“If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you”

In a bit of a conversation that is likely to continue on further for many years to come, someone asked why people keep going back to social media content if, as I put it, other than DIY content, most is useless. It isn't useless for everything of course, because it is entertaining, which is why people keep going back to waste their time on something that isn't going to challenge them, change them, make them better. And, because of this addiction to being entertained, the content is useful to keep people scrolling endlessly, so they spend more time on site and increase the value of the advertising spots that are auctioned off every microsecond.

It is not that all the content or the topics are useless however, because if someone proactively curates their follows and topics so that it feeds them content that will move them to improve themselves in reality, not just in fantasy, then there can be value. But, the vast majority of people do not do this, so they just get disjointed, unfocused and random content that comes through their feed, taking up their time, and holding them back from doing whatever else they could be doing with that time.

Opportunity cost.

Everything has it and when we keep making the decisions to consume for entertainment instead of for growth, the opportunity to improve lessens and the cost to the quality of our skillsets and ultimately our experience increases. Yes, there is value in consuming content that inspires us to do more of what we want to improve at, but there is a diminishing return in this, because investment has to be spent in changing the behaviors, learning the skills, developing ourselves. Consuming content doesn't give us skills.

However, a lot of the content makes us feel like we are getting something out of it, even though we are not developing our practical selves, our mental selves, or our emotional selves. No matter how much content is consumed, if it is not applied, it can't help us. Not only this, when it is disjointed content that keeps flicking and changing topic every few seconds, our brains don't have the time to even develop the thoughts to a depth where there is even the chance for positive change to take place.

But, we also should step outside the content itself, and have a look at the effects of all the scrolling is having on other aspects of our condition. Our focus, our attention spans, our patience are all getting worse. Children are struggling more with their ability to concentrate, depression is going up, body issues increasing, increasing levels of violence at younger and younger ages. And increasingly older ages too.

People seem to see the "success" of a platform as its ability to attract people and keep them engaged, but this is extremely short-sighted. Just like the success of corporations, we should be holding them to a higher standard than we do, where the value to society, the health of populations, the ability to facilitate personal and communal improvement should be factored in. It isn't just the content that is the problem, it is the whole business of centralized media that is designed for corporate profit, not user growth.

Hive has a long way to go, but at least here there is the chance for people to learn about and take direct participation in ownership, governance, responsibility, finance and social interaction. There is a more direct relationship between all aspects of the platform in the way people interact with each other and the affects of personal and group decision making. It might not be to everyone's liking for entertainment, but if you are looking to improve yourself across multiple facets of life that are important to our wellbeing and outcomes in life, Hive is a pretty good place to hang out.

But of course, it is all about what you want from experience, and most people want to be entertained. They dream of greatness, dream of having this and that, but would rather live vicariously as voyeurs, consuming whatever is pushed to them, continually buying into the addiction of the next flick of the thumb to another piece of content that doesn't bring anything positive to their lives, except another moment of avoidance of actually having to attend to it.

We are being challenged.

But rather than facing the challenge, we look for any and every way to avoid dealing with them, until there is nothing to be done. At that point, we can be comfortable in the fact that it is too late to change, so again, we won't have to.

I do think that there is a change coming, but most people will be slow to change, choosing convenience over the wellbeing of themselves, their children, their community, and society as a whole. It won't matter how much information they consume that tells them of the dangers of their behavior, they will not apply any of it to change themselves, until they are forced. And then they will complain about it not being their decision.

We all change.

For better and worse.

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]