Imagine that you just got out of class and head to your favorite spot to tackle some homework. You sit down, pull out your homework from your backpack and ready yourself for some hardcore thinking. Before you start your homework, you decide to pull out your phone and scroll through the various news feeds of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. You tell yourself that you’ll only take five minutes on your phone. Then those minutes drag a little longer and turn to hours and now you realize that you’ve spent too much time on social media and haven’t gotten any homework done.

Don’t get me wrong, I think social media is a great tool. It has the power to connect us with people who are near and far. For example, As the Web Editor of the Royal Purple, part of my job is to be present online and build community with the students, staff and residents of the Whitewater campus and community. Social media is also a fantastic way to escape from the stress of schoolwork through the various forms of online entertainment.

On the other side, social media can become very toxic when we abuse how much time we decide to use it. It’s so easy for us to get distracted with using our phones because it’s so easy to use our phones.  I, especially, am very guilty of this.

Almost all the time, I find it difficult to shut off the online part of myself so that I can get other things done, especially homework. Because of this, social media has brought even more stress to me.

If you’re like me and spend too much time scrolling through social media and watching hilarious TikTok and YouTube videos, I urge you to control and limit how much time you spend on your phone. Give yourself time to focus on homework, to converse with people, to enjoy nature, to do anything other than looking at a screen. Pick up your head and admire how beautiful this campus is in the fall because, with the Wisconsin weather, snow will probably take over soon. I urge you to distance yourself you’re your phone so you don’t think about it as much. Learn and adapt to control your screen time so that it won’t control you.

– Ben Yang

  Web Editor