I’m just coming from a friendly conversation that turned awkward. I have this friend who is now addicted to TikTok. He is currently unemployed and does nothing, so right after waking up, he takes his phone and begins to scroll through those thousands of videos online. It really didn’t take me long to notice this pattern in his behavior because I mostly find him sending me links to videos on TikTok from morning till evening.
And as someone who doesn’t even use TikTok, I’m unable to watch those videos. But that’s not the point. I asked him what exactly he gets from being on TikTok all day, and then he said it’s to release stress. So I went ahead to ask, “Which stress?” Because he doesn’t do anything stressful at the moment. And that was when he agreed that maybe he’s just addicted because he’s idle. I understand that it’s very easy to give up on job hunts, especially when you’ve done everything that you can and you still aren’t hearing from any of the jobs you applied to.
I understand how depressing it can be, but that’s exactly why you shouldn’t make yourself idle. If scrolling through social media is what makes you happy and keeps you going, then at least for each hour you spend on TikTok, Snapchat or Instagram, make sure you spend another hour of your internet bundle and time learning a skill online. And there’s a reason why we’re in an era of digitalization. You don’t even need a physical school to learn a skill.
There are so many resources online that you can download and immerse yourself in until you are abreast of whatever it is you want to learn. If you already have a skill, then spend time perfecting it. If you have something to do and then you use social media as a way of releasing stress, then fine, I’m not going to judge you for that.
But if you are unemployed, waiting for a company to employ you, then I think it’s rather important you equip yourself with a digital skill at least. Something to make you stand out from the other applicants. From graphic design to coding to so many other options. And then, instead of just scrolling, start building an online brand with the skill you are learning.
Even the government has said several times that nobody is coming to save the youth from unemployment, and that is why they have begun so many apprenticeship programs for people to learn skills. But the good news is that every youth has a smartphone and internet connection. And so even if we don’t have the physical resources to learn a skill, we have the digital ones.
So why not make use of them instead of spending hours on social media? And the thing with these digital skills is that they come in very handy. Who knows? You might even become a CEO on your own.
Images are mine
