Social media is a fundamental technology
You might say social media is a fundamental technology of 21st century. Rejecting it would mean rejecting technology. It would be too extreme. It would be like riding a horse or using a rotary phone. How can someone do that?
Social Media is not a Fundamental Technology, but an Entertainment Product
Social Media is not a fundamental technology. It leverages some fundamental technologies. It's a source of entertainment, it's entertainment product. According to technologist Jaron Lanier- these companies are offering you shiny gifts in exchange for your information and time, which can then be packaged up and sold. Social Media is nothing but entertainment. For example, if you say “I don't like newspapers, I like to get my news from magazines” or “I prefer to watch cable series as opposed to network television series.”- would that be a big step? Of course not. Therefore, you don’t need to think you are taking a large social stance by leaving social media or deactivating accounts, either!
Besides, it’s a harmful entertainment
Social Media is undoubtedly a form of entertainment. But it is actually a somewhat unsavory source of entertainment, creating addiction! It’s proven that many of the major social media companies hire individuals called attention engineers, who borrow principles from Las Vegas Casino Gambling, among other places, to try to make these products as addictive as possible. What happens here is: you use it in an addictive fashion because that maximizes the profit that can be extracted from your attention and data. And you? You just become addicted to something really unhealthy.
So it's not a fundamental technology. It's just a source of entertainment one among many and it's somewhat unsavory if you look a little bit closer.
You don’t need social media for success, but deep concentrated works that produces value
In this competitive 21st century economy, you will earn success if you produce something that's rare and valuable; that would simplify other’s lives or raise the stardard of living.
On the other hand, anything that can be gained easily or isn’t as valuable, doesn't really attract the attention of the market.
Well, social media use is the epitome of an easy to replicate activity that does not directly produce a lot of value; it's something that any six year old with a smartphone can do. The market is not going to give a lot of value to those behaviors.
Then what does the market value? The market is going to reward the deep, concentrated work required to build real skills and to apply those skills to produce things like a craftsman that are rare and that are valuable. In other words: if you can write an elegant algorithm, if you can write a legal brief that can change a case, if you can write a thousand words of prose that's going to fixate a reader right to the end; if you can look at a sea of ambiguous data and apply statistics and pull out insights that could transform a whole business strategy. If you can do these type of activities which require deep concentrated work that produce outcomes that are rare and valuable, people will find you. You will be able to write your own ticket, you will able to build the foundation of a very meaningful and successful professional life regardless of how many Instagram followers you have.
Why do I need to leave it altogether? I can use it in moderation.
Many might say, why do I need to stop using it altogether? I can use it in moderation. Then it would be fine.
Social Media is created with addictive ingredients
You might or might not know that the social media is created with addictive materials. They are created by the specialist programmers of Silicon Valley known as the “attention engineers”. The way use the ways from the casinos in Las Vegas to attract the attention of the users, they also use the techniques of the gamification- entertaining and competitive features of the video games that are also used in phone contents. Reason- Business profit. The more time you spent on it, the more information they would collect, the more ads would they be able to feed you. The ads given in the social media has been doubled in the last two years- with an increase in 40 billion dollars or 400million taka.
Therefore, you might start with the intention to use it moderately, but it would increase in few days, and then, in no time, you would become addicted.
A Harmless Media
Social media is a harmless medium. I can find my old friends from here and I also pass a good time seeing through the new feeds. It might not be an essential technology or not as important for professional success. But what about the light entertainment and good time I have on Facebook? Besides how would I keep myself updated about my friends if I leave Facebook?
It’s Not really Harmless
Social Media is anything but harmless! The thing that seems harmless initially can cause such serious problems that you probably couldn’t even have imagined.
Mental Distraction
Lately, the book shallows written by Nicholas Carr says how internet is changing the way we think, read and remember. The online environment doesn’t let us think deeply about anything. For example, when we visit a blog and start reading an article, which seems quite interesting. However, before we can engage in it another link appears with a more interesting title. And we skip the one we are reading and switch. Same goes for YouTube. Before we can finish the one we are watching we click one of the recommended ones, enticed by a pretty thumbnail and/or interesting title.
Think about Instagram. When you scroll and see a fascinating picture, you would to see more; which distracts you from your intended work.
Nicholas Carr says, ‘Our reading has become cursor dependent, our thoughts are fast and distracted and our understanding has become unclear.’
The same thing happens on the social media. Whenever we go online and get a ‘like’ and/or ‘follow’, we get happy as brain secretes the reward hormone called ‘dopamine’. Turning on the phone, getting new notifications or updates are causing the brain to release the hormone. And since our brain is liking it, we cannot even stop using it.
Therefore, the modern internet users are becoming more distracted, restless and unhappy generation.
Inefficient Work
Firstly it impacts on your work efficacy. The social media tools are designed to be addictive. so that as long as you are awake you would want to check your phone for notifications. if we spend a large portion of our day with fragmented attention, this could reduce your capacity for concentration, permanently. That means the individual could reduce the capacity to do exactly the type of deep effort that we're finding to be more and more necessary in increasingly competitive economy.
Especially if they are kids. They are still not fully mentally developed. They tend to go with the flow in the present fun rather than thinking about the future. They tend to follow their peers.
And that is worth your concern. Since they have their social and emotional development through internet and smart phone, their contribution towards the benefit of the society and future is actually questionable.
Mental Distress
The first one of the mental issues is the mental detachment. It was seen in many researches that the more a person uses social media the more they become isolated.
You keep on looking at the perfect and best pictures of your acquaintances on teh social media. Psychologists say, when we keep on looking at those pictures we tend to start comparing ourselves with them, subconsciously; which results in frustration and insecurity.
Effects on the Brain
Addiction to social media and addiction to gambling or drugs are the same thing. Now, imagine, an individual might be engaged in the drug or gambling for only a few hours. But smart phone?You are carrying that all day long. And when that keeps on happening for days and months and years- what happens? It’s quite obvious how much pressure it can put on the brain.
It would result in agitation and anxiety all around us. It was seen, in kids aging 14-24, the way that it damaged the mental peace, health and attention capacity, had never happened before. And of course, they are the most active users of social media.
Canadian Association of Mental Health discovered that, student from 7th to 12th grade who spend more than 2 hours on social media are more prone to anxiety, depression and suicidal tendencies.
Canadian Collegiate Mental Heath discovered, that the university students of Canada are mostly suffering from anxiety, depression and stress.
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