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The Untold Truth About the Social Media Era

A deeper understanding of how Social media takes over our subconscious mind.

Technology has changed the way we live, work, and socialize. We depend on our smartphones for work, school, our personal and social lives. Gone are those days when we remembered phone numbers, use landlines, and read the newspaper. Even though technology has made our lives easier, it has made us lazy. We have outsourced simple tasks to our laptops and mobile phones. We live in an era where narrating celebrity gossip has become more important than remembering a phone number. Technology and machines can do things better, faster, and more efficiently than us. Only time can tell what the future has in the hold of us.

How has social media revolutionized the world?

It has brought us into a platform through which we can share our ideas, thoughts, and information virtually, making it a world of its own.

Before getting into the world of social media, let’s examine the life before it. Before the 21st century, we belonged to a confined environment, where our knowledge about the outside world was limited. All the information until then came from movies and stories. We were a part of a small group where our life existed in a bubble. It has brought us into a realm where we get a bird’s-eye view of everything beyond our social group. Social media has revolutionized our thoughts and created a realm of infinite possibilities.

What makes it so addictive?

Let’s take a moment to analyze what social media has become. It has become a medium through which people communicate, socialize, interact, escape and seek entertainment. It has replaced our traditional communication through phone calls, letters, and emails as it has made communication much faster, efficient, and easier to use. It’s so good we can’t go back.

If you find yourself on social media, you realize that the content never stops. Our Instagram feed recycles every second. There’s so much information that our brain cannot comprehend its totality.

Now let’s have a close look at how our brain adapts to social media.

On average, a brain makes 35,000 decisions in a day, which includes simple and complex decisions. It decides, depending on the demand for it. For example, if you have to make two decisions; study for an exam or cook food. What do you think comes first? You would cook food because the need for it is immediate. Since we perceive to have sufficient time, we study later.

We categorized these decisions according to the demand and spread throughout the day. However, we can also execute immediate and unplanned decisions. For example, if we witness an accident where people need help, our brain immediately pauses all other actions and focuses on helping the victims. As we rescue the victim, we receive feedback in terms of joy, relief, altruism, and other emotions depending on the person.

It makes all the decisions based on this closely connected loop in our brain. Therefore, it makes our brain very efficient. The downside to this system is that our brain does anything that gives immediate feedback. Social media has risen to be one of the easiest ways to generate dopamine in the recent decade amongst children. Why, though?

It’s because social media content revamps in the blink of an eye. You may wonder why do we care about these updates? These updates are more important than you think. When you enter your feed, you get information from your inner circle, celebrities, memes, and so on. Since this information is easily accessible and infinite, we keep surfing on social media. After viewing every post, we get a dopamine spike. This extreme spike tells you why social media is so addictive.

From a neurocognitive analysis, the dopamine released in the brain is the same, whether it comes from receiving 95% in maths or watching a reel on Instagram. Therefore, we get the same amount of joy in performing each of those tasks. The brain takes significantly lesser effort to execute the latter. So tell me, why wouldn’t you spend more time on social media?

Even if you have set a plan out to work, social media pulls us back because it’s way more rewarding. Social media apps like YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and Pinterest have built a systematic algorithm that uses our previous watch history to regenerate posts we are most likely to watch.

The more time you spend on social media, the more it understands your likes and dislikes. As scary as it sounds, it becomes an extension of you. These apps know what you’re going to watch before you know it. So it’s important to moderate our use of social media.

Social media is a world of its own, very similar to reality but poles apart. It’s an illusion of reality; we may think we’re presenting our true identity when, in actuality, we’re all filtering out our bad bits. The illusion created by us is so precise we cannot differentiate between the truth and the lies. We end up fooling ourselves before others.

Re-evaluate your journey in social media. You may enter Instagram to network with your peers, post pictures, know what celebrities are up to, or keep up with the latest trends.

But the moment we step into social media, we all become citizens of the web called netizens. Being a Netizen gives you many benefits over a regular citizen. You get an outward reach to more than a billion people, which could never happen in actual life. You can express your view in front of millions of people without confronting them directly. It lets you filter yourself so that you can present the best version of yourself.

How does this impact people? Let’s uncover the brutal truth about social media.

1. Deindividualization

As we grow up in the actual world, we become more aware of the rules and regulations. However, social media does not have any rules or principles we must follow. It’s an open environment where we can do whatever we want without fear. Though this allows people to express themselves freely, people can misuse this opportunity to spread hate.

2. Impact on mental health

There are multiple factors on how social media can affect mental health. Let’s dive into a few of the problems we all face.

When we enter social media, our small social group expands into a larger ecosystem of people, making it more susceptible to hate. Even though a stranger abuses us, we feel disappointed and insecure because we treat our followers as our own. As a result, it puts us under pressure to satisfy all our followers that can be exhausting.

Here is something most of us do but cannot realize.
People don’t care about other people, but they care about what they think of us.

Sounds ironic? Then why do we do it?

As human beings, we cannot realize this because likes and comments have become a way of receiving validation from others. It is rewarding if it is positive and can be a punishment if the reviews are negative. Since we associate our emotions with it, we get a dopamine hit from the positive reviews and start craving it.

As soon as there is a hindrance in the reward mechanism, we feel low. It is like our need for food. After a long and exhausting day, you recharge yourself by eating food. As soon as you feed yourself, your energy and moods go up. Our brain follows this mechanism for any form of addiction. With social media addiction, as soon as we find ourselves bored or sad, we open social media to recharge. It becomes a habit loop.

3. Influences our decision making

Social media has brought more influencers into the world than any other platform. As their name suggests, they influence many people. Their influence act like a chain reaction on social media. An influencer’s opinion sways most people, whether it’s true or false. As a result, we share their beliefs. Then our followers continue. The chain reaction expands when several influencers share similar opinions. When the Influencers share their opinions with a large group, it can lead to propaganda. It can get quite dangerous if the influencers misuse their power.

Why do we get influenced so easily?
Let’s say the government has introduced an intricate policy. Since the details of the policy are elusive, we believe what the expert says. It is mainly because our brain seeks answers, and since it’s so hard to dig it on our own, we take a shortcut by trusting an expert’s testament of the problem. We make our opinions based on what is available to us, popularly known as availability bias. It’s a shortcut all human beings take in their day-to-day lives. Revaluate your day and see if you see yourself following the availability bias.

Imagine the influencers share their opinions on the policy, following the availability bias; a chain reaction starts among the followers.
Now imagine yourself in a situation, and you see a chain reaction of opinionated comments. Slowly we conform with the majority as we believe the masses. If a misinterpreted belief gets retweeted 5 lakh times, and a rightful tweet gets retweeted 350 times, what do you think get’s advertised more? Well, we are more likely to believe the former. This process runs among most of us, and psychologists describe this phenomenon as social proof.

In many countries, the media influence people in this manner. Several media channels target a set of audience which have a constructive opinion. They only present evidence to strengthen their belief, making it harder for people to believe the truth if it’s against their beliefs. For example, when you have a political opinion, you watch media channels that glorify your beliefs and strengthen your views, which makes us very stern and disregard others’ choices.

Apart from this, even our friends also influence us.
Have you ever experienced a change in your mood after surfing on social media? If yes, don’t worry, it’s just a human thing.
Let’s evaluate some of our day-to-day lives. Adam is a student at a college. Until 3 pm, he has a mediocre day, then he logs into Instagram and has the sudden urge to go out with his friends for a long drive. Why do you think this happened?
For that, let’s uncover what he experienced on social media. As Adam opens Instagram, he goes through his friend’s Instagram stories. Among them, 3–4 people had posted their travel vlogs. What does this do? It instigates an urgent need to fulfill our inner travel needs and disturbs our state of mind. It sets out a chain reaction among all of us. Though this happens to us now and then, we do not realize it when it happens. All of this can set unrealistic dreams and expectations for us, which eventually disappoints us.

Some people often compare their lives with celebrities and expect more from their life. This unrealistic comparison stems from our brain’s misinterpretation of the situation. As influencers share their day-to-day lives with us, we subconsciously feel like we’re part of their extended family.

It appears we’re all in a race with no finish line. As people share discrete events, our to-do list also keeps increasing.

Apart from all this, social media consumes us. We may set lofty goals for ourselves, but social media can lure us like a drug when things get complicated.

Some of these factors affect our mental health and take us into the cycle of depression. It is clinically diagnosed more, and there are more children with depression because of the unrealistic comparison and expectations they set out to achieve for themselves.

How can we use it as a weapon?
Social media algorithm showers us with content based on our prior use. So we can end up spending hours on TikTok, Instagram, or Youtube. However, if you watch educational or knowledgeable content, it will recommend more of such content. There are two sides to a coin and it depends on how you use it.

How can we control our use of social media?

Regulate use of social media

If you can enter the loop where you spend hours on social media, or see your mood get affected often, then it’s time for you to regulate your use of social media.

The key to regulating any behavior is self-awareness, so you need to be consciously aware when you’re spending excess amounts of time on the internet. Once you feel like this has drained you mentally, you need to divert yourself from these apps and let go. There are apps like digital wellbeing on iOS and Android which can help you regulate social media use by showing your app usage.

Make it difficult to access social media

Author of ‘Atomic habits’ James Clear states that if you find it hard to control your cravings, make it difficult to enjoy them. For example, if you subconsciously fall into the trap of using Instagram for 2–3 hours without realizing it, try deleting the app and use it via a phone browser.
How will that make a difference? It will surprise you if you try it.

This hack mainly works because you’re making it difficult for the brain to enjoy the task. We enjoy spending time on social media because it regenerates content quickly and is easy to use. We get more dopamine as we view more content.

Let’s examine this with our example. When you surf on the Instagram app, content keeps regenerating. Here, the brain takes no effort, as Instagram keeps regenerating new content.

Now let’s switch from the Instagram app to the browser. As you use Instagram on the browser, you instantly realize how slow it is. If you haven’t already used it, let me give you a perspective: it’s like using internet explorer in 2021.
Since Instagram is so slow, our brain is patiently waiting for the dopamine spike. But since it takes more and more time, our patience and willpower slowly depreciate. As a result, we stop craving for it. As the brain puts in more effort to wait, it realizes that the reward gained is not worth the effort put in, so we gradually lose interest.

Take a break

If you find it hard to take a break from social media, you are more prone to addiction if not already addicted to it.

Taking a break can rewire our brain to be more patient and not seek dopamine like it used to. Psychologists describe this phenomenon as dopamine detox. After a while, you realize you don’t need social media; it is only addictive because it is always available to us. We can end up spending hours on social media by clicking on the notification pop-up.
Imagine it was not so easily accessible, then we wouldn’t get the urge either. Taking a break will give you a better perspective of all this.

Develop new habits

As we use social media regularly, it becomes a habit. Habits are automatic and subconsciously drive us. For example, for understanding when to eat, you don’t have to put any effort; your body realizes that automatically. Similarly, social media can also be an unhealthy habit that can affect our mental health.
Habits define us. What we do today will shape our lives 20 years later. So we need to replace the bad habits with good ones to be happy 20 years from now.
For example, instead of spending 2 hours on social media every day, try reading or working out. Try what works for you.

How is Social media going to influence the world in the future?

Only time can tell how it will influence us. If we go by the cynical vision, it will addict more people to social media, fall into depression and remain lethargic. Even though things might seem to go on this path, we must have faith because the world has always found a way out at the time of crisis. During the great depressions, world economic crashes, and now the covid-19 pandemic, we have all fought our way through the tough times.
If people use social media for good, we’ll generate more wealth (in terms of knowledge and money) and spread it for the greater good.

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