“Social media is warping your fragile little mind” – is like a warning about the dangers of eating McDonald’s for every meal – obvious but not helpful. Ironically, these warnings often circulate widely on Social Media.
Social media is what you choose it to be. The almighty algorithms are designed to keep you on the platform, but more importantly, serve you more of the content you watch the most. Just like eating burgers every day, if you make a choice to watch sh*t – your mind/body is going to hate you for it and you will start to fill up with guilt.
Just as there is an almost infinite number of ways to shuffle a deck of cards, there is more content online than we could consume in a million lifetimes. Your social media feed is unique from every other person online – think about that for a moment. Your attention now, feeds your attention in the future.
Sharing is the Strongest Metric
We all know that hitting the like button is an indicator to wanting more of the same content. However, using the share option sends the strongest signal of interest to the algorithm. Whether you share the post in a direct message, WhatsApp, or save it for later, the algorithm will consider that content important and serve you more similar content in the future.
Try sharing a few similar posts and you’ll quickly see your feed change.
The perfect example of this is when we suddenly become interested in a new thing. For instance, I went through a phase of enjoying cooking different dishes throughout the week. As a result, when I started seeking out recipes on Instagram, I was quickly inundated with an increasing number of recipe videos.
The algorithm served me what I wanted. So if we like and share rubbish, we should expect for rubbish to be sent our way.
What is Entertainment?
You may be thinking – I just want to be served crap because I’m chilling and deserve a break. But I bet you’d happily sit and watch a David Attenborough documentary? You’re being entertained whilst relaxing AND learning all at the same time. So why not apply this rule to your scrolling too?
These ideas won’t get you off social media, but rather help you to reframe what Social Media can be – a force for good. We are made to feel guilty for using these services when in reality, they do entertain us and we do enjoy them.
I’m as guilty as the next person for seeking a bit of silliness and humour online, but I’ve also made a conscious effort to reinforce to the algorithm the bits of content that are most important to me.
I regularly share posts to my Todoist inbox to reference at a later date.
Too Much of A Good Thing
Even if you’ve curbed your enthusiasm for brain dead content in exchange for some more ‘high-brow’ entertainment, you can still spend your entire life stuck in an endless scrolling loop.
Whilst social media can be a net-positive for your brain when you choose to use the platform for personal development. It won’t replace the power of putting your knowledge into action.
Leonardo da Vinci
Knowing is not enough; we must apply.
At the end of the day, regardless of the content genre, it all leads to the dopamine rush our monkey brains crave. Whether we’re learning, laughing, crying, or feeling disgusted, we can still waste hours scrolling, even when we know there are more important things to attend to.
The Moderation Game
“Social Media in the morning is killing your brain” – wrong. More like – too much social media in the morning is not helping you start your day in the best way.
What if we reframe the stigma around consumption by setting boundaries for ourself? If the first thing you do in the morning is grab your phone to scroll, fine – do it, but be mindful of how long you are spending on your phone.
10 minutes before you get out of bed is not going to influence the rest of your day, 60 minutes on the other hand might. The famous snooze button on your phone is 9 minutes, so maybe set a 9 minute timer. As soon as that timer goes off – jump out of bed.
Of course, apps like Instagram, X, TikTok and YouTube are not the only sources of wasted time in our lives. Over consumption of news is also a big problem.
Do we really need to know about all the devastation going on in the world? Most news is bad news, which affects our mood. I like to check the news maybe once every few days and I stand by the theory that anything important will find its way to me.
I wrote an article earlier this week about my Newsletter addiction and how I over came it. All media is clamouring for our attention all the time, forever and ever (until we die of course 💀) – it never stops and so we need to find a way to consume on our own terms.
Just as we choose what to put into our belly, let’s also be mindful of what goes in our head.
P.S. – The quote at the top of this post is a South Park reference, from simpler times when only movies were warping our “fragile little minds”.
