Social Media — Not just an addiction

Imagine you are on a vacation or at your friend’s house, having a good day, and you notice a perfect scene in front of you, maybe something worth remembering, a nostalgic moment, or a beautiful picture. Rather than experiencing these moments, people take out their phones to post them on social media.

What is social media addiction?

Ever unlocked your phone and started scrolling through Instagram without even thinking, doing it subconsciously? Perhaps you started watching a video reel or TikTok and suddenly realized you have been scrolling for a long time.

It won’t necessarily mean you are addicted, right?

Whether you use social media to chat, post, share or watch some videos to simply “kill time”, this has increased a lot over the last decade. Everyone from every age group is facing this issue.

Why is it so addictive?

You might already know the answer to this question.

You get everything you want!

The algorithm is designed in such a way, that it learns your behavior, likes, and dislikes. It shows you content based on your choices. These apps are made so addictive that even if you open them, you will be forced to spend hours looking at your screen.

These apps know you better than yourself, with every type of content present online, it can show you whatever you desire.

How do these Social Platforms make money?

I will try to explain it as simply as I can.

These platforms have your data — likes, dislikes, choices, political views, favorite food, etc. They can sell this data to anyone or any other corporation. Now, corporations can use this data to show you relevant ads, recommend you a product, and probably everything you can think of.

Mental Health

This is increasingly important in these times when everyone is running toward instant gratification. A lot of research has proven that social media is bad for you, directly and indirectly.

The major issue with social media is it creates an artificial environment where you feel pressured to be happy, prosperous, and successful as everyone pretends to be.

If you know something is proven harmful to your mental health, will you still use it?

Influence on our beliefs

We believe in something, we have confidence in ourselves, and we want to hear others through discussions and reasoning. Unfortunately. Social media has made it possible for central entities to influence and control people.

Social media doesn’t know what’s right and wrong, it feeds your curiosity and turns it into faith. So, make sure you make your decisions based on discussions and research and value others’ perspectives.

Privacy

Applications can share your data between each other and other platforms.

You search for a product on Google, you get product ads on Instagram from Amazon. Ever happened? It’s almost as if it read your mind…it does!

Privacy is a right and everyone has something to protect, be it your details, your family, your location, and your address. Don’t let these companies benefit at the cost of convenience.

Control of our stuff

There was a time when you would click pictures through a camera, transfer your pictures to a hard drive, or print them. We had control over our data and could access it locally.

Nowadays, Instagram, Facebook, Google, and every platform know your location, your friends, contacts, phone number, email, sleep schedule, and chats, we upload photos and videos to the cloud and almost everything.

You're allowing this to happen and giving control of your data. I might sound old-fashioned, but it's the truth.

Connections

People think they need social media to stay connected with friends, and people they love in these times when they can’t meet in person. Someone who follows you, and you follow them back, is not someone who you are going to talk to outside that platform. No one can keep up with thousands of true connections, it’s not a community.

Your true friends will undoubtedly reach out to you, with or without social media, as no website or platform should be a reason if a friendship breaks apart.

Should you delete your social media?

You may need social media! If you want to spread information, make people laugh, advertise your brand, or maintain a profile for jobs. Depends on the person using it. It is one of the things social media does better is positive influence and branding. You can maintain a social platform without directly linking yourself and investing your data into it.

Things to follow:

If you are planning to delete your account, request your data from the social media provider. This process can take a long time, but don’t skip this, as deleting your account won't delete metadata linked to you.

What's next?

You will find improved mental health and anxiety, and a closer connection with the people, and will definitely declutter your devices. Knowing these details puts you in a better position and gives you control over your life.

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More posts are available on my website fosspage.com.