Early in September not long after this semester began, I completely shut down the social media application in my cell phone. There were a couple reasons that drove me to do so.
The first was that I was too actively involved in it and almost became addicted to it. Reading other people’s posts, editing my own posts and counting how many people “liked” it or made comments on it took up too much of my time. There is no doubt that I could encounter some really valuable and informative posts, such as those related to the veterinary medicine. However, I would not read them right away anyway but just make a screenshot, saving it for a later that rarely came. The second reason is due to the nature of social media. You add your friends, and then you add your friends’ friends and the loop just keeps going and never ends. There was a relatively long period that I read quite a few negative posts every day and ridiculously they were posted by people whom I did not ever know… The third reason, which is more personal, is that after spending so much time on social media caring too much about things of unrelated people (sometimes I could get upset by those negative posts by strangers), I decided it would be wiser to communicate with family and friends directly rather than simply writing a post to let them discover on their own. Social media can certainly shorten the distance between me and other unfamiliar people, nevertheless, it should not be allowed to deprive us of time with our family and close friends. And my heart just melts when people ask me how I have been doing since they haven’t seen my posts for a while…
Now it’s approaching the end of the semester and I am considering re-activating my account… I might have time to read those high-quality articles, I might not be affected by negative posts with my holiday mood, and I can share my holiday fun with more people.