Nicholas Duro has started a healthy social media revolution with Private Island
The Internet is 11,500 days old as we write this article for you. It has evolved over time and has become part of everyone’s daily life routine. From ordering pizza to a reminder on google calendar for your important meeting with the client, we all look for the internet services. The Internet has undoubtedly a very important invention as it has changed the global world into a digital world, and we don’t have to wait for the newspaper in the morning for updates. Although there is not much concern about the invention of the internet, there is definitely an objection about the use of the internet.
Social media is one of the things that we came across because of the internet, and we have around 3.6 billion people available on social media worldwide. Not only the individuals but the businesses are also taking advantage of social media in recent days. That is why social media has a definite impact on societies all around the world and, most importantly, on individuals. There have been both positive and negative impacts of social media on our daily life routine, but one concerning impact is the shift of actual social life from real to digital.
In this article, we will thoroughly go through the negative impacts that social media has on our lives and how it has changed the everyday life of the individuals. Later we will also discuss how you can give you the ability to disengage yourself with social media and use the internet to make better decisions.
Since there have been 3.6 billion users of the different social media platforms, many of them spend most of their time on the social media platform. People use these social platforms either on their phones and laptops and most of their time went into updating their statuses, posting their recent pictures on different platforms, keep updated about the status of other social accounts, liking things, and continuous messaging with friends. It is simply because of the fact that these are the only platforms that people have where they get updates about their friends and family. They can also share their experience there, making it a very good source to pass the time. Until this stage, social media’s effects have been positive since it allows people to remain connected.
But beyond this, social media can have a serious impact on the user’s physical and mental health. According to one of the recent studies, it has been observed that usage of social media platforms disturbs the quality and amount of sleep of the user; they can start feeling lonely and can go into depression, and can experience anxiety. Let’s discuss all the negative impacts of social media in detail, and in the end, we will also discuss a potential solution for the problem.
You might be spending more money because of social media:
Believe it or not, you might have been under the influence of social media when it comes to spending money. According to a recent survey of Schwab’s 2019 Modern Wealthy, almost 49 percent of the millennials have been under the influence of social media and overspend money because of it. And this also seems possible since we go through a lot of stuff on social media every day. As we get updates about our friends and families and basically in contact with a specific community, we see people buying different expensive things and putting them on their social media accounts. This can trigger the user who is consuming the content and can urge them to buy the same thing for yourself as well. Not because you need it, but mostly because of the fact that you can post it on your social account as well. There are people who spend even more on getting even an expensive thing while it performs the same work for them.
It affects your appetite:
This can also be surprising for most of the readers, but unfortunately, this is another effect that social media has on our lives. Since you might be scrolling through the feed day and night, you might go through a lot of food posts and new restaurants launching in the town. Going through these delicious dishes and new restaurants, the opening ceremony can force your brain to go through different neurological and physiological changes. They can make you hungry right away, even when you are not hungry. What happens next is that you either order the same thing online or cook it for yourself and end up eating more and consuming more calories in the day. And since you are spending more time just sitting on your couch and scrolling through social media, you gain unhealthy weight, which leads to many other physical and mental problems.
You lose your ability to think independently:
Social media has really played its part in introducing peer pressure, especially in teens. Even adults have also been affected by it, and the worst part of it is that you are not even aware that it is happening with you most of the time. Most of the social platforms encourage their users and groups to connect with each other to share similar ideas and beliefs. Over time these ideas and beliefs grow and reach more users, and since most of the people are of the same idea and belief, it starts to become a norm. Since it is human psychology that people tend to conform to their group to be a good fit within that group and well-liked by the other users, people start to agree with the same idea and belief. He starts to mold his brain to start thinking in the same dangerous way. You can see this phenomenon at work with political posts on social media.
End of real-life conversations:
Digital social platforms really have the ability to destroy your real social life. This is simply because of the fact that it can hurt the self-esteem of the user. Since he saw other people doing different things than him, he started establishing complexities about himself. In most cases, people start to consider themselves as misfits in society. This takes away the confidence of the person to face someone in real life. Since humans cannot do much without having a conversation, he starts to take the help of social media and starts to have conversations with people over the internet. From there, he depends most of the time on emojis to express his feelings rather than having a real-life conversion with people in person. And there is no need to explain what are the impacts of not having a real social life,
You might look for people approval:
Social media has to offer users the ability to like, share, and comment on the posts. These days, social media users look to have a moment that they can share on the insta instead of a moment that they can enjoy. And when they share the moment on social media platforms, they expect people to approve of their moment. Most of the users manage to get a good amount of likes and positive comments but what is concerning is the fact that it activates the brain reward center. This is the same as winning the lottery, getting chocolate as a reward, or finding money in your pockets. With an excess of this practice, your brain can start releasing dopamine, a chemical that leads to addiction. There are chances that social media’s excessive usage makes the users addicted to these likes, shares, and comments.
Ineffective multitasking:
This is probably not the kind of multitasking you are supposed to be doing. If you think that checking your inbox from mail and then switching to Instagram to go through a few posts and then sharing what you are doing in Snapchat makes you a good multitasker, then you should reconsider your multitasking abilities. This kind of multitasking will only consume the energy of your brain and nothing else. Also, switching the accounts and your attention in between the apps so quickly can affect your ability to focus on multiple activities.
Loss of sleep:
This is probably the case, with 90 percent of social media consumers. Since social media can be addictive, it can tempt people to keep going through it over and over again. With so much content available on social media platforms, users can easily spend the day only scrolling through the feed. Even then, he might not be able to consume all the content. Since these social media platforms are used on digital devices with lights, this light affects the percentage of melatonin that your body produces. Melatonin is a hormone in the human body that regulates sleep. The number of melatonin hormones decides how much sleep you get. The blue light from smartphones decreases the level of melatonin in the body and affects the sleeping pattern. And we all know what happens to our mind and body when we don’t provide our body with enough sleep.
Cyberbullying:
Social media is another biggest source of cyberbullying. We now see minors and kids using social media platforms and consuming the content on these platforms. People use this platform to bully people, and most of the time, their targets are minors and kids. Some of the typical bullying types that we see on social media include inappropriate and aggressive comments and messages and manipulated photos or cropped videos. The victim can feel stress because of this online bullying, and it affects how he/she interacts with people in real life. Some extreme cases can also lead to suicides, and we have been experiencing it recently.
These are some of the immediate and common effects that social media have on our daily lives. Almost all of these effects have been concerning, and as a user and consumer, there’s not much aid available to avoid social media usage. We see posts and content on the internet that suggest different solutions for people to avoid social media but not most of them have been effective. There needs to be a practical solution to social media consumption because it is nearly impossible to avoid the internet in this digital world. Since the internet has a direct connection with the problem, why not take the help of the internet itself to solve the problem?
Private Island is there to help:
Nicholas Duro of Private Island app is of the same idea that the internet can be used to help people come out of social media and start enjoying their lives for real. You cannot avoid using the internet, but you can use it more wisely. There is a better way to spend your time on the internet, apart from social media. The best part of that will be that you will not be affected because of it. But what actually is Private Island? What it has to offer? And how can it help? You will find answers to all these questions in the next section.
Private Island is basically an app that has been specifically designed to help people avoid social media and be safe from the effects because of it. Rather you can spend your time on a Private Island that does not advertise and hook you the same way social media does. However, it does not have the same effects since you will participate in real-life activities. The Private Island is an Anti-Media app that uses technology for good to connect people and bring them to plan an adventure in positive offline experiences together.
Instead of spending time on your couch scrolling through the ads and content, you can actually socialize with people on a beach or in a pub. All you have to do is to spend a minimal amount of time planning a trip with people or other consumers of the app. You will then get the chance to spend time with people and share your experiences with them in real life. The app connects consumers to business to efficiently carry out completing a trip or experience.
We believe the idea is really something out of the box and really has the ability to encourage people to start using Private Island app and have more fun in positive offline life instead of scrolling through social media posts. All you have to do is install the app on your phone and sign up as a user. On the island app, the feed is organized in a calendar style. From there, you can join different islands and can then go through your current and future islands. You can either create your own island and can invite your friends or can join other owner islands. Either way, you get the chance to go through the posts and the highlighted islands. There is also an explore page where you can find your friends and events, and you can also sort them by location, guides, and categories.
Furthermore, there is an experience page available as well where you can create your own events and can also find events created by other islanders. From the notification page, you can take care of all the activities happening on the island, and this will also show you the status of your request to islanders or the invites you get from different islanders. However, you are advised to update your profile with your info so people can know about you can make them aware of your interests. This is also the page where you find most of the info about your completed and upcoming events.
For complete user experience, there has been the inclusion of the wallet section as well. You can open your wallet by simply clicking in the balance. From there, you can send funds to the users, withdraw your funds to your bank account, and see your transactions’ history. All and all, this is one of the best ways to socialize with people after consuming limited internet. Socializing in real life does not affect you the way social media does. The modern digital world is looking for similar types of initiatives for the end-user that can help them socialize effectively using the internet.
We have listed out the effects of social media for you to understand how social media is consuming our brain and health over time. Some of you might also be experiencing the same issues that are caused by social media. That is why this is the time to take the initiative to move away from these types of platforms with the aid of apps like Private Island. These types of apps make the transitions fairly smooth for the user and allow them to spend time in a productive way, having real life experiences together.