Today, as we are stuck at home, we have more free time on our hands. This fact leads to an increase in the use of technology. Apart from using zoom and computers for school, we spend much more time on apps just for fun and leisure. These apps include Instagram, Tiktok, Among us, Snapchat, Messenger, Facebook, and so on. The increased usage could lead to serious consequences. For this reason, I decided to survey the 9th graders and ask them about their screen time on their phones. From my personal experience, I can say that my screen time has increased by at least 10% since this quarantine started, and as I saw from the survey, my peers are suffering from the same results.
Let’s start with the fact that TikTok is the most used app from the survey. The average time on TikTok was about 1.7 hours a day, which is very high. The second highest was Instagram, with a total time of 1.4 hours a day on average. And the third highest was a game that is very frequently played called Among us with 1.2 hours a day.
TikTok spread pervasively all around the world, with around 800 million users. It is no surprise that the most time spent is on TikTok, which has a lot of enjoyable videos on the platform. TikTok has a for you page, which is basically one of the best features, as it shows the user videos that are suggested by AI according to the user’s likes.
Instagram is also one of the biggest social media platforms in the world which has 1 billion users. Instagram is also very fun, as it allows you to chat with friends, watch how a person’s day is going, and stay up to date (knowing the biggest news).
And finally - Among Us, a game that has taken the world. This game became very popular during the pandemic. From my personal experience, I can say that it’s definitely my favorite game. Among us is an extremely fun online game. If you don’t know what Among us is about, basically the game takes place in a space-themed area, in which the players are either crew mates or impostors. The goal for crew mates is to complete all the tasks, while impostors have to kill all the other crew mates. Whenever we have time, my friends and I play, having the best time determining who the impostors are.
I want to show you one of my classmate’s screen time (weekly) of these apps:
We can see that she spends a lot of time on TikTok just like others while spending the least on Among us (from these apps).
From this, we can see that the use of technology has really increased during these times as we have a lot of free time. These three apps are the most frequently used ones from the 9th grade. TikTok, Instagram, and Among us all allow communicating with others while also causing problems such as eye problems, addiction, and so on. We spend a lot of time on our gadgets that cause problems for our eyesight. Also, we become addicted to all of these gadgets causing further problems such as strained, dry eyes, blurred vision, and headaches. Poor posture when using screens combined with can cause chronic neck, shoulder, and back pain,” states Care Well. We should try everything to decrease the use of electronics, which will, in fact, decrease our health problems. But from the survey I conducted, we can conclude that the 9th graders are addicted to their phones.
This is a major problem in today’s society, which has to be taken into consideration. It is significant for us to limit and reduce the time spent on our phones as it causes many problems. It would be beneficial if we limited the use of every app to a maximum of 25 minutes. This would be an ideal goal for everyone to decrease too. We can do this by reducing the time on each app and then, finally, getting down to 25 minutes. Screen Time could be very helpful in fulfilling this goal, as we can set screen time limits to every app, and after the time is up, it kicks you out of the app, telling you that the screen time limit has been reached. I think it is really important to reduce technology use as it causes health problems. Of course, our goal would be to do everything for the benefit of our health.
Edited by Mashiko Lortkipanidze
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