It’s 6 a.m.. Your alarm clock starts its obnoxious ring until you press snooze. Barely wake, you subconsciously grab your phone and shut off the alarm.

What’s the next thing you do? Immediately check Snapchat and answer your friends that you left waiting while you slept.

What’s next? You check Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and VSCO to check up on anything you missed while you were missing in action for a few hours.

You eventually get out of bed and get ready for school, and while you eat breakfast what are you doing? Checking social media yet again! Maybe this time your watching a Youtube video of your favorite youtuber, or even being productive by checking your teacher’s remind making sure your all set for your homework!

The 7:30-2:03 period is where students have the most trouble feeding their social media addiction. Teachers have resorted to taking phones to ensure students are focused during class, which inevitably creates the new urge of craving their phone within arms reach to function properly.

This leads to a sudden rush to the shoe rack at the end of class to, again, check up on anything they’ve missed during the 70 minute period that they were separated from their second pair of lungs.

As a teenager myself, it would be dishonest if I did not address that this social media lifestyle did control my life as well. I find myself checking my phone more often than I’d like to admit. Quite frankly, as I’ve written this exact opinion piece, I’ve probably glanced at my phone after every sentence or two, to see if I’ve received any new notifications.

The truth is, our generation has an entirely new way of living due to the piece of technology that lays at our fingertips.

When our parents were in high school, they didn’t need their phones to make plans with their friends to hangout. Before phones and social media, people needed to communicate in person to talk to someone, which can be quite shocking for people of today’s world.

“You need to ask someone on a date in person?!” Yes, you do.

I’m not sure of the consequences our generation will face due to not practicing social skills in real life.

We live our lives needing to satisfy our online status, whether it be updating the world on attending the Ed Sheeran concert, or keeping up with our Snapchat streaks to reach that one year anniversary of snapchatting everyday.

These ‘ticks’ that teenagers face is a new problem that the older generation did not face while growing up.

Will we have problems in the real world when we’re forced to attend meetings and socialize in real life? Will we be able to make friends through talking and not finding common interests through Instagram photos? Will we be able to handle real life situations when we’re denied in real life and not through a screen?

Social media has changed the way our lives are lived, and it’s too much.