Social Media Addiction: Why can’t you stop scrolling?

We have become a society where we hangout in groups yet never talk to each other

We all might have been a mindless scroller now and then.

Perhaps you couldn’t help yourself.

And somehow tried to break this vicious social media addictive cycle and landed on this post.\

This compulsive behavior to keep scrolling through your phone is not by accident but it is the way social media is designed to do.

Every business model’s primary interest is to attract customers and increase profits. Hence, every business tries to lure customers with attractive offers and sales.

Social media platforms are one such example.

Every social media platform is competing with each other to keep their users hooked to their respective platforms.

They do this by implementing various persuasive techniques.

In India, the number of people using social media stands at 376.1 million in the year 2020

Right from the time we wake up in the morning till the time we roll hours on the bed, it is that screen that keeps our eyes frozen and glued.

Let’s go behind the curtain to see what really happens there…

Why can’t you stop scrolling?

The Netflix Documentary ‘Social Dilemma’ created a worldwide sensation and bought immense awareness around social media.

In that, tech insiders explain how social media is consciously being altered to control our psychology.

It deliberately talks about the Persuasive Technique followed by the tech companies.

The persuasive technique or The Persuasive Model is a method where the user is pursued to keep scrolling through more content.

Let’s see this with an example

I personally love to watch cricket. It is something I never miss.

Surprisingly, my social media feed is filled with contents and posts majorly about cricket.

On the other hand, you may love football more. You will find posts of football more on your feed.

This is a conscious design to give you only those contents which the social media algorithm knows will hook you.

Before scroll a content on your feed, the algorithm predicts on which type of content to push next to keep you scrolling.

It predicts what should be the next post on your feed by analyzing you.

Over time, it keeps understanding you (user) better and gets more accurate and successful in hooking you on the screen.

Based on your preferences and the type of content you watch, it knows the user better even more better than the user himself.

It knows when the user is happy, sad, excited or when the user is depressed and pushes content to feed accordingly.

This creates a subconscious habit deep within your mind to mindlessly keep you scrolling.

When a social media company comes up with a feature that probably increases engagement. Then the other social media companies lose engagement in their platform.

Hence, they come up with another feature that is more addictive and hooks users to the screen than the other competitors.

This is the reason why we can’t stop scrolling and the children are the most vulnerable.

It is very vital for everyone to use social media more mindfully and carefully. You should be aware of what you are watching and scrolling through social media and the time consumed.

Summary:

Before scroll a content on your feed, the algorithm predicts on which type of content to push next to keep you scrolling. It predicts what should be the next post on your feed by analyzing you. Over time, it keeps understanding you (user) better and gets more accurate and successful in hooking you on the screen.

The Race For More Attention

As our technology and generation keeps advancing, the race for people’s attention is never going to go down. The methods and techniques to hack our attention and keep users scrolling is going to get more advanced.

What does that ‘ever distracting device’ in your hand want from you?

All it wants is your attention!

‘Hey, your friend tagged you’ might be a simple innocent notification but what it actually is just bait to pull you to the platform.

It is a bait to gain more of your attention by a notification which is too obvious for anyone to tap on that.

Pull that notification panel and you will notice hundreds of notifications from every other app.

You will find tens of notifications waiting for you to notice.

It is not that these platforms are not staying the same with their persuasion. The AI or the platform is getting better and better day by day on keeping us hooked.

The race and competition to keep us scrolling between these social media companies is getting bigger and bigger day by day

The way this has evolved over the time has even changed the generation’s mindset to create content only for the sole goal of getting likes, comments and shares.

This totally rules out the effect it might have on our children.

Summary:

When a social media company comes up with a feature that probably increases engagement. Then the other social media companies lose engagement in their platform.The race and competition to keep us scrolling between these social media companies is getting bigger and bigger day by day. The idea to mine your attention is create more techniques and features to keep you hooked and addicted to the screen.

How Social Media Affects Our children?

I’m most worried about the children. They are the ones who are the most vulnerable to this.

Imagine when this can hook us so much then children are the most vulnerable ones.

Though we are surprised that our children can open specific apps without even teaching them.

But on the contrary, we also find them not willing to give up looking at smartphones or tablets.

Imagine, this social media suggests contents that children love the most to keep them hooked. They are susceptible to every other video and even those which they are not even mature enough to see.

This was never the problem with TV.

Children are under the supervision of the parent in this case.

They get to choose the type of content they want to see by switching between channels.

But on the other side, they mostly see only those videos which are recommended to them by the AI in the social media platforms

When it comes to the smartphone, it has no boundaries. The child is into a world, where he is susceptible to any visual which can be harmful.

And it is not something parents can always supervise every time.

We notice that the upcoming generation is getting into depression and experiencing anxiety like never before.

We find the upcoming generation to be more obese and unhealthy.

It is important for parents to supervise the screen time of their children. Not by force but by gentle positivity and making them understand the effects prevalent in the society.

Is Social Media the Ultimate Villain?

Tristan Harris, the co-founder of the Center of Humane Technology and Ex-Google Ethicist, says in an interview that it is not the social media companies alone to be blamed. They are not the ‘Bad or Villain’ projected personalities.

It is the business model that has evolved over the time to be blamed. It is vital for the governments to frame laws and bring regulation to the social media platforms.

Social Media is not just a business that is making itself more attractive and enticing like every other business. It has now become part of our lives.

These platforms alone are like a separate world that has no or minimal boundaries. It is very important for the platforms to be regulated just like our world has laws to regulate us.

It is not that social media has been only made to ruin our society.

No! Rather it has been a great tool for educating ourselves. We can connect with our loved ones whenever we want.

We must understand how these platforms are working, and establish the way we use it and the time spent on it.

I’m quite positive and optimistic about the fact that some day we will define the line we ought to establish in social media.

I believe we will reach a point where social media is not anymore a pursuer but just a tool!

I have given a detailed insight about the true psychology of social media in my other blog.