Monkey See Monkey Do | The Case Against Instagram
Stop me if you’ve heard this before — social media is bad for you.
Anyone who has had a pulse over the past few years has probably heard of the dangers of Facebook. Whether it’s hearing about how the Russians interfered in the 2016 election or the Cambridge Analytica Scandal, it’s old news by now.
All you have to do is set some Google alerts for “Facebook” and “Scandal” and you’re bound to come across new hits daily. Browse any tech blog and you’ll stumble upon gifs or memes of “Zuckerborg” and find posts by various “woke” tech bloggers writing about what the latest data privacy breach means and how Facebook is “taking over the world”.
If you dive deep enough back, you can even find videos of former Facebook Vice President, Chamath Palihapitiya admitting how “Social media is ripping apart society”.
Former engineers and thought leaders from Silicon Valley, who helped build the platform have come forward and admitted that they either don’t use the tool themselves or don’t allow their children to come near it.
It’s no secret that overusing social media is bad for your brain. And yet, when it comes to most of the buzz around the dangers of social media, it is almost always Facebook that takes the lion’s share of the criticism.
Although Facebook and Instagram are often used interchangeably (after all, they are both owned by Facebook and use the same API), I would argue that Instagram — Facebook’s more millennial-friendly platform is the more dangerous platform of the two.
To better understand why Instagram is the more dangerous tool, I will draw upon two key psychological factors — mimetic theory and dopamine-feedback loops.
Mimetic theory is credited to Rene Girard’s theory on breaking down the basis for desire in human beings. Put simply it is “based on the observable tendency of human beings to subconsciously imitate others and the extension of this mimesis to the realms of desire.”
“Monkey see monkey do”
According to Girard, human beings (like most mammals), derive our desires from subconsciously observing the collective desires of the groups we belong to. Part of this comes from our Darwinistic biology — we all desire the things that are necessary for sustainable survival within our environment (food, shelter, reproduction, the need to be part of a social group, etc.). Let’s call these our base desires. On the other hand, we have secondary desires such as a sense of purpose, fame, and objects of desire (ie: that shiny new car you’ve been saving up for), that comes from what Girard describes as triangular desire. These are objects we desire not from an inherent biological need, but rather because other people we observe desire them as well. These are not objects that are desired for their scarcity, but rather because we see other people chasing them. Ie: the example used in the article above — “Put two kids together with a surplus of toys and their desire(s) will inevitably latch onto the same toy, beginning a tug-of-war and mutual cries that “I wanted it (or had it) first!”
Another component of Mimetic theory that is important to understand is that we have deeply rooted drives that encourage us to follow “the most successful” in our environment. Think about it — thousands of years ago when survival depended upon an accumulation of resources, it was advantageous to copy those that were able to accumulate the most resources. Whether it was a new hunting technique or following the cavemen that were able to successfully create fire (and thus could have sustainable nutrition for extended periods of time), it was in your ancestor’s biological advantage to copy from those at the top. Fast forward to today, and we no longer have the need to copy from those at the top for sheer survival — and yet I would argue that we still do.
Have you ever wondered why every culture has a fascination with “the stars” and celebrity culture? Why no matter where you go, we seem to want every inadequate detail of what our celebrities are doing? Whether it’s Musicians or movie-stars, we have an innate desire to follow those at the top of our social circles. Women want to follow the top fashion models. Men want to follow the top athletes and business tycoons.
To be clear, this isn’t unique to social media, you can trace the need for celebrity gossip back to the formation of Hollywood itself. However, the problem today is that with Instagram, it is now much easier than ever to live in a constant stream of “following”. We start imitating those we follow without even realizing it. We are subconsciously living our lives to imitate the images we are constantly being fed…and the images we are constantly being fed are often overrun with vanity. In the era of where Kardashians are the royalty (Welcome Kylie Jenner as the newest “young billionaire”). Too many of the celebrities we follow do not do anything. They are “famous for being famous”. On Instagram, your brain can’t detect the difference between someone who is rich for accomplishing something or someone who was born rich. An image on Instagram is “instant”. It doesn’t show the hard work that someone might have taken to accumulate the lavish lifestyle you want to emulate. We see the stars get likes, and we hunt for likes ourselves.
You can probably see where I’m going with this. I argue that we should all seek to use social media to express our individuality, not just copy the stream of images we are triggered to follow. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy checking the application every now and again myself, but I believe it’s important to know what you’re up against before you allow these platforms to re-wire your brain and take away your individuality.
Heck, even King Joffrey agrees with me 😎.
Part 2 — Dopamine Feedback Loops
Your brain rewards you for hard work (or at least it’s supposed to.) When you put in work that eventually leads to some reward, your brain releases a “feel good” chemical that reinforces that activity. This helps build your internal motivation system in your brain so that you keep doing things that are good for you in the long run. The danger with dopamine, is that there are things like social media, drugs, or porn that make you feel good, without the work (and thus can re-wire your brain and throw off your internal motivation sensors).
Don’t take my word for it (after all, I’m just a guy with an undergrad liberal arts degree) — these studies will explain how dopamine feedbacks work far better than I can 😃.
The first step is knowing what you’re up against — the second, is actually doing something about it.
A call to action — what should we do about it?
- Start asking yourself why you’re posting this — the next time you want to pose for a picture on Instagram, ask yourself — who am I trying to copy? Am I simply just copying an image I have already seen? What celebrity am I trying to be?
- Fix your feed — stop following celebrities. Unfollow all of the accounts that aren’t someone you immediately know. Their posts do not bring value into your life. They simply show you what you don’t have.
- Use a timer/productivity application to limit app use — there are countless extensions or free apps out there that you can make use of to cut down the amount of time you use on Instagram.
- Turn off notifications. They are called “push” notifications for a reason. They are meant to push you back in. What starts as harmlessly checking your notifications too often turns into mindless scrolling through your feed. Take back control.
- Delete the application off of your phone. You can always re-download it when you want to use it, but taking away the shiny purple button will make your brain re-think why you want to go to it in the first place.
