cravings?
Anyone who realizes that they have become infected has already taken the first step towards a cure. This shows that the problem is now recognized.
And the beginning of the treatment of any psychological disease is awareness of what is happening in the head, and an understanding of the sources of motivation that force one to perform one or another unpleasant action.
The second step is reading this article.
The third is to choose one of the methods and strictly adhere to it.
1. Turn off the Internet.
Perhaps the most radical method is if, after constantly abandoning one social network, there is a slow transition to another. This option is suitable for those whose willpower is not their strong point. This idea is good for the strong-willed, just to see how life will change without the virtual world. The changes will be for the better in any case. Many people often develop an interest in old hobbies or new interests arise in the real world, which fill their free minutes, and there is no time for updating VKontakte, Odnoklassniki and Instagram.
2. Delete accounts.
Also one of the tough options for dealing with attraction. If only social networks are drawn into the World Wide Web, and other resources are not addictive, then it is enough to get rid of pages on networks that are constantly used. This may cause criticism of the “friends” that are added to the resource, but real friends will understand and there is a connection with them, at least by phone numbers. This is quite enough
3. Remove unnecessary people, unnecessary groups.
If you don’t want to delete, you need an online account for some reason (earning money, communicating with distant relatives, downloading music, etc.), it’s worth removing the unnecessary things. Everything that can distract and unconsciously drag you into surfing the pages of users, groups, comments, etc. The main thing is to enter with an awareness of the purpose, why the site was opened, and as soon as the task is completed, immediately leave.
4. Programs that restrict access to the network.
Another way not to lose your user page and not disconnect the Internet. There are programs that control the time you visit resources. There you can indicate links and allowed times. As soon as the time is exceeded, the program will block access until the next day, week, depending on the settings.
5. Limit yourself at your own request.
The method is suitable for strong-willed people who have become addicted. You just need to set yourself, for example, to use social networks from 21:00–22:00. Everyone can choose the appropriate minutes for themselves. A sticker on your monitor will help you remember this.
How to return to real life?
So is it possible to get rid of this addiction? I think yes, it is definitely possible. And the most important thing here, in my opinion, is to be able to pay attention to your real life, not be afraid to face possible difficulties or discomfort, and also want to fill your life with real sensations and feelings. Here are a few more simple recommendations that everyone can do: *Turn off notifications on your phone. Constant audio messages pull you out of life, distracting you from the events happening in it. I know from myself that it is impossible to finish any task without checking what kind of message came to your phone or tablet.
* Clean up your page on social networks: reduce the list of your “friends”, delete unnecessary groups that do not bring any benefit to you. Thus, you will reduce the number of alerts and reduce the amount of unnecessary information. *Most often “forget” your phone at home, for example, when going for a walk with family or friends. In 1-2 hours nothing supernatural will happen, but nothing will distract you from the world around you. * Gradually limit the time spent on social networks. Don't do it suddenly, reduce the time by 15-20 minutes a day. Ideally, it is better to give yourself a special time to visit social networks, for example, only in the morning and evening hours, for 10-15 minutes, to respond to messages, view the news feed, or read an interesting article. * Hobbies - find a hobby in the real world: drawing, reading, sports - everything that captivates you and brings a lot of pleasure and positive emotions! *If you can’t cope with social media addiction on your own, seek help and support from a psychologist. Together, you will definitely be able to find a way to return to real life!
Greetings, friends! Today I want to discuss with you an important issue - the dependence of modern people on social networks. According to research, almost (information from Kaspersky Lab), and among the adult urban population of Russia, 79% of our compatriots have an active account on some social network (data from the FOM).
Important to remember
Removing applications from smartphones helps. Most people are addicted to social media out of boredom. And often, when the brain feels that it has nothing to do, it automatically turns to familiar resources, which sometimes save you from idleness. This is just a habit, visiting daily pages, so constant work of consciousness is important. So that you don’t “accidentally” open and “kill” half an hour of time in Odnoklassniki. It's good to find something to do that will keep you occupied and entertained during your free hours. Since after deprivation of addiction there will be a lot of time and if you do not find a replacement activity (preferably developmental and useful), you can return to a degrading lifestyle.
The best replacement is reading books.
Buying a “reader” without access to the Internet and loading books into it is priceless!
