Let Generation Z emancipate itself from technology slavery

Social media

Users watching video live streams. We need to monitor the time spent on social media. 

Photo credit: Shutterstock

What you need to know:

  • It has become a culture, affecting school performance of many young adults.
  • Of the world’s 7.75 billion people, some 5.19 billion are mobile phone users.

We have become slaves to technology, especially social media. Some machines are even performing jobs meant for people. 

Social media has made many young people lazy. Many of us wake up in the morning, unplug our devices from the charging system and go straight to social media. We do this before praying, brushing our teeth and having breakfast. 

It has become a culture, affecting school performance of many young adults. We literally cannot find time to study.

Nights are spent watching videos on YouTube, Tiktok and Netflix. 

Getting enough rest is important. Messing up with sleep can lead to medical problems. Sleeplessness leads to earning disabilities, memory impairment, personality changes and even depression.

It can have dreadful consequences on relationships, health and safety.

People deprived of sleep have difficulties in making decisions, get irritated quickly and have problems with performance. 

Sleep loss can also contribute to obesity, diabetes and heart illnesses. 

Of the world’s 7.75 billion people, some 5.19 billion are mobile phone users. Active internet users were 4.57 billion in 2020. 

Studies show that we spend an average of three hours and 40 minutes on mobile phones daily. 

This does not include time spent on individual apps. Kenyan university and college students use WhatsApp more than 30 times a day. 

PDF and other key messages are shared through the app but is it necessary to spend the whole day checking who has posted what status?

Generation Z is the worst when it comes to social media usage. Many in this group spend time making videos for Tiktok, Instagram or YouTube or watching such clips till late in the night. Surprisingly, you will hear some complain of insomnia.

We need to monitor the time spent on social media. 

That will definitely lead to saving a lot of time for other things like reading a novel or getting that refreshing air as you take that rare walk. 

Zahrah Mohammed is a Communication and Media Technology student at Maseno University.