“As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.” –Henry David Thoreau 

It’s no question that social media has taken over what used to be simply the millenial’s way of passing the time, and is now a big portion of our everyday lives. According to a report on CNN, the average teenager spends a ludicrous 9 hours of their day on social media. That’s practically ¾ of our day spent in a 6-inch and rectangular virtual world that ultimately only serves to skew our sense of time and productivity, while absorbing the life around us that we should be taking in, instead.

It doesn’t take much thought to understand why social media has profusely impacted our generation; it’s a way to pass the time, easily connect with others, defeat the feeling of loneliness, and share our lives with others. However, the number of negative results that coincide with technology can greatly surpass the advantages of it, and often include hatred, bullying, self-absorption, addiction, and worst of all: wasting our young lives on a screen and only taking away but a small fraction of the information we process. And in that small fraction of what we do get out of the time we invest in technology, we’re barely taking away anything worth remembering, let alone anything beneficial to us.

Most of the time spent on technology is not knowing what to do with our time while setting up a distraction for ourselves. I’ve often found that when I was tired, I used to aimlessly scroll through Instagram, only to forget practically every post I saw, and then realize I’m doing absolutely nothing.

Internet entrepreneur, activist, and inventor, Alexis Ohanian says “It takes discipline not to let social media steal your time.”

Out of all the years I have been on social media, I only have a few vivid memories of times on it that either involved catching up with an old friend, finding and reading fascinating articles that inspired me, or looking at old pictures that triggered good memories.

Social media should be used primarily to connect with important people in our life whom we can’t interact with as easily or as much anymore, educating ourselves, sharing ideas, and occasionally pass the time if needed. Everyone seems to feel as though they need to share every part of their life with everyone, when years from now, most everyone will forget practically all, if not all, of the selfies and memes their friends posted.

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As the typical teenager, I have tried every form of social media. From this, I had the realization that, although society pushes it, not each one was for me. But why does everyone feel obligated to have every form of social media?

Facebook seems to be the most useful form of social media, as it connects people, has some news, it’s an alternate form of contacting people, has groups, express ideas, and updates distant friends and family on your life. Facebook is profoundly the place where most internet power takes place; power that helped Kesha’s case against Sony and spread awareness about world issues such as the Paris attacks.

The power of social media is quite high in Facebook, but still studies show that Facebook makes people unhappy, suggesting that people surprisingly have better social lives without it. Facebook is pretty broad when it comes to the way people use it; however, I believe it should be looked on as an opportunity to connect with faraway friends and keep updated with their lives while sharing big importances of ours. The way I look at it, it can either be a distraction of information among people we don’t know well, or a form of connection with peers and distant friends/family.

Instagram is great for a means of sharing fun moments of my life, but it didn’t take me too long to realize it’s solely for entertainment. It’s neat to see pictures from around the world, but I have always felt from the numerous selfies people post that it’s an effortless way to boost self esteem, and studies suggest it’s indeed a form of self-loathing. Ultimately, I feel as though Instagram, in terms of its most useful manner, would be creating a virtual photo album. However, this might only be a significance for oneself, and maybe a few others.

Twitter is an interesting way of expressing our inner-thoughts, but a very small source at that unless you’re a celebrity. Besides, how much can you express with only 140 characters? Twitter is probably most useful when sharing links to articles, blogs, news, and possibly creating a timeline for ourselves of our small thoughts and opinions through the years. Tumblr and Pinterest follow behind Twitter in this sense, but can still only have such a strong impact on ourselves and our peers.

Snapchat is quite the interesting one. I believe as long as someone does not document every part of their life, and instead focuses on posting important things, it can be entertaining, but nonetheless it is definitely not a necessity. Snapchat doesn’t offer much when it comes to leading people to jobs, meeting other people, discovering new opportunities and interests, or truly expressing yourself. (Unless you want to become a dog or a magic creature that pukes rainbows.)

But, what may surprise people is that research found Snapchat seemed to make people happier, compared to other forms of social media. Snapchat, being based on smaller parts of our lives, helps us relate to others easier, rather than feel isolated. Snapchat also offers more creativity and individuality, since it deals with more ordinary life moments.

Then there’s the social media that is usually used through links on other social media. YouTube might be one, which has gradually become a go-to from media such as Facebook or Twitter, instead of a page people go to instantly. YouTube goes into a whole other dimension of uses, aims, benefits, and distractions. Instagram may offer a slight chance for people to find fame on, but ultimately YouTube has taken the prize for getting people fame. There are now lists of people on Youtube who make more than people on TV.

While this may definitely be a good use of social media, the odds of this are very unlikely and require a lot of hard work and creativity. YouTube is great for entertainment, as long as you avoid the comments section and the weird side of YouTube. It offers either many educational opportunities, or an endless loop of distractions, that follow with even more distractions enticing you to keep being distracted. The amount of opportunities to educate yourself on YouTube is a lot more than many would think, but sadly most don’t view the website as an opportunity as such.

Out of all the social media apps among the millenial generation, the most obvious one to note as advantageous is LinkedIn: a social media app, similar to Facebook, that solely displays work-related information to find potential jobs opportunities. It connects peers to some degree, and helps younger generations, as well as older generations, build professional profiles. Despite how useful it is, studies show that only 13 percent of millenials actually use it. I hope our generation eventually comes to realize what social media we should give up, and which ones we should be focusing on, but as of today it seems we use social media based on what everyone else uses the most, which is usually what gives us the most gratification and entertainment.

Before the booming of social media, I wish there had been a warning or more gradual growth of it. The number of ways to inform and educate ourselves online still aren’t enough for people to stray away from apps. All in all, social media should be used to an extent, or not at all. Social media ultimately won’t get us anywhere, and anyone who feels as though they will be left out if they don’t involve themselves with it, might not realize that it’s actually the people on social media that are being left out on life.

We don’t want to lose the paths of finding ourselves in a world that makes us feel as though we need to fit in, and adjust ourselves. Anyone reading this probably got to this article from some form of social media, but at least reading, and reading about an important aspect of our lives at that, is still more productive than looking at hundreds of posts that go into a black hole in your head. Be wise with technology, and a wiser life may come to you.