Good Ole Social Media
“We don't have a choice on whether we do social media, the question is how well we do it.”
People have done a million thought pieces on social media. Why it’s good why it’s bad, its impact, etc. I guess this will be thought piece number 1,000,001.
I think people are inherently social creatures, I believe we were designed that way. Even introverts, which stereotypically (but falsely), don’t like people need social interaction. Social interaction helps to keep our minds healthy, helps us learn new things about the world around us, and usually can help us learn new things about ourselves. Social interaction can help improve our emotional intelligence and can help relieve stress. People who don’t socialize and isolate themselves from society are typically at a higher risk of onset psychological issues and some physical issues such as high blood pressure. Social bonds are what make a society possible. If people don’t interact they don’t develop bonds which keeps society from starting, growing, or even maintaining itself. In my opinion, social interaction is the most important part of external growth. Don’t get me wrong, you need a physical and mental care routine, but those are internal, solo pursuits that are internally motivated and don’t require anyone else. Emotional care usually does require other people, the same way high-level success does. As I like to say here “No Man wins Alone” and that is especially true of social interaction and emotional wellness.
Socializing is important and it’s healthy.
I would liken Social interaction to food. The caliber of people we spend our time interacting with is like choosing what foods we eat. Foods have different purposes. Some are for pleasure, some are for wellness, and you’re really on to something when you find a food that is both. People are very typically a reflection of who they choose to spend the most time with. Most social connections are voluntary and, like all decisions, who you choose to enter into platonic and romantic relationships with makes a statement on who you are. Sometimes improving your social circle can be a struggle, especially if you were someone who had a tendency to only keep company with a certain type of person. It’s like changing to a vegan as an adult when you were raised with pork chops and steak on the table every night. It can often be a struggle to move on from the unfamiliar.
Social Media is a bit different, though.
Using the food analogy, social media isn’t the type of food you consume, that’s people. Social media is more like where you choose to eat. Social media is about convenience. What the Mark Zuckerbergs, Jack Dorseys, and Evan Spegiels of the world have done is further distilled human socialization by cutting out the least desirable parts of it and growing the parts that we enjoy the most. This is not an inherently bad thing and is clearly a good business model. The way humanity originally ate was to hunt and gather. Eventually, that evolved to husbandry and farming, which evolved to food markets, which grew to restaurants, and eventually fast food. Was hunting and gathering the healthiest method? absolutely. All food was organic, cruelty-free, and devoid of pesticides or fertilizers and it gave you a good workout. At the same time, it was the hardest way to eat. Imagine every couple of days you have to literally find, stalk, kill, clean, and cook meat if you wanted any. If you want plants then you have to find them growing someplace and once you eat them they probably won’t be in that same place again for months. Humanity has a knack for developing things that make life more convenient regardless of impact and that’s what social media is. It’s a place to see what others are doing and sharing and interact with them in a multitude of ways. Plus you don’t even have to go outside. You can interact with everyone close to anonymously without needing to get dressed, make plans, or deal with being awkward. Social Media is fast food. We all know fast food isn’t the healthiest option, but it doesn’t have to be completely unhealthy either. It’s not the best tasting option but it usually is one of the cheaper ones. It isn’t something that should be the core of anyone's diet, but it is perfectly acceptable in any diet at the right intervals. Almost every fast food restaurant has a vegan or lower calorie option, if not several. When you pull up to McDonalds and look at the menu, lets face it, you’re probably not going to pick the salad and forgo the ranch dressing, you’re probably choosing a much more unhealthy option.
That’s what makes Social Media Dangerous.
The big brains at these social media companies are like the big brains at fast-food corporations. They want one thing: to keep you coming back. That’s why these apps send notifications, it’s why the companies try to curate an experience based on your preferences, it’s why they send recommendations on who to like and follow. It’s why they gather a million data points on who you are. Social Media is a distilled form of what we get from healthy in-person social interaction, a sense of community and belonging. It removes many of the negatives some people are concerned with like the threat of violence when you do something extremely rude or disrespectful, or the being unable to hide many of your flaws. We can show ourselves exactly how we want to appear on social media in a way that most of us can’t do in real life. This is probably why most people refer to our daily lives as “real life” and social media is considered media which is something that can be controlled and delivered in a specific way based on context.
It can be a substitute for Growth and Development.
I’m about to get a bit judgy. People who post on social media often (4+ times a week) get the side-eye from me. Unless there is a purpose in the form of (current or eventual) monetization, it’s not something I can see a truly positive side for. Why are you posting that often? Are you using social media as a digital diary to catalog what you’re doing? Is it intended to be a picture reel for later? Are you doing it to get admiration and attention from others? I usually think it’s number three. To be clear, I’m on social media every day usually somewhere around 1-4 hours a day. That's mostly because I’m a Digital Marketing Consultant and I’m looking at analytics and trends to help my clients. Many people spend somewhere around that much time on social media per day and just don’t realize it. We pull out our phones and check social media when we are with our friends and family, when we are working, when we wake up in the morning and before we go to bed at night, we even check social media on the toilet. So much productivity gets lost to social media. That’s an hour you could’ve spent focused on building a new healthy habit, learning a new skill, or interfacing with people in the real world. We rob ourselves of valuable time we will never get back entertaining and distracting ourselves. Social Media is a big piece of that.
Now I understand that few of us can unplug completely and I wouldn’t recommend it to be honest. So many people we know are on social media and it’s the primary way we interact with people that are on the fringes of any of our social circles. Social Media has a very strong value in our society and is something like transportation and food isn’t going anywhere any time soon because it feeds the need humans have to interact with one another. I would just say be cautious about how you use it and if it isn’t making you better in some way, then it’s probably not worth using at the same level you might right now.