Let’s talk social media, what more relevant times than the current one where everyone’s heads are snooped into the virtual realms of Instagram and WhatsApp. If you do a simple google search like “How to stop using social media?” you’ll get millions of hits, 2,81,00,00,000 to be precise (no need to go on googling yourself to check the math, of course, I’ll be proven wrong, Google search index changes frequently) but let’s not delve into that bullshit. I’ve categorized those Google results as “bullshit” because it is in fact really useless. At least I found all of them short-term solutions. In this article, I’m not going to rant on about how to “stop” social media, because the notion of escaping from social media is total nonsense. Social media have become so ubiquitous that it’s almost impossible to “stop” social media.
The Shallows was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, written by Nicholas Carr. In his book, he was explaining how the internet is affecting our brain adversely and academic accounts on how the brain works. Any reader who’s read all of this in his book may assume that “Oh, then he must be a person who doesn’t consume enormous internet content like us”, but nope, at the end of the book, he himself admitted it was hard for him as well to completely stop using smartphones or internet. The latter is the same with me, I don’t profess that I don’t use social media at all. I do use them just like every other normal human being does, although the usage frequency is really unpredictable, sometimes it may be skyrocketing and some other times I might totally ignore the existence of my phone. I keep trying new things to put a hold on my incessant social media usage. The number of experiments I’ve done to reduce phone usage is innumerable and some might consider some of those as insane. And honestly, “finding the balance” (one of my most hated pieces of advice) can be achieved by getting a taste of both spectrums. We have to be too involved in something and vice versa to find the sweet spot in the middle.
“Simply put, humans are not wired to be constantly wired” — Cal Newport
Why does “stopping” seem to be too extreme? Humans are by nature a social being, this is entirely a primal instinct to be social and interact with their “tribe” (modern term would be friends). Dating back to ancient times, humans maintained the “togetherness” to survive the harsh environment (hunting, predator attacks, etc). This instinct is still buried deep in our minds, which is why we tend to dig such platforms. Humans survive by communication. Silicon Valley knows these human instincts very well and they are manipulating this to their benefit. The amount of research that’s gone into developing such apps like Instagram and Facebook is humungous, they’ve put in billions of dollars to research on human psychology and other fields to build addictive technologies. Each and every minute detail about the app is highly deliberate and not just a designer’s work of art to make it look pretty. From the poppy colours of the icons to the hi-fi algorithms that are used to recommend content to the user, all are a deliberate act to draw more attention into their app and spend more time on it. Coming back to the notion on why stopping isn’t the right path, no matter how much the companies are “using” the consumer for their benefit, there are a couple of pros in using these. At least in this time of uncertainty where our friends are just a 2-d manifestation on a screen, stopping social media might be suicidal. If it was any other time, this virtual nonsense couldn’t beat the face-to-face conversation, but since we are all stuck inside we’ve got no other choice but to embrace the devil on our shoulders with caution. In an article that I read a couple of months back, it describes how our brain responds to stress differently when we’re lonely. “When we’re alone, our brain is a little more vigilant for any signs of danger. Also, our brain perceives demands from the world as more demanding than they would be if we had someone with us,” says James Coan, PhD., Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia. Being social can be considered as the key to maintaining our sanity
Even if you’ve managed to abandon the use of such platforms, some day or other you’ll have to open these apps for some reason. And you’ll be surprised to know how quickly the discipline and strength with which you’ve shielded yourself have quickly faded away with merely 30 minutes into the use of this app. That’s how compelling these apps can be. At least this is the scenario in my case. So stopping will be ultimately a disappointing journey because of how much we fail at it. What I would suggest is to tame the wild beast. Use it with caution and carefully managed quotas. I won’t bore you with going into the details on how to attain all this because everyone’s unique and they’ll have to figure out what works for them on their own.
A lot of what I’ve read on this topic blames the companies for building such addictive technologies, their agendas, what they’re gaining from all these etc. All of these are true but there’s another idea that’s been talked about by the author Nir Eyal in his book Indistractible which I believe is more important than the former. He says that being “distracted”/ checking Whatsapp or Instagram incessantly is a product of us being too anxious about some aspect of life. How long could you exist in complete silence without the stimulation of anything that others have made (music, films, phone, laptop etc)? The answer would be around 15 minutes for most of them. The act of trying to be stimulated is us fighting against boredom and this boredom is nothing but us not wanting to think about some uncomfortable aspects of life (deadlines, future plans etc.) Taking such breaks will help in easing our minds but in the long run, actually giving time for such thoughts would be more beneficial than anxiously scrolling through some garbage. As Nir Eyal wrote in his book Indistractible, “Many distractions originate from a need to escape psychological discomfort”
Instead of blaming the apps for being so addictive, think about the things that are making you anxious which can be the real culprit for this usage. Solitude is a crucial part of a human being. As much as humans need social interaction we need to be alone by ourselves with our own thoughts. As Blaise Pascal puts it, “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Learning to be alone with our own thoughts is the key to being “indistractible.”
“Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius” — Edward Gibbon
