A Crisis in My Life
同志社国際高等学校

２年

竹内恵

麻2020 was a disaster. People lost their jobs, students were trapped in a 12inch screen, and adults were forced to work from their homes making them
unable to communicate with their coworkers directly. Many were knocked off
to the lowest points in their life as the life they were not used to kept goingon and on. However, there was this one tool that allowed people to keep
connecting even with this severe situation we were all in. And that was social
media. Through all this mess, social media has provided us with the ability tokeep

connectedwithourclassmates,friends,andfamily.

Without

this

高校生―Ｄ部門

convenient tool, it might have been impossible for an excessive amount ofpeople to deal with the tremendous stress with the lack of connections.
However, the rise of social media has made it easier for us to gain emotional
support through the use of its platform by being able to contact each othereasily whenever a situation occurs.
Through social media, we can feel connected to our friends and family
instantly and support each other with the use of the platform. According to a
study conducted by the Pennsylvania State University, people were able tostabilize their mental condition by using social media during covid-19. As weall know, people were forced to stay in their homes for months without almost
any direct interactions they used to have because of the pandemic. Despite
this sudden unforeseen crisis, people were able to cope with their mentality
well through contacting people they know and helping each other through it.
There is no doubt that more people would have gone insane with the immense
amount of stress they had to cope with without the help of others if only
social media did not exist in our society. Because no matter who you are,anyone will go insane without any human contact for such a long time.
I experienced this during covid-19 last year when all the schools in Japan
were conducted online. Although I could take classes anytime I wanted, I fell
into a negative loop of not completing my assignments till the last minute62because of the lack of motivation I had. Even though I knew that I had tostart working harder, once I fell into this negative loop of mine, I was unable
to get out of it. I was trapped in this miserable cycle. My lack of motivation
caused me to stop working to achieve something. Stopped working to have agoal. And stopped working to take care of myself. I was overwhelmed withdisappointment and dissatisfaction with myself. Feeling too tired and drained
to do anything productive, I decided to go on my Instagram page which I
haven’t been on for a while. When I opened my Instagram account there werea couple of messages from my friends I was close with. Although the contents
were stupid and nothing special, it made me extremely happy that my friend
took the effort to contact me. I started talking with my friends more
frequently, and even the smallest inside jokes made me laugh and feel cheerfulagain. We sometimes even studied together using Skype when I couldn’t

situation of me being trapped in my house twenty-four-seven, I finally felt like
I was getting back to my old usual self. Since then, I try to communicate with
my friends on social media during holidays because no matter how angry,sad, and frustrated I am, the conversation I have through the platform with
my friends always makes me feel content, happy, and lively again.
People need connection. It doesn’t matter what kind of situation you are
in or what age you are. Whether they’re children, adults, or seniors, we allneed to communicate with each other if we want to maintain a healthy
environment to live in. Social media has become a platform to be used tohave emotional support in numerous situations. Is social media as bad as thesociety paints it to be? Or is it finally a cure for people to feel connected evenwhen they’re isolated?

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gather the motivation to study. Although there were no changes in the