Bluesky is becoming more popular than X. Users say Bluesky feels like real social media again. This makes me want to speak out about how social media affects our performance. I will summarise how this influence impacts our success in important areas of life.
What you’ll find inside:
Observing my own Social Media consumption, I find myself regularly doomscrolling Insta, TikTok or Reddit especially before bedtime. „Just only ten more posts“ I say to myself. This is just to break this promise to myself with scrolling „just a few more“. It gets late and I fall asleep way too late and regret it afterwards – just to mention one similarity to junk food? But why do I doomscroll at all even though I am not searching for anything special.
Our Brains prioritise novelty
The part of our brain that responds to new stimuli is called the nigra/ventral segmental area. This area is closely connected to the hippocampus and the amygdala, which both help us learn and remember. The hippocampus compares stimuli against existing memories, while the amygdala responds to emotional stimuli and strengthens associated long-term memories.
Let me explain why our brains work like that with an example of our early ancestors where survival was predominant. One day a young neanderthal women, let us call her Lizzy, discovered a hidden cave while searching for food in the forest. She thought, “This could be a cozy place to sleep!” Once she stepped into the cave, she heard a loud growl of a bear that was already living there. With a little luck Lizzy managed to escape.
But what happened in her brain during that experience? At first, her hippocampus compared the stimuli of seeing a new cave against existing memories. Initial reaction was „exciting, maybe a new shelter“ and lead her to explore the cave. The shock of discovering a bear inside, an intense emotion paired with rush of adrenaline, strengthened her long-term memory that a) this cave is not save and b) caves in general can be dangerous.
The reason she started exploring the cave in the first place is an important mechanism that encourages us to try new things. It was the anticipation of dopamine – sitting at a fire, have it warm, dry, save etc. Dopamine is a chemical in the brain that plays a key role in reward, motivation, and pleasure. Exactly this anticipation of dopamine leads us to open up the social media apps and start scrolling – in most cases without a dedicated need other than pleasure.
How sleep affects brain function and mental health
But every brain can only process and store a limited amount of new information in long-term memory. Think of an all-you-can-eat buffet but for information. You open up TikTok and start scrolling to discover new and exciting topics like how to use a drill to clean your toilet, after that a sneezing panda and so on. Depending on your stomach or self discipline, you might stop to put new things on your plate at a buffet and give your stomach a chance to digest.
Our brains equivalent to this is sleep. While we sleep all of the „plates we filled with information“ over the day are being „digested“. Repeating information will stick. Our brain transfers new information to long-term memory by considering emotional factors, but it discards the majority of information.
Social Media fills your brain with information, you don’t need
In contrast to an all-you-can-eat buffets most Social Media Apps are designed for mass consumption. Being it notifications about new posts or reactions, gamification aspects like badges or karma and followers count – all this has the sole purpose of this app becoming the dominant player in the market. You as user are the worker to achieve this goal. It is a system with a reinforcement loop to contribute and consume. Which means either you contribute with the 10th video of toilet scrubbing with a drill or you consume it.
At the end of the day, your „brains plate“ is filled with various kinds of these unspecific information. Potentially leaving no space left for information that matter to be successful in personal or professional part of your life. As with fast food, your basically bloated your brain with fun but irrelevant information. Incautious consumption of social media spreads our focus. But focus is what drives our energy towards goals, visions and purpose in life.
My formula to avoid overconsumption of social media
Did I bashed a bit too hard on Social Media and the bad schema the companies are up to. But like money, Social media is not bad or good. It depends on how conscious we use it. It is okey to get yourself distracted by all the fun stuff, since it is also a substitute to release stress.
To reduce my screen time for social media apps I tried the built in features of my iPhone. At least in iOS it is too tempting to click on „15 more minutes“ once the time limitation screen pops up.
Instead what worked for me is to hire an app guard. This sounds fancy but is just a deal with myself: Every time I crave to open any of my social media apps, I have to justify to myself, if I completed two other items already that I set for my personal growth. For me it is completing my daily streak of learning Spanish and tracking my calories and water consumption.
I do this via apps on my mobile that are on the same screen as my social media apps. Every time I grab my mobile and want to chill on social media, I see these two other apps first which triggers me to ask: did I completed these two items? For the most cases it works for me to jump into the other apps and work towards my visions instead of incautiously „do social media“.
Conclusion
- Each social media app designs its system for ease of use and consumption, relying on you to contribute to their success.
- Our brain carves for new and exciting information which makes you doom scroll social media.
- While we sleep, our brain processes all new information into long-term memory, making repeated information stick.
- Our brains can store a limited amount of information in long-term memory.
- If you consume a lot of social media content unrelated to all the things you want to your aspriations, you sabotage your personal growth.
- Limit your social media consumption by installing a social media guard, a habit that priorities topics of you personal growth first and makes social media second priority.
Further reading:
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