Think you’re addicted to social media? Read this.
Swiping Right Takeaway #4
You know that feeling of eating your favorite chocolate treat? The rich taste as it hits your tongue and the sweetness as it slowly melts.
Or, if you’re not a chocolate person, your favorite beer. A cold beer, a Corona with lime perhaps, definitely not Natty, at a summer day party or cookout.
Chocolate and beer are processed in our brains as rewards.
Now, I’m not making this up. There is an actual science to how our brain processes what types of things makes us happy. Chocolate, beer, sex, and social media all fall into the same category.
Think about your favorite photo on Instagram. Remember when you got ready to post it? You found the best and clearest one after a series of takes that were either too blurry, not framed correctly, or something about your stance was just awkward. You found the one where the lighting hit just right. With a few edits here and there, it was finally post-worthy. So, you posted it. Moments later, you received 10 likes in a minute. 25 likes in two. 100+ in the next 10, and so on.
This is the reward.
As with many things that bring us joy, we tend to rely on them for that rewarding feeling. Getting likes and receiving comments are rewards that both touch on our care for our reputations and our distaste for loneliness.
The more we feel connected to each other, the happier we are.
People may read this and think, “Well then, doesn’t something need to change? This can’t be healthy.” My answer to this is, nothing has changed. It’s our innate human nature to want to feel connected to others, and not feel lonely. Social media has just given us the tools to want to connect at faster and quicker rates with others.
There are risks with our behaviors and it’s imperative that we always take care of our mental health first. With that, we must optimize our social media use to ensure we are actually seeing things that build upon our happiness, and not our demise. This may include following pages that inspire us rather than following negative influences; or, following people that build upon our confidence, not our insecurities.
Social media will always be a choice, and it’s up to the user to decide how it wants its social media to impact their life. Don’t let social media be a negative addiction, but rather a positive daily reminder of the who and what you love.
I end this post with a passage from my book, Swiping Right: How We Connect, Communicate, and Love:
Scott Galloway, a professor of marketing at NYU Starn School of Business stated that the number one indicator that someone will live to be 100 yeras old is based on the number of people they loved in their life.
With social media and the tools that allow you to meet as many people as you desire to, I must ask… how many people do you love?
Maybe not emotionally or personally, but how many people do you feel connected to on a daily basis? How many people have your interest? Your attention?
The digital world is just as important to our humanity as the real world.
We are naturally more open-minded when we open these applications on our phones. With Facebook, we are more likely to friend someone we would never speak to walking down the halls of our high schools or connect with our college peers that we’ve only seen around every now and then. With Match, we are more likely to date in our late 60’s because it’s possible. With Tinder, we learn that whether you want to admit it or not, we are judging every book by its cover. (You probably judged this book by its cover, too.) However, we are more likely to swipe right digitally on someone that we may swipe left on in real life. Each swipe, post, follow, like, and DM is a new opportunity to connect and lovethe people around us.
Each swipe right is a hello.
Always swipe right on love.
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Want to read more? Grab your copy of Swiping Right today! Available on Amazon here
