16 Ways To Stop Social Media From Dictating Your Life
A critical take on the influence of social media
Social media has been caught in the crossfire for some time now. Data leaks, privacy concerns, propaganda, cyber-bullying and what not. The list of accusations on social media is rising every day. So how should we as human beings and consumers respond to this? Should we ignore it and let the status quo remain?
I would say, let’s do a critical analysis of the current situation and then figure out what can be done. Think about what makes social media a bad influence on society and whether there are any positives to it. Are the positives good enough to continue with social media platforms? If not, what can we do? Let’s dive right in.
Yes, it is definitely good
Good aspects of social media are often eclipsed by the negative image associated with social media. To be objective, it is always better to see both sides of the coin. Let’s start, shall we?
Social media helps us in staying connected
Social media helps us stay connected to our friends, family and acquaintances. It gives an assurance that everyone is a finger-touch away from each other. You never really lose track of anyone in your life anymore. Yes, we do not talk to them every day but we know where we can get hold of them. It gives a whole new dimension to the fact that we are social animals.
Social media helps us in disaster management
An extension of the above case is the use of social media during natural disasters or any kind of disasters. The way we can create a task force of common people and get things done now would be unimaginable 20 years ago. Countless lives are saved every day through blood donation groups, philanthropy groups and groups for such noble causes. You do not worry about how to arrange blood for a medical emergency, you just ask the connected online world for help and they respond.
Social media is the best marketing tool out there
There hasn’t been a better tool for marketing anything than social media platforms. It ensures the marketers find the right people at the right place and the right time. There is now an industry which runs solely on this, “Social Media Marketing”. Global digital marketing spend is estimated to be $330- $340 billion in 2020.
The main attraction here is that marketing can be targeted better than any other existing medium. You can now decide the geographical location to which a particular campaign has to be run or decide the interest of the audience or any other demographic attribute of the audience.
From a social media user point of view, you will be seeing ads that are only relevant to you, unlike other traditional media platforms.
Social media helps in spreading knowledge
There are many social media platforms through which anyone connected to the internet can learn and upgrade themselves from anyone else in the world. There are thousands of tutorial channels in Youtube covering all spectrum of knowledge. Knowledge has never spread the world faster than this. Youtube users alone are uploaded 60 hours of video every minute in 2012, fast forward to 2019 and the statistics change to 500 hours of video every minute.
There are countless discussion forums and groups dedicated to imparting knowledge to each other. If you want to learn the subtle art of knitting, you can learn even that over the internet. Libraries and universities used to be the centre to store and disseminate knowledge but now social media platforms have taken the charge for this.
Social media helps to voice everyone’s opinion
There was a time when only a certain section of the population was allowed to voice their opinions. That time has changed. Now, anyone with an internet connection and a smartphone or computer can do the same about anything, anywhere. In many cases we can also see how this brought out a positive change to the society, #metoo and #blacklivesmatter are some of the examples. With social media in our hand, revolutions happen faster than ever before, Occupy movement and Arab Spring are some notable ones. The part social media platforms played in the above revolutions were commendable.
The positive aspects of social media don’t stop here. But these were some of the significant and revolutionary characteristics of social media.
Consider these negative aspects too
Now that we have looked into the positive aspects let’s dive into the negative impacts of social media on the society
Social media is often used as propaganda machines
Recently Facebook had played a very crucial role in challenging the principles of democracy. Sure Facebook was not designed to have such an effect on society. But the sad truth is, social media like Facebook have been used as propaganda machines by political parties across the world. This often happens because to some consumers of social media, what they read and listen in social media is the truth.
Unlike conventional media, you don’t have to be part of a reputed media network to write or talk about anything with authority in social media. If I wanted to, I can create a series of articles substantiating the fact that the earth is flat. And pretty soon, I would have a mass of Flat-earth believers. You should check out some Facebook groups dedicated for this, pretty wild. (No, I am not questioning the faith of anyone.)
And that is pretty much what happened in 2016 US Presidential Elections. Cambridge Analytica, a British consulting firm obtained the personal data of some 87 million Facebook profiles. These were later used in political campaigns to sway the election results.
During the 1930s, when dictators wanted to ensure that the citizens believed in the supremacy of dictators, they used to have propaganda departments whose whole responsibility was to ensure only the “right information” is going to the public. Now things have changed, you just need a couple of copywriters and a digital media expert.
This topic is a rabbit hole, and one article may not be enough to cover this. I recommend watching this Netflix series if you want to know more about this.
Social media raise the concern for privacy
This is similar to the above case but slightly different. Have you ever talked to your friend about buying a new phone only to find multiple advertisements on your social media feed waiting for your click? Well, that’s what this point is about. Privacy concerns fuelled up after the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal. And government organisations were quick to come up with a measure to tackle this. European Union came up with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which enable the user of an app or a website to decide whether to give their information away or not.
But even with all these, the privacy concerns remain. There are many online services which still track your internet activities. Apple has taken a bold move by giving the user the power to “opt-in” rather than “opt-out” to allow tracking by apps only if required by the user. (“Opt-out” means you will have to figure out from the long list of settings on how to get out from getting tracked. While “opt-in” on the other hand asks you right away whether you want to be tracked. And if you say no, it ends there.)
The real concern here is that what you do in the online world is strictly your own business and you may not be too keen to let everyone know your activities. And that decision should lie entirely with you. More and more companies are lining up to ensure the privacy of their users but it is a long way to reach there.
Social media increases or induces FOMO
FOMO or Fear Of Missing Out is the psychological condition where you are afraid you might miss out the updates happening in the online world. These updates might belong to your friend or worse your friends’ interest. I have seen this first-hand from my friends when they would wait for each episode of Game of Thrones so that they can be part of the conversation the next day and not be left out. (I love GOT too, but a healthy love.)
FOMO hits a different note when keeping updated is the only way to remain relevant in your social circles. There are countless cases of depression and other psychiatric situations which arise from FOMO. People eventually reach a point where your actions are dictated by this fear of missing out rather than your own happiness.
Social media has become a dopamine fix
Social media has become a dopamine fix of the majority of internet users. Just like Pavlov’s dog, you reach out to your phone when you hear the familiar chime of your Whatsapp Messages. (Slack messages often gives me the cringe rather than excitement.) There are many tricks used in social media apps which enable these instant gratification and dopamine rush. The endless scroll is one such invention which glues you to the screen, there is no need to refresh or click on next. What you get is always novel. And eventually, it becomes impossible to live without that dopamine fix. Imagine living without your phone for a day.
Even Aza Ruskin, who is the inventor of endless scroll fears that we are losing control of the tools we have created. To get a deeper look into how it all works, check this amazing documentary.
How shall we make it better?
So by now, we have seen how social media brings out the best and worst in us. I said that right. Best and worst in “us”. No tool is ever made to fit one purpose. Even a simple thing as a knife can help in harvesting and feeding the world or to kill someone. Everything depends on how we use it. Let’s see what can be done from our side to ensure we only benefit from social media.
- Always rely on news from reliable and trusted sources.
- Never depend on one source of news.
- Always think critically to figure out the truth. (The truth is out there.)
- Most of the applications currently support opting out from tracking your personal information. Do it now.
- Use a more secure browser like Brave
- Use VPN when possible
- Build more meaningful offline interactions and relations
- Go offline for one day a week. Start with 1 hour a day and work your way up.
- Remove dependency on social media by finding out an alternate dopamine fix like reading or playing outside
- FOMO will not matter once you apply PARA principle to your life. Check out my previous post.
- Do not use your phone for at least 1 hour after you wake up
- Have a different device dedicated to your social media apps
- Dedicate a specific time for social media
- Use social media with intention. For example, “I want to talk to Mary so I will use Facebook for 30 mins”.
- Use social media to build genuine relations
- If you are already addicted, delete the app. (Go cold turkey)
Final words
Like two sides of the same coin, social media has its pros and cons. If you feel that the pros outweigh the cons, then go ahead and implement the above suggestions. But if you feel the cons are too big to handle, delete those social media apps.
The underlying fact here is that nothing is negative or positive until you make it so. Do not be a mindless robot but be mindful of what you do. If you choose to use social media with intention and mindfulness, it is nothing more than a tool to improve your life.
Keep learning and keep adapting!
