Opinion/Article: ADDICTION TO SOCIAL MEDIA; THE WAY OUT

THIS SPEECH WAS WRITTEN BY GROUP 11 OF MOSHOOD ABIOLA POLYTECHNIC OJERE, ABEOKUTA. DEPARTMENT OF MASS COMMUNICATION ENGLISH FOR MASS COMMUNICATORS IV ON2014/2014 PRESENTATION GROUP OF 20 UNDER MR. KOLAWOLE AMOS ADDICTION TO SOCIAL MEDIA: THE WAY OUT? …Mark Zuckerberg was not an ADDICT to Social Media, yet he has one …Obasanjo was not an ADDICT, at the same time President, yet the emergence of cell phone come through him. …Christain Ronaldo was not born great, he created himself to be great. They are Visionaries not Addict! Most people are absolutely hesitant to talk about the word “addiction” or addressed by some as an addict. The term addiction for some are associated and linked with a negative meaning. But there are many kinds of addiction, in terms of behaviour are sometimes applied as compulsion of non substance related, as addiction to shopping, sex, gambling, computers etc. Despite the harmful effect to other people, the bad effect is contributed by the user himself to his/her health, social life and mental statement. According encyclopaedia defines “Addiction” as habitual repetition of excessive behaviour which a person is unable or unwilling to stop, despite its harmful effect/consequence. Addiction can be seen as an urge that is too strong to control in a man’s life. When not properly taken care of, it takes over a person’s life totally and might even destroy it if the person it addicted to something negative. Some are spending longer time on their social platform as part of their job and most of the technologies are particularly new every second, I think more will pop up for new research done for the future. The term “social addiction” is always seen on news and headlines around papers and television. A lot are keeping on patronizing social media because of online games, online friends and chat. But some people lost their job due to online addiction, other lost relationship for some reason. I hope that his subject may not be our problem for the future because I can see that this is becoming more and more of a problem. Ask yourself how many hour s do I spend starring at my phone than talking to humans? Taking care of your social needs with online interaction rather than the personal one. Students nowadays, instead of talking to each other we prefer to post it in social networking sites taking about their feeling and thoughts. The latest news of this, over 500 million people all over are interested on ones person life and already spying on one another. Not getting enough sleep and not eating on time are some bad effect of this. Also some come up with conversation that can lead to discuss to argument. How many of us wasting valuable time on social media sites like facebook, twitter, whatsapp, instagram, we chat, 2go etc. waiting for someone to re tweet or react on my post on walls or even just mention my name. These are the symptoms. Fighting over social addiction should start by each of us. Here is the way out, only if you can put it into consideration Acknowledge your addiction: accept the fact that you are addicted and know that you ought to get over this addiction for a better lifestyle. Believe in yourself, knowing you can overcome the addiction i.e. do not log in for days, weeks and see how it goes. Whenever you have that urge to log in to see what new, stop is and think why you joined this social networking site in the first place, to connect with old friends or find people with common interest. Think how much time you would need for these activities that you signed up for, be fair to yourself and make a timetable with time slot of the various activities you do while online. Says, 15 minutes for checking and replying to notifications. Stick to this time slot and only use the social networking site when you know that all your days work is done over with Think about the useful thing you could be doing instead of wasting time on these social media sites If none of these works out take a deep breath, muster your courage and permanently delete your account or the social media application, remember it’s for the best. To crown it all Discipline is the only key to overcome social media addiction. Although social media can be a help in term of project productive tool, it can be equally play and contribute a negative role if you lack “Discipline”, not being control of usage of different social network. Addiction is something that interferes to our life and being part of it sometime. The time will come mankind can do almost everything with technology and still one thing will remains impossible, releasing the addiction on technology. YOU CAN GET YOU ARTICLE OR WRITE UPS POSTED IN THIS BLOG BY SENDING IT TO aphorismcity@gmail.com