With day by day advancement in technologies and new upgrades every day, youths are losing their touch with social life. It is painfully conspicuous and evidently visible while eating, walking, exercising, or doing almost anything, that most youngsters are continuously engaged on their smartphones. Clicking and uploading pictures on Instagram has become an unbreakable ritual these days. Right after waking up late at night before sleeping, Instagram has become a perpetual friend. And what fuels them to stick around it all day are the likes, Instagram likes. The frivolous need of getting approval from thousands of unknown followers. The need to be liked, wanted.

A New “type of high”

With physical and mental exercise being null and no social interactions, youths are getting too comfortable in their own bubble and getting deep and deep inside their hibernating den.

This mind numbing entertainment has birthed the term ‘teenage social media addiction’. Yes, it is as real as bright daylight. This decade has witnessed countless disorders, anxiety, depression and mental ailments more than ever before.

 And it would not be wrong to accuse Instagram among many other factors.

• There are many scientific studies and researches by top professionals that have termed this addiction as a “behavioral disorder”.
• This addiction affects the chemical process in the brain as soon as the notification, such as the tingling bell of Instagram like, is received, which triggers the reward system of the brain. There is a discharge of dopamine, which generates a “kind of high”.

Being an Instagram ‘celebrity’ takes a serious toll on a person’s psychological state and worsens an already deteriorating one. Not to mention, the promotion of unachievable beauty standards among impressionable minds. It has become exhausting to live up to virtual standards of lifestyle and charm.

And it is a sad, sad fact that the entire existence of these young buds has been summed up by fake affinity of others. It has handcuffed the ability to make rational decisions and what started as a breakthrough in the world of technology, bound to erase physical limitations, has transformed into a dark and treacherous parasite, living off its users. Communal gatherings have become endangered, families are together yet apart, and friendships and love lives hang through a single thread and can be ended through a single DM or post. Any goodness coming out of it is heavily outnumbered by so many negativities. The toxicity of this superficial, on-the-camera, half-lived life has infiltrated our bloodstreams and there seems no escape.