Is Your WIFI Connection Causing You to Disconnect?

07/08/2017
Callum Gundry-White

Callum is convinced that wifi signals are making us more passive, sadder, more depressed.

We all find ourselves aimlessly scrolling through our timelines and newsfeeds on an evening.

We all find ourselves aimlessly scrolling through our timelines and newsfeeds on an evening. For some, in search of entertainment. For others, in search of community, a sense of belonging, a sense of belonging that without the internet, we otherwise wouldn’t get. As harmless as both of those examples may seem, there are some underlining and developing issues that are becoming more prevalent within the teenage online community with every advancement the internet has to offer.

For me, and I’m sure for many others, the thought of being able to limit the amount of human interaction needed in order to maintain a relationship is more than appealing. However, with this, my anti-social ‘friends’, comes the issue of using the internet to create a false idea of what human interaction means, and shadows the importance of a physical relationship, even if it that means having to carry out the unwritten friendship rules that you so desperately try to avoid on a daily basis. A group of researchers at Leeds University, created a questionnaire-based study for around 1,319 young people and adults, that looked at the severity of their internet usage, then carried out the ‘Beck Depression Inventory’, a series of 21 questions typically developed to measure the intensity, severity, and depth of depression within patients with a psychiatric diagnoses, with those same 1,319 young people and adults, to see whether or not there was actually any correlation between the level of severity and depressive tendencies. Shockingly, or maybe not so shockingly, the group of researchers came to the conclusion that, “This study reinforces the public speculation that over-engaging in websites that serve to replace normal social function might be linked to psychological disorders like depression and addiction,”. To put that into layman’s terms, your ‘Snapchat’ usage may be contributing to your growing depression and internet addiction.

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All of this leads to the fact that, hiding from the deeper problems in WIFI connection and social media sites, can only lead to things getting worse.

After listening to many different interviews and applying other people’s knowledge onto the, ‘the internet is causing this mass wave of teenage depression and internet addiction’, viewpoint, I began to compare the viewpoint against my own experiences and made some pretty harsh realisations. I came to the conclusion that, like Elliot, from the Amazon show, ‘Mr Robot’, a show I had begun to routinely watch in order to escape the realities the world had to offer, that I too had begun to hide behind the internet, knowing that there was a level of fake intimacy on sites like ‘Facebook’, that would allow me to stay away from physical contact but still uphold enough contact to the point where friends wouldn’t second guess our level of friendship. Overtime, all this has done for me is just increase my level of social anxiety and depression, even when around friends and people I have known for years, I still struggle to express my viewpoints in ways I would like, purely because expressing my viewpoint would mean having to say more within a conversation, a conversation that I would have been putting off for weeks. All of this leads to the fact that, hiding from the deeper problems in WIFI connection and social media sites, can only lead to things getting worse. It certainly did nothing good for me, and I’m sure for thousands of other teens. At this point, my advice to someone in a similar situation, would be to just listen to my experience, acknowledge that there is a problem, and work on fixing the problem before you become trapped within your own mental state.

Overcoming the problem can be difficult in some instances, but not in all of them. For example, I have recently completely ditched Instagram. By taking away the countless hours spent scrolling through your ‘friends’ images, you have time to focus on those people and experiences where a real human connection in the physical sense, is being explored. Now, completely getting rid of Instagram for internet addicts is obviously not very likely, but limiting the usage can be. Taking some time out of your day to tackle to deeper those deeper issues, like, ‘What about human interaction scares me so much?’, or, ‘Why do I feel the need to shy away from attention?’ may play a pivotal part in learning about yourself and why you are the way are. With any of these problems, remembering that it’s better to have a step-by-step mentality, where patience is developed is key.

Head to the comments. On your wifi. Tell us what’s up.