By: Pragya Singh, Asstt. Editor-ICN
LUCKNOW: Social media has become an important part of our lives. The popularity of Social Media has never been higher and shows no sign of fading.
Researchers at The University of Chicago recorded the cravings of several hundred people for several weeks and concluded that in some cases social media addiction was stronger than addiction to cigarettes and alcohol.
Coffee tastes better after 15 people double tap on its picture on Instagram. Who doesn’t love the internet? It’s a great and weird place filled with all sorts of monstrosities to quell your imagination. You think it, the internet has it.But we do not realize when we cross that thin line and get sucked into our digital lives.
For adolescents, however, the internet can be a dangerous place and many get addicted to it, spending hours on social media websites. Now, addictions are serious and they need to be treated.
To a large extent, it is young adults in the 16-20 age group who are “internet addicts”. Most of the children from middle-income families get addicted to social media. The reasons for addiction are wide-ranging – from lack of playground to being a single child with both parents at work.
As a result, there is an adverse impact on academics, the children become irritated, impact is also on their eyes and they tend to lose their concentration.Owing to massive usage of various social media tools/platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, mobile games and Instagram, a number of people are suffering from mental disorders.
To help people with this, a rehabilitation center was opened in Bengaluru in 2014. “The Bengaluru-based NIMHANS (National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences) had started SHUT clinic — Service for Healthy Use of Technology, five years ago. It has proved very useful and has reaped good results. Following the success of the first SHUT clinic, the Psychiatry department of King George’s Medical University, Lucknow is setting up special clinics to provide counselling to youngsters addicted to social media platforms and the internet.
Through the special clinics, counselling will be done of youngsters so as to motivate them to use less of social media tools.Through these clinics, the aim is to counsel youngsters into giving only a part of their day to social media and other sites on the internet. Their goal is to not let young adults be consumed by the wasteful activities and trends that are prevalent on social media.
Anything in excess is bad, in the same way excessive use of Social media is also harmful. Healthy and control use of Internet is very important. We need to make a wise use of Internet and build emotional connections in the real world and weaken those with the virtual one.
