Skip to Content, Navigation, or Footer.
The Daily Cardinal Est. 1892
Sunday, January 19, 2025

How addicting can social media be?

In a world where a “like” almost means more than a verbal compliment, I think it is safe to wonder how much social media is too much? Don’t get me wrong, I am all about social media. I love posting photos on Instagram and tweeting my daily awkward moments more than anyone probably. However, a recent article I read really got me thinking: Is it possible to be addicted to social media? The more I thought about it, the more I realized that social media is literally made to be addicting. I’m no expert on the subject, but this week I intend to shed some light on why everyone loves social media.

First of all, I guess social media needs to be defined before I delve into it further. When thinking of social media, most people think of the usual three—Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. People forget that YouTube, SoundCloud, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Pinterest, Spotify, Pandora, Buzzfeed and even personal blogs are social media as well. Any place where you connect or intend to connect to other people on the internet is technically social media.

I’d like to touch on YouTube. I adore it. Music videos are my life. I think they are a super awesome form of art. I’m not afraid to say I spend copious amounts of time on YouTube, which is a problem for me. I will go on to watch a new music video, then three hours later pry my eyes away from the screen long enough to realize that I just watched 55 covers of the same song. It’s no wonder it’s stuck in my head. Buzzfeed has the same effect on me as well. Damn your hilarious videos Buzzfeed. You kill my GPA. I think it’s the easy access of these websites that get to me. It’s so easy to just click right to the next one. I need to stop.

Facebook. Ugh. I have a love-hate relationship with Facebook. I liked Facebook when I was like fourteen. We all just posted stupid high school pics and status updates of what we were doing after school. Let’s not forget that making your relationship status “Facebook Official” was a huge deal. Now that I’m in college I realize that I, as well as my friends, use Facebook in a much different way. I mostly just post pictures of what I’m doing because my family likes to see what’s up. Plus it allows the pessimist in me to see which one of my friends back home are pregnant, doing nothing or in jail.

Just as I’ve evolved in my online posting so have some of my friends, and that is how my newsfeed becomes a political-warzone mess. Not that sharing political opinions isn’t important because it totally is, but I refuse to believe Facebook is the place for a full-blown political rant. I don’t even mind little sentence-long plugs. It’s the uneducated, uninformed, paragraph-long rants that get to me. I always have to fight the urge to comment “get educated” on said statuses. If you need to politically rant, like me, make a personal blog. I believe that some people have not only become addicted to posting politically charged rants, but to starting all-out wars online. It’s annoying, and that drama can become addicting to some people.  

I also have a love-hate relationship with Instagram. Instagram is cool because it’s just pictures. No rants and raves, just pics of all the cool stuff my friends are doing. The thing that gets me though are the people who post selfies, or more than one selfie a day. Like seriously, that is unnecessary. Yes, you are gorgeous but, damn girl, calm down. I’m not saying I never post selfies because I absolutely do, and yes I keep track of the likes I get on them. I can easily see how it gets addicting, I mean after all we get pleasure from being looked at, but If you post a selfie or more a day, you should seriously consider that you might have a social media addiction—yes I’m talking to you Kim Kardashian.

I think it’s safe to say that every form of social media is designed to be addicting in its own way. Whether its drama, likes or fluency that addicts you, there is something online we should all stop or at least cut back doing. Is it a huge life-threatening problem? I doubt it, unless you can’t even hold a conversation in real life, or can’t even eat a meal with your family without looking at your phone, and even then who am I to judge? You do you. I wish you hundreds of likes on your 4,000th selfie.

Support your local paper
Donate Today
The Daily Cardinal has been covering the University and Madison community since 1892. Please consider giving today.

Powered by SNworks Solutions by The State News
All Content © 2025 The Daily Cardinal