This article is going to deal with 3 main sections. First section will discuss how these social media giants keep individuals hooked by taking advantage of people’s evolutionary psychology. Then, the second section will discuss the damage of being a slave to this system. Lastly, the third section will discuss how I was able to quit it and the method I used to quit and how the same method can be applied to any addiction. Aight, let’s go.
How not only the social media giants but also the corporate world take advantage of our evolutionary psychology to increase their profits.
Let’s take for example the smartphone industry. Ever since the touch-screen smartphones were introduces firstly, the whole industry completely turned upside-down. The previous giants such as Nokia and Motorola are almost extinct nowadays. But after that introduction of the touch-screen phones, there weren’t any new evolution so far. Compare iPhone 4 with iPhone whatever the latest. The only notable big differences are the hardware development, the screen-to-body ratio, the slimness, new security approaches, new apps, front facing camera…etc. Aside from these differences, they are almost identical phones but still we ditch the old versions of the phone when the new versions are introduced in the market almost yearly. There was no big evolution after the introduction of the touch-screen phones; just the same old, almost the same shit every year just to make profits.
This is a scenario present in almost all industries: pharmacy, clothing, shoes, technologies, cars, electronic devices…etc — same old crap without any huge evolution but slightly more advanced every year. Yet, when we see that new Mercedes-Benz 2021 edition S-class, our subconscious psychology instantly gets hooked. We wanna get that latest stuff to look cook, to feel good, to feel proud of ourselves, to feed our ego, our vanity. Owning those brand new glittering object offers huge potential of feeling extreme gratification, feeling good, dopamine. The more we want that shit, the more we will likely to waste our money on that shit. It is not a problem if you are loaded with money but it is a problem if you are borrowing money to get that shit and paying interest rates over time. If one wants to get rich, one needs to stop wasting money on unimportant stuff, not be a slave to one’s cravings, be rational in one’s decisions in terms of money management, don’t live above one’s means, save that extra money and make that extra money work to multiply itself. Nonetheless, we always give in to our vanity only to regret buying them later. The first few moments are awesome when we spend fortune on an unnecessary latest cool gadget but later we regret having spent money on them, the feeling of good goes away and goes back to the normal state only achieving more boosted up ego, vanity.
We don’t live in a neutral world but the world is already against our sanity and our well-being of our mind, health and the financial health. These big corporate companies spend thousands of money and supports educational institutions on human behavioral science, the psychology so that they can use the inherent characteristics of a human being at their own advantage. One big example is marketing. Marketing is usually done in such a manner that it only directs the most vulnerable target group by waking up their inherent irrational behavior to make and do stupid stuff like buying the iPhone 12 when you have iPhone 11.
Human beings are inherently lazy. If we weren’t, we would walk ourselves to death. Because of our inherent laziness, we work our brain to find the most time and energy efficient method to achieve the intended result. Because we were tired of walking on our two-feet, we started riding horses, invented cars, boats, trains, bicycles, planes and rockets. Thus, there must be some kind of purpose behind every action for us to incentivize our lazy mind to do some work. One of the prime example is sexual intercourse. When a human being commits oneself in the act of sexual intercourse, at the climax, the person feels intense feeling of gratification, a huge surge of dopamine in the brain. This surge of dopamine works as an incentivizing agent for us to seek to breed. When the basic survival needs are fully met, then the feeling of good and better, the surge of dopamine become the prime motivating force behind our actions. This is how a human being has evolved over the last six million years. This inherent human characteristic and behavior is the product of a six-million-year evolution and as such, it is cemented in our genetic codes, our subconscious mind. Now, the civilization has been around only in the last four thousand years. If you would divide the 4000 by 6,000,000 , you would get 0.00066. This 0.00066 explains why we make those irrational decisions. This 0.00066 explains why the corporate world is so successful at taking advantage of our inherent psychology to make big profits.
Now, you might be wondering what this information has to do with the social meida industry and our addiction. It is just that the medium is different but the whole principle is still the same. The more people use their platform, the more profit they would earn. So, their business model is to bring in more and more people and keep them hooked as long as they can. Even this website I am using to voice my opinions also has this business model. To achieve their goal, they introduce all these new functions as a way to keep us hooked. Let’s take for example, the facebook. At first, it was created to keep people connected and meet new people online. People used it to accomplish that. But then overtime, the facebook started becoming more of a media company that shows us contents for us to feel those instant-gratification dopamine. It has become a machine. The genius business model of facebook, instagram, youtube, tiktok, snapchat or whatever is that they provivde the users a service such as keeping in touch with others while intencivizing the users create contents for other people to be addicted and keep using their platform. In comparison, TV shows create their own content but facebook uses its users to create content to keep other users addicted to the platform, pretty geinus, isn’t it? And, the easy availability and the accessibility of those contents make us release dopamine without any hard work on our part. This is the addicting part of those social media platforms. Back in the day, we had to work, we had to put in some effort to get those dopamine effects but now it is achieved by a few clicks on our smartphones. You see, this social media platforms and other big corporations are all a huge system that make huge profit at the extent of our addiction. That is what is going on in reality. Moreover, the more you crave and get these easily accessible dopamine, you need to consume more than the past to have the same effect because we get used to the same dosage. The beginning alcoholic needs to drink, let’s say, 4 bottles of beers, to get feeling of the ecstasy. Then time passes and certain level of tolerance builds and the same dosage of 4 bottles of beer just couldn’t deliver the same effect anymore. Now, the alcoholic needs to drink 5 to get the same effect, then 6, 7,8, 9,10 to the infinite. Now, you can see that the corporations are against us and our inherent evolutionary human behaviors are also against us. In other words, unless we take over our control and stay disciplined, we are doomed, we will forever be slaves.
2nd Phase of the article: The side effects of being addicted to the social media
- It is toxic. You constantly compare yourself with others. It becomes a competition. You start to let others dictate your mood and behavior. You start wanting to be the popular kid, you start craving for the attention of the crowd. And, to get those needs fulfilled, you start making stupid shits like posting stories of what the fuck you are eating or what awesome thing you are doing, pictures, likes and comments. Because you are literally comparing your life, yourself against the best of the world, all those fancy places and inherent rich kids who had to do no hard work to get their expensive tools, and you deprive yourself of your current joy, current moment, the now. This constant comparing puts anyone at anxiety, makes them blame their parents, their situation, and cause them to become overall a self-victimizing, — a bitter person. No wonder, the suicide rate among every age group has sky-rocketed in this ear. This then leads to stress, depression and anxiety. You constantly have to put on an act to be liked. You constantly have to wear many different masks. You are constantly being judged. You constantly have to act in a way that meets the expectations of others. This is mentally taxing on your emotional well-being. You have to constantly put on masks in social conditions such as work, school, any other social gatherings anyway. Why bother adding more acting. But if you don’t act and try, they will not like your picture, they will not comment on your stories, right?
- It destroys our productivity. As soon as, you get some free time, your brain is automatically searching for those instant-gratification dopamine effects and you are opening your social media apps without you realizing yourself. You have all those goals and dreams and they won’t happen to you if you don’t do anything to achieve them. But, we don’t realize how much time we are wasting on these apps. We rationalize our addiction by saying, I am only looking at it for 5 minutes and that’s nothing. Yes, it is nothing if you do it only once a day, but if you are doing it for at least 10 times a day then that is 50 minutes of your precious time. Let’s do a simple calculation. There are 168 hours in a week. Let’s subtract the time to sleep: 168–9 hours to sleep *(7 days)=105 hours left. Let’s say, you have to work for 9 hours to survive from Monday to Friday, spend 3 hours to do chores, 1.5 hours to workout everyday. So, 105–9*(5 days)-3*(7 days)-1.5*(7 days) = 28.5 hours. Now, let’s assume you spend 10 hours for fun activities like going out, meeting friends, spending time with the family, watching movies, hiking…etc and that leaves us with still 18.5 hours in a week. What are you doing in this 18.5 hours a week? Most likely, these hours are disappeared into the rabbit hole of the social media or other unproductive activities. What you DO with these 18.5 hours a week will determine your future, and you can quote me on this anytime. Those 5 to 10 minutes spent on social media any given moment adds up to 18.5 hours after a week. At the moment, those 5–10 minute time spent scrolling through the social media seem sooo innocent but piles up to 50–100 minutes a day if you do it 10 times a day. Now, you do the math for the week.
- You become slave to the master- the social media. You become the dopamine rat always choosing easy dopamine over hard-work. This destroys discipline. And, this underdeveloped and inhibited discipline leads to lack of discipline in other areas of life as well. You start slacking at work, at your duties at home, and become a slave, a prisoner always following the easy way and gets in a habit of quitting, giving in and giving up mostly. The life becomes downward spiral. You become the doomer. You see how if one area of your life is succumbed into a downward trend, then the other areas start to decline as well. These three are the biggest side effects aside from numerous other smaller ones.
Now, it is funny how every time I see my parents who used to scold me for playing video games for a long period of time when I was in middle school, they have become addicted to the social media, TV programs, and all sorts of distracting bullshit in the world. Dad is hooked to his iPad scrolling through the facebook for over countless many hours anytime I come to see him, commenting on stupid shit while Mom is busy on her phone scrolling and watching youtube videos while the TV is on. How the tables have turned. Now, I feel like scolding them but I was in their shoes when I was a child, so I understand. But, boomers are getting fucked up. The Gen Z is also getting fucked up as well by growing up in this fucking mess that the boomers have produced.
But don’t get sucked into the victim mentality. This will only make it even worse. Don’t hate boomers for doing these evil shit, do not hate the social media and other corporations taking advantage of 0.00066, do not waste your time and energy on them. We can’t do nothing about them but we can do things on our part to protect ourselves, to turn to table around. It’s time to use our conscious mind to plan our tactical edge and advantage over the system and overall terrain so that we can win the battle and eventually the war.
How I quit the social media successfully. It has been 5 months since I quit facebook, IG and youtube. Now, there is no more instantaneous urge to check them anymore in me.
The trick is you just stop it, as simple as that. I just stopped. I deleted my facebook, youtube, and IG when I realized myself subconsciously opening those apps whenever I get a chance. I was baffled at that moment of discovery of myself and who I had become. I hated that shit so intensely. The habit, the routine, the subconscious act of opening those apps were deeply instilled in my brain after using them over the last 10 years. I just deleted those apps from my phone for a month. At first, even though I knew I deleted them, I was still mindlessly searching for the apps on my phone only to realize I have deleted them. It was a really bizarre experience as if the person who was searching for the apps was not me. That experience just proved me that we go on with our days mostly mindlessly. Then, as time passes, the craving and the desire to access those apps lessened and lessened to the point when I installed them back, there was no more mindless action of opening those apps anymore. But there were still the urges here and there but really weakly. After not using them for some time, the mindless-mind understands and thinks that there is no more facebook, ig, youtube so it stops craving for them. The reason it stops to crave for them is because wanting something but not having them produces stress. Thus, not to produce anymore stress, the mindless-mind automatically assumes that there is no more social media so that it won’t feel bad anymore. You just gotta persist those temptations until your mindless-mind gives up. This method can work on any addictions too like alcohol, tobacco, drug, porn…etc because it is a simple method probably the simplest and it doesn’t need any other requirements that other methods ,which are tailored for specific addictions, need.
I also introduced voluntary hard-work and pain in my life as well. I started working out intensely for no reason. I started ruck-marching many miles with decently heavy backpack on cold days. I voluntarily walked far enough to cause blisters and bleed my softened foot. I started visiting the nature more and spend more time in the nature than in front of a screen to reset my dopamine receptor back to the zero. I started seeking pain by running past my personal bests to break my mental limits. After accomplish these harder tasks that you actually work and sweat for, actually releases dopamine as well. And, that is addicting too. You get addicted to the feelings you get after overcoming the obstacles, the hardship because you will realize that it wasn’t the finish line but the act of doing it was the most rewarding and time well spent moments of the whole experience. It was a complete turn around and evolution for both the mind- the subconscious and the conscious.
True, it is annoying that we have to do these stuff to keep control over of our lives in these times and environment that is inherently against us but it is the cost we have to pay for the advancement of the economy and the technology. By learning to take advantage of the modern technologies while being above the side effects is the evolution human beings has to go through to survive and thrive in this newer world. Every evolution and technological advacement in the past introduced new stress factors and disadvantages as well. But, we evolved and those who evolved took advantage and raised above while those who didn’t stayed below or went extinct. The trick is to not giving in to the victim mentality which would only make things worse for you and see these new challenges of the new era as an opportunity to further evolve yourselves to a more advanced human being. With or without you keeping up with the pace, the world will continue to evolve with its pace, the train won’t care if you manage to get inside or not, it will go to the next stop as per the schedule.
Now, I only use facebook, IG, yotube to share my articles, to stay connected with my friends and to talk to, and to pick and choose the necessary knowledge I seek from these media platforms only. It is completely doable if you can persist long enough. Use these platforms for your own advantage, do not be used by them! Good luck! Stay Hungry, Determined, Disciplined toward your GOALS and Dreams! Fuck these social media addicting shit. Use them and don’t feel bad about it since they are already using it to take advantage of us. Rise Above the clouds of the mindless-mind and all these negative shit around us and emit your light upon the dark world so that others may see your light and follow you to the better ways of the men and women!
