This is by no means a RANT. However, it becomes difficult to write about this subject without getting sucked into the very platforms that I wish to share a #thoughtfuldailypost about!
Hi there. This is Zak from Cape Town South Africa. Today, I want to discuss the idea and concept of how social media websites, specifically the web 2.0 giants. These platforms are able to trap you into a web of unproductiveness that sends you along a spiral of chasing strings of Dopamine injections.
Just to recap, Dopamine is a short-term happy hormone the brain gets for bits of rewarding behavior. I am not here to dissect that. I am not a brain surgeon or a doctor. Let's not nit-pick the term. My point is: The big social media and other sites that are filled with memes and the like are shockingly good at trapping you in a place where you scroll and scroll.
Each little bit or post is a short little interaction and even the "boring" ones are not so time-consuming that it would discourage you from spending time on it. The next thing you know, you have spent a half hour on it. Worse yet is when that habit causes you to spend 10 minutes here, 15 minutes there and altogether, you have spent hours of your day looking at FEEDS.
The crazy thing is that majority of this content was created by the USERS, by ourselves! And the companies who put this together have teams of psychologists along with scores of programmers to ensure that what you like and find interesting will be put across your screen.
Let me try whittle down my own feed on one of the usual social media web 2.0 platforms. Take away exactly what it is and rather focus on the origin and the goal of the content:
From the top:
- Infographic shared by loved one
- Infographic shared by a website (turns out the first one was not that person's most recent post, it was their 26th last post. They were put together though)
- Event shared by loved one (Person A)
- Memory shared by friend (Person B)
- Travel update shared by friend
- Event shared by loved one (Person A)
- Link to a website with lots of interesting things in infographics
- Thoughtful meme shared from a website
- Post from a friend regarding current events
- Memory shared by friend (Person B)
- Personal message shared by friend
- Link to website with funny photos
On and on it tumbles. The mind searches for people you know that you want to connect with and things to see that gives us a little bit of joy.
It is shockingly effective at trapping us on our devices and keeping us scrolling to the next item and the next.
Now you need to consider how many of these people proclaim the following:
I do not have any time!
Let's think about that, the next time you scroll down a feed multiple times in a day...
I leave you with those thoughts...
