Social media has ruled with a tight grip since its first inception with platforms such as Youtube and Facebook in the early 2000s. In a study from the University of Maine, if added all together, the collective 4.8 billion social media users online spend around 11.8 billion hours on social media every day.
Such a number begs the question: what exactly is it that gets users so infatuated? What part of the endless digital sphere seems to constantly attract people in a way that convinces them to spend so much time?
Understanding how social media is built and the social structures that encourage its usage is one of the most pivotal points as to understanding the mindset of its users. Why for do people constantly scroll past TikTok liking and saving videos without ever really imbibing in the information?
The answer to this may lie in how societal pressure and the constant day-to-day grind can affect people, specifically students, in order to constantly get that dopamine hit. In a 2023 study, it was found that short form content mediums such as TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube shorts actively encouraged procrastination in undergraduate students.
People, and students specifically, can feel pressured to use it to feel connected to their outside world, fearing being “shut out.” The damages to both mental and physical health from something such as this only proves, ironically, how important these sites are. Knowing your limits on how much media you consume a day is second to this.
Understanding that short form social media is in and of itself addictive is important when understanding why. It can be harmful, yes, but the sheer openness and fluidity that it provides can help its users have that outward connection outside of their little bubble.
People deserve to know what’s going on outside of their city, state, or country and having a form of social media that allows for them to both do this whilst still taking in new information is imperative to being open-minded.
Different viewpoints can be flung back and forth, different biases can make themselves known, but no matter what, people deserve to be able to do that. It allows for people to help others on topics they may not quite get the full picture of, and it allows for people to think more outside of the box in relation to how they view the world.
Personally, I have found that, when not completely being sucked into the day-to-day swipe-and-scroll that often plagues users of sites like TikTok, being able to see news that I wouldn’t have originally dreamed of being accessible outside of specific countries has been extremely eye-opening.
This may stem from that fear of being shut out. World events can also contribute to this, specifically in how people want to be more connected. A 2020 study showed that, during the Covid Pandemic, TikTok alone saw a significant increase in popularity, with a growth of 180% among 15-25 year old users.
People start flocking to sites in order to be able to still feel connected to the outside world. Even through both environmental and physical barriers that the pandemic had brought upon, social media sites allowed for people to interact with others who were going through the exact same thing.
It helped others understand how similar people were, despite differences in culture, and differences in belief. This exists today, even amidst the numerous cultural shifts and societal norms that seem to shift and change with each passing year.
Although social media can present itself as an inherently negative thing, especially through the lens of how addictive it can prove itself to be, this is outweighed by the inherent good that it can bring about. Barriers can break between cultures and help understand that people all across the world are still people, the same as them.
Societal expectations can further reinforce this, but although it can be damaging to constantly focus on the outside world, it, in-turn, can help someone become educated on topics they may have previously had an askew view on. There’s an inherent interest in others that causes people to stay a little bit longer on that video of someone from a different country expressing a cultural norm there, like cooking a meal.
It helps for them to see how people in the comments can then interact and apply their own experiences to what they see and how they personally relate to something. That is what I believe is why social media is so important, due to how it allows for anyone to have an interest in something and then, build upon it.
When looking through the scope of the purely negative, social media offers many reasons as to not fall into its common traps. However, looking past this, and understanding the good that can come out of it, can help convince someone of the good that is outside of their bubble with how much free information circulates in it.
