With the arrival of social media, humanity has embarked on a completely different trajectory than it did a few decades ago. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are some of the platforms where we have a freedom to share our best memories with our friends and families. Moreover, to add the cherry on top, now we have an access to unbounded information of people and things all around the world. It certainly has made us more connected with people and our surroundings, and that too free of cost !
But, the question arises, whether the proximity and availability of such level is actually healthy for humans or not ?
“If it’s free, you’re probably the product”. This statement may have raised eyebrows of some social media lovers. And, honestly this is the the most common reaction anyone could receive, if they ask people to quit social media. However, the fact of the matter is that each social media user is a product in the hands of these big billionaire companies, who are altering the behavior of thousands of individuals using a few simple psychological techniques.
Now, I’m not here to persuade or trick anyone into quitting social media. But, I definitely feel obligated to unravel the other sides of social media to which many of us may not have been exposed.
1. The Fake Glamour
Bailey Parnell in her famous Ted Talk, discusses the impact of “Highlight reel” or fake glamour of social media on our mental and physical health. If we think practically, mostly people share the best experiences and episodes of their lives. I mean why would anyone talk about their failures or the mishappenings ? She goes on to say that, through social media people compare themselves all the time. And, that is true in fact. The frequency of comparison between us and the world has surged to a level, where we don’t spend even one day, appreciating ourselves for who we are.
We constantly compare ourselves, with successful people, who spend literally thousands on their health and hygiene, or we feel unhappy to see the people who are naturally blessed with pure and healthy skin and health.
We even feel jealous of our friends family members who are earning really well and are extremely accomplished in their lives. However, what we fail to see is that, all of this is just a “tip of an iceberg”. We never heard their failure stories or the struggles they went through to achieve all of that.
Or maybe, a friend who is living an extravagant life, might be suffering from depression or family issues. We never see all of that and I won’t say that it’s our fault either. However, our fault is excessive intake of such information and passing it to the brain, and consequently laying the foundation of stress and depression.
We need to realize that what we see, isn’t necessarily true, or even if it is true, we may never know, what other person went through to achieve all of that. Nevertheless, we can always appreciate ourselves and be grateful for what we have been given in our lives instead of comparing it with those, who have bigger and better.
2. It’s like consuming drugs
Now, something which you must already know is that, social media is designed to be addictive. It is designed in a way such that people spend more time on it. Think about it, the more time you spend on it, more money these companies are gonna make. Now, I won’t dive into the technicalities of it’s working, but that is exactly how things work behind the screens.
Professor Cal Newport, who also happens to be the author of the book Deep Work, mentions the fact that these organizations hire “Attention Engineers” who literally spend hours to educate themselves on hijacking people’s attention and directing it towards these social media sites. In 2017, more than 90% people in USA, aged 18 to 29, were using social media, and more than 50% of them, in some way fell victim to anxiety, stress, and depression.
“Human Beings crave novelty“. Now what I mean by this statement, is that we human beings are highly attracted by new things. We have this strange affinity towards newness, because of a funny neurotransmitter present within us, that goes by the name of “Dopamine“. It is like a feel-good or a pleasure causing hormone, which is also responsible for inducing motivation and encouragement within ourselves. However, excessive release of this hormone results in craving and addictions. For example, excessive amount of dopamine is released in the brain of a drug- addict which makes it almost unbearable for him to live without that particular drug. It is like an endless loop of feedback and response, that flows inside our body.
Now, when we use social media, each time we scroll and see a new post, we get a hit of dopamine in our brain. Moreover, each time someone likes or comments on our pictures, we feel dopamine rushing throughout our veins. This motivates us to perform a particular “dopamine releasing” activity again and again. Our brain literally starts seeking out dopamine inducing activities, and in failing to do so, we end up feeling dissatisfied or frustrated.
We virtually set a high dopamine bar in our mind, and any activity which is below that particular bar, renders us bored and irritated. For example, playing video games is high dopamine inducing activity, while reading a book is a low one. So, definitely in a phase of dilemma, you brain will naturally gravitate towards a task that releases high dopamine. Similarly, scrolling the Facebook feed is much more enjoyable than studying for an exam. Or posting pictures on Instagram is much easier than going out and actually interacting with people.
Social media has surely eradicated various boundaries. Now, it is much easier to make friends through social media, however, the problem is that these friends only exist behind a screen and not in real life. Although, some of you may have managed to make some really great and helpful friends through these platforms, nevertheless, you should never forget, the importance of real friends and genuine efforts, which can only be achieved in the real world.
3. Alters our brain’s potential
So basically, social media not only plays with our brain but also provides considerable amount of harm to it. As already explained, dopamine is induced each time we scroll and see a new picture or post, but to make things worse, every time we scroll we are increasing our brain’s sensitivity, by somehow training it to look out for a “dopamine inducing” thing or an activity every second. This decreases our attention span and by extension our focus on things. This is the reason why the youth today is unable to accomplish even the smallest goals in their lives. We need a chunk of focus and determination to achieve something which is hard to get. We are technically living in a distracted world. Every moment we are getting distracted by notifications, notices, e-mails, etc. All these factors combine to hamper our brain’s ability to concentrate on a particular task for a longer period of time. We are so exposed to these small bits of pleasures that we literally cannot afford to live without it, even for a day.
Furthermore, it wounds our memory as well. Has it ever happened to you, that you went into a room to grab something and all of a sudden forgot the purpose of your arrival ? Well, relax you aren’t forgetful, but the only problem is that your brain is so heavily crowded with information that it starts slipping things out when a new information is entered. Scores of people have found an improved memory power after giving themselves a social media break. In addition to that, our learning powers are also somewhat affected since on an average a person spends approximately five hours of their day on social media. This results in the reduction of body movements, and also worsen our sleep schedule, which ultimately tend to decrease our learning capacity.
4. Inability to think critically.
“Human beings are herd animals”. Well if it wasn’t for our two legs, we were no less than a sheep. We are designed in way such that we tend to follow and imitate each other. Allow me to explain.
The history goes back thousands of years ago when we were cave men. As a cave men our basic requirements were food, shelter, and protection from wild animals. As a result, our ancestors started living in tribes, since in this way there was a higher chance of receiving food, shelter, and safety from mammoths. Now to be a part of a tribe, they had to follow the action of other members. There were certain set of unofficial rules that existed within the families, which everyone had to follow, in order to prevent oneself from getting banished from the tribe. This system of following and imitating somehow got embedded in our DNA, and that is why, unconsciously, we still tend to follow it.
Let us take an example. In around 2011, Facebook had already established it’s ground in the western world, while in the eastern world it’s popularity was surging with every passing day. However, it was still a new concept to the people of Asian and African countries. Nevertheless, people were joining facebook at a very rapid rate. Meanwhile, there was some kind of social media war going on between Eminem fans and Justin Bieber fans. Obviously, the number of Stans ( Eminem Fans) was way more than Beliebers (Justin Bieber Fans), and as result a whole lot of Asian and African people who were new to such online wars, automatically gravitated towards Eminem. Now I’m not trying to honour one artist and degrade other, but that is exactly what happened in this entire scenario. A whole lot of people started despising Bieber without even having a knowledge of his work.
Similar things happen when it comes to criminal cases. In today’s world it is very easy for any news to spread and consequently with the freedom social media has to offer, anyone can express their views on the subject. People decide who is the victim and who is the offender before the judicial court does. As a result, in the eyes of public, sometimes offender becomes the victim and victim becomes offender. However, the lack of facts and information is not the concern. The concern is people’s inability to think critically and not landing on a conclusion based on facts and truths.
The reason we do this is because, we don’t want to feel left out. Our likings and dislikings completely rely on the approval of people around us. We do this to become a part of a community or a group, which consequently shapes our identity.
In the modern world our basic requirements have changed from food, shelter, and safety to approval, appreciation, and validation.
Harsh Words 
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