“Don't talk to strangers,” is a sentence that echoes in my head every time I break this golden rule. Quarantine brings out the worst in people. “Don't give out personal information,” is another phrase that bombards my mind whenever I hint at something too close to reality. But now is a time without rules, in which boredom hunts our repeated days and sucks us into a parallel reality. Life in Mexico looks like a faraway dream that was once my life, but after closing some friendship cycles and pouring my feelings onto paper, I realised that there is much more than this bubble-wrapped society. There is a world out there. So. Back to strangers. It all began as a joke. My sister and I found a trending website on TikTok in which you could speak with anyone in the world. England, Australia, Brazil, Spain now all seemed just around the corner, as we spoke to countless people doing the same thing as us: nothing. Some of the friendships we made on this website were as simple as five-minute conversations. Others lasted a few hours. And a tiny bit of conversations lasted a few days. That is where the Stranger comes in. In one of our many adventures surfing on this website, we met them. The Stranger is nineteen years old and lives in Kent, United Kingdom. But that is not even half of why our lives are so different. The Stranger is truly the one that popped my bubble, ripped it apart. The Stranger claims they left school at age sixteen and does not plan on going back. The reason? Drugs. In the enclosed society I live in, in Mexico, it is rare to hear about drug dealers or even about junkies, but for the Stranger, selling drugs is the only thing that keeps their life afloat. To be honest, I was taken aback, I even thought about blocking the Stranger as I saw them write the word Xanax on my screen. I had to re-read the message a couple of times. I knew the next step was to stop talking to someone who had any connection to a drug like that. But I gave the Stranger a chance. I was intrigued to know what went on in the world of drug dealing so unknown to me. Turns out the Stranger's family is a low-income family. Divorced parents. A brother who steals his money. A troubled kid kicked out of High School for selling drugs. What are they doing now? Working a minimum wage job at a mattress factory near their house with a dealing business on the side, to afford living in an expensive country like England. After countless texts, I learned to look past that and get to know the Stranger. They are nerdy and passionate about learning history and reading. Their favorite animal is the black panther and they're obsessed with watching the worst British TV shows ever. They're funny, caring, and also intrigued to know more about a different kind of lifestyle—mine. Of course, there were tense moments. Our worlds collided more than what we imagined. The Stranger sent me a picture of them smoking weed. I looked at it in their hand, so casual, so normal for them, yet so shocking for me. I got these waves of fear, a reality check. I started to look at their image again. Bluntly. Thoughts of blocking them again tortured my mind. Questioning voices traveled through every corner of my head echoing, “What are you doing?” That question still haunts me: “What am I doing?” Why am I talking to someone I don't even know across the globe who's life is nothing like mine? Would they bring positivity to my life? Probably not. But we can't be blind to reality. And that is why I texted back that one time. I see the person the Stranger is, their background does not define them. So, strangers. We are about the same age. In completely different parts of the world, with different cultures and incomes, and yet there we were. Texting with some force, filled with curiosity and of course the fact that for once in a long time, we are all united by something unwanted: quarantine. Might not be as bad to break the golden rule, right?

Your immediate reaction to the title is most likely one of the following: WHAT??? WHY??? How could you?? I could never… Or something along the lines of… Okay, cool 👍 Is that…a big deal? Literally no one cares. …What's Instagram again? If you are younger than 20, though, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that your response probably belongs to the first group. Pardon the generalization, but stereotypes do exist for some reason. Deleting one of my primary sources of social media was a decision that was one of many in my quest to maximize personal growth, success, and happiness… but it also stemmed from a lot of mysterious discontent in my life, of which the exact roots could not be traced. Of course, as an 18-year-old, I have always known that social media has a very strong presence in our lives. But truthfully, I never really thought deeply about the extent to which it had an influence over me and the role it played in my life, my growth, and my overall happiness. Until now. But what prompted this profound train of thought? The answer: a well timed-series of events. (Life has a funny way of making that happen.) A few weeks ago, one of my good friends deleted her Instagram. At the time, though I fully understood and agreed with her reasons, I didn't believe that I could do it myself — to just go and delete years of memories and connections that, though documented virtually, were still made in real life. The idea of all those memories and connections gone made my heart ache. After we talked about it, I didn't dwell on it too much, but not long after, upon my return to university, I unfortunately started to struggle with my overall happiness again. Something I had difficulty with in a totally new environment was finding people who I had a natural connection with: similar interests, values, lifestyles, etc. But this time, another layer of complexity was added. While the last time I had struggled with finding new kindred souls, now, I was having trouble staying on the same wavelength as some longtime friends. To be honest, in my desire to constantly learn and grow, I believe that a gap was widening at an exponential rate, and an obstruction had been reached in some of my relationships: I don't believe that you have to have everything in common with someone to be friends, but… the differences had started to outweigh the similarities. In attempt to solve my problems, I tried to pinpoint one identifiable thing that attributed to why I felt out of place sometimes with people around my age. TikTok. Okay, hear me out. I'm really not against people having a good time but TikTok has always seemed a tad frivolous to me. Yet, a crazy amount of people my age and younger are quite active on the app, and I started to wonder… why is it such an epidemic? And just how many people have been pulled into the greater vortex of online culture due to peer influences and desired connectivity? Moreover, I wondered if, despite my prideful resistance, a part of me was also feeling natural pressures to be like the “average” person my age… I have always been told that I am quite mature relative to my peers, but despite that, was I still being held down by age expectations? I mean, so many times, I have felt the subconscious urge to say something out of character in order to produce a laugh or be “relatable”. Though the Internet breeds insane creativity at times (Youtube and Instagram, especially!), it is also quite proficient in stunting individuality. I think most people can understand the feeling of doing something you don't really want to do, saying something you don't really believe in, or hanging out with people you don't really like. I've come to realize that this whole “trying to stick to the status quo” act is truly a waste of time, energy, and potential… not to mention a huge hindrance to our personal growth. Social media having the ability to direct my growth and my ideals more than I am actively aware of is something that I now want to inhibit, or at least be able to control completely. This is how everything that I have been feeling AND observing — isolation, loneliness, alienation, insecurity, insincerity, fear, uniformity — comes together. And ultimately, this is why I chose to delete my Instagram. I wanted to detach from something that I've been connected to for many, many years of my life during a critical period of growth. I realize that I need to grow by myself and become the person I want to be without an excess of influences pulling me in all sorts of directions that may not reflect what I truly want. Sometimes you need to distance yourself from what you know, from what is familiar, to figure out who you are. And who you aren't. I suppose I can understand now why people go on those mysterious silent retreats into the mountains… Anyway, I don't want to mould myself based off of other people anymore. From now on, I want to be my truest, individual self. My own self.

Is your five year old constantly on his or her iPad? Your teenager texting away at family dinners instead of listening to Grandpa? Let's be honest, even parents, after a long day at the office would rather unwind by scrolling through Facebook posts than conversing with their spouses. What is this iron arm that grasps society today to worship a flashing light of nonsense? Is humanity on the edge of turning into mindless robots only answering to the “ding” and “buzz” and radioactive pieces of metals in our pants pockets? Social media falls under the broad umbrella of social networking sites in which virtual communities can create profiles and collaborate together. That old saying “bells and whistles” is applied to social networking; it is eclectic, or wide-ranging. There are a variety of apps and services available to people. Social networking is a way of being. It is not about what we do but who we are. Adolescents are attracted because of the idea of always being “on”, such as being updated with the latest feed is the social norm. Adolescents are affected because digital media is the culture of most households. For young adult users, social media is a way out of loneliness, or stress at home or school. Unfortunately, this leads to online harassment. Social media addiction also leads to poor work ethic since students are constantly distracted. Many believe multitasking leads to a more efficient brain, however when we are on multiple websites and social networking sites at the same time, our brains become exhausted. Also, family relationships become compromised as parents and children prefer more to spend time on devices rather than with their families. This leads to decreased interpersonal skills and weak communication. Why can't people stop? Social media supports Maslow's hierarchy of needs, such as self esteem, which is boosted through likes and comments. People don't become addicted to the technology itself rather what it allows an individual to do. Dopamine is related to anticipation. We don't know when we will get a comment, that anticipation causes us to continuously check our phones thus become addicted. So how do we fix this epidemic in our 21st century of diseases? To start off, parents should be good role models from the beginning. Parents with young children who are seen constantly on their devices will prompt their children to imitate their parents. Parents must show their kids how to use social networking sites with discretion. Also, parents can begin to limit and lower screen time. This means turning off notifications or shutting off their phone for a given amount of time. This will allow kids to have a detox away from screens and focus on other tasks. It's important to keep in mind that social networking sites addiction is very similar to substance addiction, so people prohibited from using their social networks may feel anxious and jittery not being able to check their posts. The best remedy is to take it slow and have open communication. SNS using hinder strong communication so parents must take time to speak with their children and do activities with them is important. My interests in understanding SNS addiction came from a cyber bullying incident from when I first opened up my Instagram account back in sixth grade. When some close friends harassed me I realized it was difficult to tell my parents what was going on because even though they were fluent in using technology of all sorts, cyber bullying was not in their vocabulary for all of their lives since they had not grown up with such technology in their small village Birgonj, Bangladesh. Since then on my own will and freedom I decided social media was not for me. I've been able to open up and see that we are becoming transparent beings in a virtual and very unreal world. I hated that a mere flicker of the light interested people more than a simple hello. A communications counselor came to my Mosque and told me something that will always stay with me. There were people in the Middle East who worshipped idols rather than the one and only God. She said that today we are worshiping a different kind of idol, which is idleness. We let time slip away from us as we mindlessly scroll through photos. So, unhook from your devices and smile at the world!