Why is the whole world looking down? Everywhere you go, people are hooked on to this habit of looking down, bending their necks and consuming copious amounts of this drug.
People from all walks of life ; children, teens, adults, senior citizens are hooked on to this drug everyday and there seems nothing to rescue them from its vice-like grip.
This is the greatest addiction that the world is facing today? This is the addiction that has made people behave like zombies, stealing away from them their life and social skills. A drug that feeds them a continuous supply of ego boost with every “like” and sometimes the lack of it (likes), leading to chronic depression.
It’s a drug that has fueled a lot of influencers who understand that the world will intently consume their byte-size nuggets of videos and half-baked information with an unsatiable appetite. This drug has created a society where the idea of an “ideal life” is more powerful than the process of building one. A drug that has taken a lot of us away from human interaction, away from conversations, away from bonding and more importantly away from ourselves. A drug that has influenced millions of people to falsely portray “a perfect life” just to cover up for their innate inadequacies and trauma. It’s a drug that is killing us slowly.
This is the drug of social media perpetuated by the ubiquitous smartphone.
The drug of social media has fueled our need for social validation, social approval and social conformity. A vast population today that have access to apps via their smart-phones, suffer from Anxiety, Depression, Low Self -Esteem, Sleep Disorders, Loneliness, Insecurity, inadequacy sometimes even leading a few to Suicide.
If you find that scary, wait for this.
Social Media Addiction and Smartphone Addiction is not recognized as a health Hazard.
As per Dr Justin Romano in this Ted talk, he talks of the near hopelessness of the major health bodies recognizing Social Media addiction as a health hazard.
In-fact, on the contrary, this addiction is fueled right in our homes. Kids are being gifted smartphones with less degree of parental controls and with the advent of Double Income households, kids are left to the mercy of the continuous hits of “dopamine” that gets them addicted.
Parents are hooked onto it while commuting for work, whether on buses, trains or cars. Whether they are passengers or are driving themselves. A lot of them are always distracted. Smartphones and Social Media usage have been listed as a cause of motor accidents across the world and we cant afford to see these casualties grow.
In-fact, on the contrary, this addiction is fueled right in our homes. Kids are being gifted smartphones with less degree of parental controls and with the advent of Double Income households, kids are left to the mercy of the continuous hits of “dopamine” that gets them addicted.
Parents are hooked onto it while commuting for work, whether on buses, trains or cars. Whether they are passengers or are driving themselves. A lot of them are always distracted. Smartphones and Social Media usage have been listed as a cause of motor accidents across the world and we cant afford to see these casualties grow.
Holidays and vacations have now become more about putting that perfect picture of “our not so perfect lives”. Shots of food and drinks have become more important than the taste of the food itself. The more “likes” we accumulate, the better we feel. Deep inside we know these are not our real lives, but we are just not able to stop ourselves because we crave attention and social validation. What the smartphone and social media did is just the opposite of what Humans have been designed to do. We are built to be outdoors, to be in sync with nature, to touch, to feel, to smell, to taste and to listen. It’s in our DNA, yet, increasingly people are shutting themselves indoors and getting hooked onto their smartphones and immersing themselves into this addiction.
In-fact , our addiction is so deep entrenched into our DNA that we now need apps to sleep, to workout, to record our steps, to record our heart rates and apps to help us keep away from social media itself. Our world is indeed ironical.
The last 12 months, I have travelled more than 12,000 kms and all I could see across restaurants, beaches and coffee shops were innumerable shots being taken and posted. In fact, we have started becoming so uncomfortable with our real-selves that we rely on filters to project the cooler, sexier and the perfect versions of ourselves.
Picture this, a few tourists I met over a period of a few weeks, took an average of 150 to 200 snapchat photos per day. They recorded everything, right from their coffee, to their foods, to their moods and their daily routines. I mean there was nothing personal or private about their lives!
The question to ask is why are people so hooked to this life of smartphones and social media. This was not like this a few decades ago.
One of the prime reasons for this frenzied addiction is referred to as the “Dopamine Shots”. Social media platforms drive surges of dopamine to the brain to keep consumers coming back over and over again. The “shares”, “likes” and “comments” on these platforms trigger the brain’s reward center, resulting in a high. The high is addictive and its difficult for anyone to stop the consumption.
The other reason for this addiction is something we do subconsciously and is called the Infinite Scroll. Now what is the infinite scroll?
The Infinite scroll is the feature in social media feeds and apps designed to ;
ensure endless scrolling
Provides an infinite burst of dopamine hits more lethal than cocaine
The Infinite Scroll was a design pioneered by Aza Raskin, who built this then revolutionary feature which now has become one of the primary reasons why you cant get to stop yourself from mindlessly scrolling.
In 2006 Mr Raskin, a leading technology engineer himself, designed infinite scroll, one of the features of many apps that is now seen as highly habit forming.
At the centre of the “Infinite Scroll” is the brain. Since information is being fed to us continuously and quickly, the brain does not have enough time to process these impulses hence one gets addicted to this habit.
One of the primary targets of the aftereffects of social media addiction are teens. The social and cognitive abilities of the teens are rapidly developing and at the same time are highly manipulatable. Social Media, induces them to seek validation, instant gratification and isolation. This in turn leads to depression, anxiety and ADHD to name a few.
While the smart-phone and apps have made the world a better place by connecting people, democratizing financial opportunities, saving time, and saving lives there is this dark side that needs to be recognized as a social hazard else we will soon become a race that gained everything but lost itself…….