Design by Kiarra B

Do you ever find yourself a prisoner to the never ending cycle of watching 30 second Tik Tok videos? Well, confession time; I do. For me, it always starts out as a simple, ‘I’m just going to take a 10 minute break’ until I end up watching 1 hour of youtube shorts. I find it quite irritating that I can’t get any of my work done because of social media. Every time I open up my Maths book, I feel full of determination, ready to tackle the range of Maths problems my teacher assigned me for homework. 1 or 2 questions in, I find myself slacking off and all that determination transformed into having to resist the urge to open up youtube shorts. That was until I discovered the technique of ‘Go Socials’ – a technique that helped me direct myself away from Social Media. 

‘Go Socials’ is simply spending more time offline than online. Maybe it’s asking your parents to enroll you in that tennis class you always wanted to go to. Or maybe it’s signing up for a club or activity at school. By occupying yourself with these activities, you have less time to dawdle on your phone or computer. If you sign up for different activities or clubs, you’ll probably come home a bit later than usual. Once you take a shower and have a snack, you’ll have more than enough time to complete any homework or assignments that are due soon. The next part however, is the hardest – it’s staying away from your device once you finish your work. 

You may think that since you finished your work, you can just have fun on your device. However, what’s the point? What’s the point in watching something that someone’s doing all the way in America? The thing is, there is no point. So then, why do we stay up late at night, wasting our time on something that has no meaning? This is because social media apps have found their way to hook us into their videos by posting addictive content. The content is so addictive that our government had to intervene by banning children from accessing social media. A five minute break turns into a 2 hour scroll. Rather than wasting your time on meaningless things, try physically interacting with your family. This could include playing a board game with them or going out for a picnic. Physical interactions cause stronger bonds with your family members. 

However, it’s not always the children’s fault that they are addicted to their devices- sometimes, it’s the parents’ influence. The first 5 years of our lives tend to be the most vital years because it is at that time that we learn a lot of crucial things. By learning, I don’t mean classroom style learning. At a young age, children often learn through playing and interacting with other people. The main people present in their lives during this time period tend to be their parents. If the child’s parents are spending most of their time on apps like Facebook and Instagram, the child also starts to pick up these habits. They will never learn how to be social or have physical interactions with others because all their lives, they were either alone or only had their devices as their source of entertainment. This goes to show that not only children need to be separated from social media, but also parents. In fact, our society as a whole should make an effort to distance ourselves from social media and start having real conversations again. 

That’s why I say Go Socials.