IM:310 Social Media Blog Post — Motivation
Hours, and hours, and hours, spent endlessly scrolling on tik tok, facebook, instagram, snapchat, and any other social media platforms we all use. This is almost an everyday occurrence for some of us, if not most if us; but why? Why do we spend this much time on these apps? Why is it so addicting to just tap and scroll, and want more? Addictioncenter.com states, “Social media provides an endless amount of immediate rewards in the form of attention from others for relatively minimal effort. The brain rewires itself through this positive reinforcement, making people desire likes, retweets, and emoticon reactions.”
There are quite a few main ideas and reasons that I have for why I think people get so involved with social media. They include the following: a feeling of social connection, entertainment purposes, sources of information/current events, self-validation and recognition, and FOMO (fear of missing out). I actually just learned what FOMO stood for and was, about a week ago when my sister said I had it during our super bowl party, and I think it relates to social media so well.
A feeling of social connection is one of the biggest reasons we continue to come back to social media day in and out. These platforms become more valuable as more people join them, allowing users to stay connected with friends, family, colleagues, and communities. The interconnectedness of networks creates a sense of belonging and facilitates communication and information sharing amongst the users(1).
We also go to social media for entertainment and informational purposes. People use social media to stay informed about current events, discover new content, and be entertained by videos, memes, and articles. The algorithms within social media apps create feeds based on preferences, creating a personalized experience that causes users to stick around for longer(2). For example, once we like a video about puppies, all of a sudden we see puppies everywhere on the app.
If we were to look at someones instagram for instance, the pictures that we’re able to see are going to be this persons highlights of their life. It will show vacations, awards, a significant other, all things that they want others to see. We do this to create a feeling of self-worth and validation in order to get recognition from others. Social media provides a platform for users to showcase their lives, opinions, talents, and achievements to a wide audience. The feedback loop of likes, comments, shares, and followers can be addictive.
Social media platforms cause social comparison, where users compare their lives, experiences, and achievements with others. Like I touched on earlier, social media is basically where we go to brag about our lives and only post what we think is the best. This can lead to feelings of inadequacy, envy, and fear of missing out (FOMO) by others.
With all of the time we spend scrolling on social media, there has to be something we are “removing” from our daily routine, but what is it? If I had to guess, I think we are replacing “traditional” media with social media. Our generation doesn’t read the newspaper anymore, and its pretty uncommon to see our generation watch the news on television. We are growing up in the era of technology, with everything literally at our fingertips. Unlike other generations, we don’t have to wait for the morning paper to find out whats happening in our area and world. We just get on social media until we see a post about it. For our generation, and future generations to come, I think we’ll see “traditional” media dissipate into only a few small operations.
Shirky’s concept of cognitive surplus says that individuals have a collective pool of free time and creative energy. However, much of this surplus is currently being channeled into activities like social media consumption and interaction. While some of this engagement may be for constructive purposes, such as sharing knowledge, collaborating on projects, or organizing social movements, a lot of it is driven by the desire for social validation, entertainment, and distraction.
In this context, the addiction to social media can be seen as a manifestation of the users motivations and the way they utilize their surplus. Rather than channeling their time and energy into productive or meaningful things, many individuals find themselves caught in a cycle of never-ending social media scrolling.
(2) https://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2021/10/29/addictive-potential-of-social-media-explained/
