If you can feel phantom vibrations, it is time for a radical detox!!
Addiction is a strong, compulsive urge to repeatedly engage in a particular consumption behavior, despite adequate knowledge of the negative consequences, thus falling into the dependency trap. Until recently, addiction was associated with drugs, alcohol, tobacco substances, but lately a new addiction forming substance has been added to the list. The drug that we are going to talk about in this blog is the wicked social media.
Social media disorder (SMD) refers to excessive use of social networking platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, which could lead to negative impact on mental health, relationships, and creativity. Individuals may spend significant amounts of time scrolling or posting, often at the expense of real-life interactions, focus, and responsibilities. Symptoms include anxiety when unable to use phones, distress on account of insufficient likes, and difficulty concentrating on things that really matter.
Are you the locked cat?
A pet cat was locked in a room with a red button, merely larger than the cat’s paw, and a container with cat food inside. After hours of trying to break open the container with its paw, the cat finally learned that pressing the button would dispense food. The food though, did not dispense after every click…only a single treat after 5-6 clicks. So, the cat kept on pressing the button till the treat arrived, took a moment to enjoy it, and then went back to pressing the red button, even when it wasn’t really hungry. Pressing the button and getting the treat, though annoying, was addictive enough to keep the cat engaged. Even after the room was unlocked, cat kept on compulsively fidgeting with the button.
Now imagine you are the locked cat and the button in your locked room helps you scroll through reels on instagram. You keep scrolling until you find one post which satisfies you. It feels rewarding for a moment because the post matches your current state of mind or maybe you somehow relate to it. You take a moment, enjoy the post, and scroll again hoping for a new post that may make you feel similar to what you felt 5-6 scrolls ago.
The addiction chamber is designed to trap us…how to escape?
Mobile phones, especially social media platforms are designed in such a manner that they end up engaging us. Platforms like instagram and facebook follow a common theory of infinitism. No matter how much you scroll, you’ll never run out of posts and thus, never get encouraged to stop.
Furthermore, these platforms analyze our activity and smartly use that information to keep us engaged. Let us assume that you are interested in basketball and comment on a post featuring the same. You’ll observe that from that day onwards, more and more posts regarding basketball will pop up on your feed. That definitely is clever as it paralyses us into ‘never ending scrolling’ as the posts match our interests and seem entirely customizable.
Addiction is increased by features like notifications, creating a cycle of dependency. The most important measure that can be taken to break this vicious cycle is by avoiding such notifications. Notifications that involve people reaching out to you such as calls and texts should be prioritized but the rest of the notifications sent by apps to allure us ought to be strictly muted. They are sent to stimulate our interest and once again, practically force us to start scrolling.
Next sharp tactic of the inventors is the color coordination. Humans are attracted by warm tones, such as red. This is the reason most of the apps have changed their icon color to a warmer tone. This is also the reason that the direct message icon in instagram is red in colour. If it were blue or yellow, would it have been as appealing as it is now? To escape this, one can always put their phones in grayscale settings.
Interruptions should be set! Either set alarms or reminders on your phone to make sure that you don’t become a victim of the infinite scrolling. Apps will not help you but you yourself need to understand that only you can put an end to this. This also involves monitoring your screen time frequently.
If you can hear phantom vibrations, it is time to hit the emergency button!
Have you ever experienced a vibration and thought that maybe it was your phone sending a notification but it actually wasn’t? 89% of the people have agreed to the fact that they experience this atleast once every 2 weeks
This makes us wonder what an impact social media and generally mobile phones have on us. Illusions of vibrations? That is where everyone should draw the line. We need to understand that we are much smarter than the cat and need to severely end this addiction. Is social media and online scrolling really worth losing your hard built self-esteem and focus? Think about it!