I was looking through my phone to see what apps I spent the most amount of time on this past week. I was able to conclude a lot of things as well as had a whole new perspective on social media as a whole and how I feel it truly affects me. It was important to me to be able to gain a new understanding of how social media can constrict my mind more than I may think. After taking this week to reflect on how much time I am spending on each app that I own, I realized just how addicted I am to my phone in general. I was especially using apps like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram because there has been a lot that has happened in the Jewish community this week in particular that I wanted to be caught up on. 

For example, I was recently in Jerusalem and there was a tragic shooting that left 7 Jewish people dead and many more injured just this past week. There was so much of my time spent on each of these apps and I never took the time to think about how safe I really am when using these apps. I even recall talking to a friend about something that later popped up on Facebook as an ad and it made me question whether or not I was being listened to. It is a scary thought to reflect on because it seems like everything I talk about seems to pop up on my phone directly after I am done talking about it. After digging through these thoughts of mine that would not leave my brain, I came to find out that this has happened to many other people. I was relieved I was not the only one experiencing this invasive issue. I wanted to know if there was anything I could do to stop it.

 After researching this I came to the conclusion that there are ways to help prevent it from happening. In terms of my overall privacy and security. I think not allowing people to see my current location will be a huge help in keeping my platforms more safe. Also, because I always used to tag people in my posts when I would post with a group of people. I think I will limit the amount I do that because I want to keep their identity safe as well. I think after seeing how much I spent on social media this past week made me want to take a break from social media as a whole for a while. I want to erase the apps for the same amount of time. I would have spent on them and I think that will help me appreciate my friends and family more, and also myself. I think taking time for myself is really important for my mental and physical health, so eliminating the things that consume my mind the most. Such as the social media apps will really help my overall mental health.

https://us.norton.com/blog/how-to/is-my-phone-listening-to-me

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/27/middleeast/jerusalem-shooting-dead-intl/index.html