Mental issues have become more severe and widespread over these past few years, and I believe the central source of these concerns is related to phone addiction due to unrestricted online content consumption along with the influence of modern society that encourages people to be more active in workforces and less focused on themselves.
Digital entertainment platforms, initially, are developed to offer a convenient access for online communities as well as allowing users to share and acquire various enjoyable content from different sources, but these entertainment platforms are one of the major contributors that slowly undermine people’s mentality. Recent research suggests that people nowadays, especially Millennials and Gen Z, have experienced a major increase in overall screen time per day, from 2-4 hours to 8-10 hours; this result of study implies that individuals constantly spend the majority of their time being entrenched within their smartphones, which is a very concerning practice as individuals are more inclined to perceive irrelevant information from the media that is not directly related to their personal lives rather than participating in matters that are truly relevant to them, or in other words people with phone addiction cannot live their own lives. As long as they do not quit this very self destructive habit, it can consequently lead to some mental issues such as anxiety and even depression.
In addition, the widespread influence of today’s society often promotes excessive productivity in several aspects of life, specifically in workforces. Although this idea may seem to be beneficial for the improvement of people’ lives at first, an immoderate urge to improve one’s situation can actually result in excessive self pressure and anxiety as some people believe that working harder is the most efficient approach towards achieving success. Due to that reason, these individuals are more inclined to compare their achievements with those of others, and would likely feel incompetent if they can not successfully pursue their very high standards of performance; Therefore, an overly contorted understanding in productivity of modern society has become one of the main factors that cause some mental illnesses along with amplifying its effects on people.
In conclusion, phone addiction from unrestrained content consumption and the contemporary influence of contorted belief in productivity, when combined together, would certainly exacerbate the effect of mental illnesses on people