Our generation has been turned into instant gratification junkies, with social media becoming our drug of choice. We all know the feeling of scrolling aimlessly for hours, whether it be through Tik Tok videos, instagram posts or Snapchat stories. But how did we get here, and how can we fix this problem.

Social media companies make money off of clicks and views.  Social Media is designed to be addictive so that platforms can profit off of ad revenue generated by users, while mercilessly preying  on the minds of youth. We are their product, according to “The Social Dilemma”, a documentary on Netflix. 

Here’s how it works: every click or like gives us a hit of dopamine, the “feel-good” chemical. This is the same chemical that is produced when we drink a soda or other sugary snack, and it’s also the chemical responsible for drug addictions. Putting down a device to do something that requires us to think is remarkably difficult. Once we put it down, it can be a struggle to stop checking to see if someone texted us or if our favorite artist posted something on Instagram. Even while writing this article, I am fighting the urge to check my phone or scroll through Tik Tok. 

According to the Center of Disease Control and Prevention, when social media first became popular in 2009, depression and anxiety among teens and pre teens began to increase at a drastic rate. NYU Social Psychologist Jonathan Haidt reported that our generation is one of the most anxious and depressed generations, and that a lot of this can be drawn back to phones. 

With McCaskey being online this year, students have more time to themselves, and it’s testing our time management skills. Time management is tough for many reasons—the first one for most people being phones and social media. For many, the only way to combat this is to put their phone in another room or shut it off completely. Many students put their work off to the last minute and turn in lower quality work or else do not do assignments at all because of their attachment issues to devices.

A senior at McCaskey summed up this phenomenon flawlessly, “It puts me in a seemingly endless cycle of being distracted, and then feeling bad about being distracted, and then I start to stress because I can’t get work done, but I always go back to social media because it makes me feel good until it makes me feel bad again.”

Many of the teenagers that I talked to have a love-hate relationship with social media. Social media can boost self-esteem, but it also can drag students  down. Accounts that spread self-love and body positivity can help teens to feel good in their bodies. For example, when I am on Tik Tok, I feel welcomed  by a community that understands me. On the other hand, there are so many accounts and products that tell teens they are too fat, too skinny, or have too much acne, etc. On social media, any insecurity can be exploited by anyone, anywhere, regardless of their credibility or authority.

Phone addiction is not a problem that children and youth should be blamed for; the tech companies in Silicon Valley need to be held accountable for the drug they have created. Gen Z is the first generation to grow up with social media. Our addictions to our phones may come as a surprise, but we must recognize that this is a problem that we have to help solve. As teens, we can work to set limits for ourselves and use screen time features to monitor our progress. Also, we need to remember to be gracious to ourselves and not see ourselves as failures if combating this addiction takes time.  

Gen Z’s perspective on this claim is a little bit different. We blame all our depression and anxiety on the world that has been given to us. We are going to need to fix so many problems, and that is so scary. Many of us turn to our phones as a coping mechanism, even though they tend to make our problems worse.