In today’s world, the life of teens is not that simple. Besides the age old challenges associated with teenage life, today's teens have the added pressure of owning a mobile and keeping up with his/her social life.
Here's a fact : Today, over 95% of teens in India have access to the internet. 90% of those who are on the internet are on social media. 78% of teens own a smartphone. The first thing that most teens do in the morning is check social media!
So, what’s the result? A combination of stress, distractions and addictions. Here is a list of some of those effects.
- Making failed plans to study for semesters:
We all make huge promises to buckle up and put in more hours to study every time the talk of exams come up.
Be it 2 days or 20 till the exam, we end up studying only just the day (or even night) before! The rest of the time goes into daydreaming with our mobile in hands. Smartphones and social media are one of the main sources of distraction before exams.
2. Getting irritated when people peep into our chats:
We get very irritated when our siblings peep into our mobile while we are messaging someone. Maybe they spy on us to report back at home or maybe they are just curious. Who knows ?
More often than not, this leads to fights like this:
Or sometimes even this!
This leaves us wondering, why we are left alone at home with our siblings! God help us!
3. We turn into terrible cooks:
‘Where is the salt? Is this edible? What am I supposed to do with this spoon-like thing? Help!’ With the advent of YouTube, everyone is trying their hand at cooking. To make things worse, we engage in profound conversations only right when there is something on the stove! An hour later we hastily remember the fact that we were supposed to be cooking !
Sadly our family suffers in the end by getting only burnt, and often barely edible food for lunch!
4. Simple mathematics becomes a difficult task:
Simple things like checking balance or calculating tips seem like Herculean tasks. We easily get confused with numbers. We rely on our phones to do each and every tiny calculation for us, including basic addition and multiplication. There is no feeling quite like checking what 2 + 2 equals.
5. Following instructions, especially while driving, is difficult:
‘Take a left and then the second right. Turn right at the roundabout and take the first right.’ And in between these instructions are the numerous messages and notifications that we die to check. In the process of replying to these messages and clearing those notifications, we take a left turn instead of a right and before we know it, are lost!
It is difficult to concentrate on the task at hand. Being easily distracted, we can’t be tagged as the safest of drivers.
Also, we never hang our keys on the key holder. Thus, it is almost impossible for us to remember where we kept our keys the previous night.
6. Becoming really bad at following a diet:
There is a lot of advance planning when it comes to workouts and diets. However, any plans of outdoor activities and physical exercise go down the drain with phones in our hands. ‘Maybe, I’ll start tomorrow? Or maybe, next month? Or in 2022?’ Our mindset has changed much like the assumption that it doesn’t count as calories if no one is looking.
7. Reaching work or class on time is a nightmare:
Being late is a routine for mobile addicts! No matter how hard we try, wenever reache on time. Most of the times, we are glued to our phones, with no sense of time.
Also going to college or work, and staying away from our phone and social media for 8 long hours is absolute torture.
8. Getting excited for simple things:
We start to overreact over the simplest of things. We post everything we do and see, to let the world know that we are wasting time on social media.
We’re hopeless, we’re just so hopeless!
We start laughing for the so-called mokka (lame) jokes as well!
Most importantly, if we become close with some person of the opposite gender, people begin to speculate the nature of our relationship. They starting mocking us on all social media platforms and tag us in memes (many of which are pretty lame !).
9. Remembering important days and birthdays is like memorizing C programs:
Remembering important dates like anniversaries or birthdays is not easy for them. This leads to troublesome relationships with friends and others. What if Facebook doesn’t remind us? We’re dead every single day.
10. More concerned about the expensive cuboidal product than our own safety and life:
We are more concerned about putting screen guards on our smartphones than wearing a helmet while riding bikes.
The distractions are too much that we look both sides to cross a one way road.
Can't stay away from social media? You're not alone.
And the bottom-line is, you just don’t know how to quit!
