HOW  HAS  SOCIAL  MEDIA  AFFECTED  ME ?

I was born and raised over half of my life in Nepal and I grew up being the most stereotypical Asian kid. I was a straight A student, I was good at sports and I LOVED maths and my typical school day would look something like this, I would wake up early, eat, study, go to school, come back from school, do my homework, eat, do more homework and sleep. I had no time for social media, in fact I had no social media, mainly because I was 9 and my parents wouldn’t have let and also because I didn’t have phone. When I moved to New Zealand I continued my studying habits and my parents tried as much as possible to push me to the best I can do. 

 As I grew older and older I started detaching from my study routine. I got my first phone, I made a Facebook account and sooner or later I made a Instagram, snapchat, twitter the list goes on. I felt the pressure for me to post every couple of hours on one of these platforms. I slowly got more and more addicted to my phone, more particularly social media. I started to spend more time on my device than I did studying. I saw my grades go down, I started to lose interest in what I loved doing.

 I started being so obsessed with what my Instagram feed looked like or how many followers I had I stopped concentrating in class most times. Every time the teacher was writing on the board or busy helping another student out came the phone as I would immediately go on some sort of social media platform, either messaging or snapchatting  one of my friends, listening to music, watching a video on YouTube or I would be on Instagram or Facebook scrolling down the news feed.  Sooner or later the teacher would notice me and let me off with a warning that my device will be confiscated next time. The device then would disappear until I would find the next opportunity to pull it out again.

I was so addicted to my device I couldn’t resist going on it. And even in those times when I did feel motivated to actually study I would always keep my phone with me and get distracted by the notifications and would give up half way through and go on Instagram instead. By the end of all of this my daily routine started to become so bad the first AND last thing I would do was go on my phone. I would be in my phone till 2 – 3 in the morning until my eyes were in so much physical pain and were so tired I couldn’t look at my screen for a second more. This was when I was 12.
 
Every day I felt like as if my eyes were getting weaker and weaker. I was so used to looking down at my screen when ever I looked up everything was so blurry, I could not see.

Fast forward to about a year later of repeating the same routine over and over again I finally decided to get my eyes checked and when I did they told me that I needed glasses and that I could not go on my phone for any more than 3 hours daily. They told me so many fascinating facts about why my eyes needed glasses which in a way was kind of scary. It was kinda like a smack in the face of reality and it was a huge eye opener for me. And I know this sounds so dramatic but so many thoughts started to flood my brain about all the decisions I made that led me to this day, there were so many other things I  could've done instead of going on my phone which could've prevented that day from happening. The ophthalmologist was so convincing about how I needed to stop spending so much time on my device I actually listened to her and I drastically stopped using my device. 

I really wanted to get back on the right track if that makes sense, I started to read more instead of going on my device, I started to actually turn my phone off and listen to what the teacher is saying
in class, I stared to gain back my social skills with my family and friends and till this day on I have tried my very best to keep up this habit and of course, I fail time to time but I am still recovering and sooner or later I am going to get back on track and regain what I used to have and that was good connections with my family and friends, good grades and much more less time on my phone + social media.