Experts, who reveal the psychological, social and moral drawbacks of the issue, state that this "new generation" addiction threatens society.
Commenting on the subject to Milli Gazete, Expert Psychologist Gülten Demiröven said, "It is not right to say that social media is completely harmful, but this does not change the fact that social media is largely useless. People watch those short and meaningless videos on the screen for hours, but there are also people who produce those videos. Sometimes it falls before us and we see it. There are adults doing such ridiculous acts on TikTok that it is a scary event. A normal person does not want anyone to think anything bad about him. However, in some social media content, people almost want to be humiliated."
“A SHORT-TERM MONITORING PERCEPTION EMERGES”
"Whatever a person does uncontrolled and unconsciously is negatively affected. Unconscious use of social media also leads to behavioral addiction. Behavioral addiction causes first psychological and sociological, and then physiological discomfort. These short videos that trigger digital addiction continue to play and change even if you don't click on them. We can say that this is almost like hypnosis. In any case, a short-term viewing perception emerges, such as 5 seconds, 10 seconds, 1 minute. But people spend hours watching these videos", Expert Psychologist Kerem Gümüş said.
With the increasing prevalence of social media, screen addiction has become a serious danger. Short video contents, which have emerged in recent years and become widespread like poison in the virtual environment, hypnotize people in many social media applications, especially TikTok, Instagram and YouTube.
So much so that, in a social media research conducted in 2023, in Turkey, where more than 80 percent of the population uses social media, the average daily internet usage time is 7 hours and 24 minutes.
Of course, short videos, which are social media drugs, have a large share in this ratio. We talked to psychologists who are experts in the field about the problems caused by the habit of watching short videos, which turn the brain into a garbage dump with a lot of unnecessary information and especially ridiculous images...
“PEOPLE ARE STARTING TO ORGANIZE THEIR LIVES ACCORDING TO THE PHONE IN THEIR HANDS”
Expert Psychologist Gülten Demiröven emphasizes that people's communication with each other has changed after the spread of social media.
"It is not right to say that social media is harmful altogether, but it does not change the fact that social media is largely useless. People now express themselves with their personal profiles. We are experiencing a process that is directly proportional to personality disorder. Because now people have started to organize their lives according to the phone in their hands. The way social media is used, which until recently was used only to kill free time, is alarming. So much so that it has become quite natural for us to see disordered families and problematic children in society. Now the profile of being the right parent has started to change," she said.
“THERE ARE THE PEOPLE WHO PRODUCE THOSE VIDEOS”
Gülten Demiröven stated that moderation in society has disappeared.
"There is now an excess in the use of social media. This doesn't just mean using a lot of phones. It is also related to the way you use social media. Okay, people watch those short and meaningless videos on the screen for hours, but there are also people who produce those videos. Sometimes we see it in front of us, there are adults doing such ridiculous actions on TikTok that it is a scary event. A normal person does not want anyone to think anything bad about him. However, in social media content, people almost want to be humiliated. The perception of reality of people who constantly watch such content is distorted. There is a lot to say about this issue, but the state urgently needs to take precautions against TikTok and similar social media applications", she added.
“THE SHORT VIDEO FEATURE HAS BEEN PREPARED IN A SYSTEMATICAL WAY ON DESCRIPTION”
Expert Psychologist Kerem Gümüş drew attention to the addictive aspect of social media and said, "Whatever a person does without control and consciousness will be negatively affected. Unconscious use of social media unfortunately leads to behavioral addiction. Behavioral dependence leads to psychological and sociological independence, and then physiological independence. These short videos that trigger digital addiction continue to play and change even if you don't click on them. We can say that this is almost like hypnosis. In any case, a short-term viewing perception emerges, such as 5 seconds, 10 seconds, 1 minute. But people spend hours watching these videos. He deliberately prepared the short video feature on TikTok and YouTube in a systematic way. When people are constantly exposed to these videos, there is a change in dopamine levels. This external dopamine also creates an addiction problem."