Don’t Blame Social Media for Your Bad Habits.
Along with products like Mountain Dew, violent video games, and junk food, social media joins the long list of targets often blamed for creating distractions and self-defeating habits in our lives.
Everywhere you look, you will hear voices chanting that, to get our lives on track and foster effective practices in our day-to-day, we need to cut down on our over-consumption of Facebook, Twitter, and the rest of the social platforms.
While it’s true that the most lethargic and inactive people around us typically overuse social networks, this picture of social media’s bad influence on our productive habits is at best partial.
No matter how engaging cat memes, Tasty tutorials, or tweetstorms may be, social content per se is neutral. Whether it has good or bad consequences on our routines depends on how we use it. Just as a clean desk and a free schedule are no guarantee that you’ll get your work done by the end of the day, social networks won’t become a distraction unless you choose not to put the effort to focus on what’s important in your life.
In fact, social platforms offer us remarkable and unprecedented opportunities to connect with others. With them, you can do everything from learning creative skills from world-class instructors and finding unique career opportunities to building your own brand and growing an online community. But whether or not we will capitalize on them ultimately depends on our choice and resolve to commit.
We must challenge the tendency to blame tech companies for our poor habits and embrace full responsibility for our actions. Yes, Facebook may indeed be a temptation for you and you may need to reduce your hours a bit there. But the power of social networks to distract us doesn’t go beyond the mere influence: the ultimate cause of letting temptations drain our lives is us.
What’s more, considering the life-giving benefits that social media potentially stores for us, we do a tremendous injustice to its creators and entrepreneurs when we blame them for our shortcomings.
Before accusing social media of being so addictive, let’s first reflect on how we can leverage its potential to create self-constructive habits.
By Ricardo Pinto
Ricardo is a Content Writer and Creator at Novel Philosophy Academy
