Social media platforms in their beginning era were one of the coolest techs of all time. You can connect with your friends, know people from different regions and backgrounds of the world, and share your interests online made these websites a fun place to be in. Still, in the recent decade, this all-happy and exciting social media thing has silently ruined more lives than ever in the history of humankind.
I have stopped using these social media sites for quite a bit of time now and will share with you my three most important experiences and leanings after the shift. So, let’s begin.
False Identity Attachment
If you ever lived in the years before social media, you would have compared yourselves and would have had belittling thoughts once in a while. But the situation has drastically changed; a great thanks to our favorite social media platforms for making this problems worse. Turning insecurities of the youngsters and the masses on steroids.
These websites are designed in such a way to reward your brain on getting more likes, views, and comments through notifications, in-app animations and design, colour theme and algorithms, turning people to snap and post more and more superficial and unrealistic pictures and moments of their lives on social media, leading them to feel more hollow and anxious for living this two-faced lives every day.
On the other hand, the audience watching and reacting to these fake, heavily photo shopped pictures and moments of other people’s lives create this imaginative bubble in their minds where they feel extremely insecure about their personal life and status in comparison to the people they follow online, attaching a false identity onto themselves.
So much so that it decreases the release of Serotonin at an alarming rate, the chemical in your brain which keeps you happy and confident mentally.
The algorithms and the patterns laid at the core of these social media giants make you spend more and more time on social media websites just so that they can showcase more and more ads to you in turn generating greater revenue, even if it sucks the life out of our society at large.
Echo-Chambers
You might have heard this word, the “Echo-Chambers.” This single term is the reason behind the greatest polarization ever created in the history of humankind.
In simple terms, Echo-Chambers are the places on the internet where users post their opinions on a topic with other people having similar preferences on the same topic. Thus, backing up an opinion by different individuals inside a bubble and ignoring the other side of the coin.
This turns people into online mobs filled with ignorance and zero common sense leading to more polarization and murdering the academic nature of debate and conversation we used to have for centuries in the past.
In the past few years, Echo-Chambers have served well for political parties and multinational corporates like Apple, Nike etc., to complete their objectives.
From the 2016 US election to the 2019 Indian election, echo chambers have made it possible for deception to prevail more efficiently and effectively in our society. This ongoing trend of groupification and tribal mentality is the greatest factor contributing to the rise in instability and hatred among people from different backgrounds in the near future.
The Cycle of Wasting Time
I can’t emphasize enough how much time and energy the world has completely wasted and ruined on these soul-drenching websites and apps just to gain nothing but self-doubt, insecurity, and hollowness in their lives.
The algorithms on these websites are so finely tuned to your personal preferences that you can’t even begin to understand its scale. Hooking you up each and every single day, sucking up your time more and more, stealing from you the magical experiences you can have in your life around you.
One of the most important learnings I got after quitting my social media accounts is the fact that there’s a lot of time present in a single day; there’s a lot to explore, learn, appreciate and experience in our beautiful lives. From staring at the beautiful magnificent sky to learning something new about geography, maybe people or photography and whatnot.
Life is too much fun when you can just get rid of this rabbit hole of scrolling and wasting your time consistently every single day.
Final Thoughts
In the end, I just want to note that no matter how much I and others like me point onto the harms of social media, people at mass are still going to continue using these platforms.
That’s the reason why many former employees of these companies and psychiatrists all around the globe are worried about the dreadful trend that’s going on and of the near to see future of our society.
I think, for now, we can just tighten our seats and hope for the best.
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