Brains in A Noisy World: Why We Need to Watch Our Social Media Use

After my moderately-successful decluttering session, I started tweaking different aspects of my life, and with fresh eyes, I took a good look at our noisy world, particularly, at our social media use.

It seems so harmless, we’re just scrolling our feed to see how everyone’s doing, but the effects go beyond killing time. Here’s why we need to keep our social media use in check.

(In a previous post, I talked about how social media can create feelings of inadequacy, so that whole issue isn’t mentioned in this post at all. But it’s also a problem social media intensifies.)

It devours attention

It’s so noisy. There’s so much content and opinions everywhere.

More than 500 hours of video were uploaded to YouTube every minute as of May 2019.
In 2018, 55 million statuses were posted on Facebook every day.
In 2016, 95 million photos were uploaded on Instagram every day.

I’m sure the carbon footprint is significant, but I shall save that discussion for another post.

And then there is TikTok, Instagram Reels, Instagram stories, Facebook videos, Facebook stories, Pinterest stories, Snap Chat, Twitter tweets, Twitter stories… You get the picture.

We used to laments that we’re bombarded by advertisements every day and it’s bad for our attention. These days, we’re bombarded with advertisements PLUS social media posts from friends, influencers, and whatever’s recommended by the social media’s algorithms. The stream of content is literally endless.

Every single post takes a sliver of our attention.

Remember when they say advertisements on TV shortened our attention span? Social media is now affecting our attention span more than TV did.

Sure, social media can be a great source of information (YouTube tutorials and documentaries), inspiration (art and activists), community (interest groups), or just entertainment. But it comes at a price if we’re not mindful about how we use it.

Take a step back and look at the barrage of information. How much time and attention do we spend on the app to find that one nugget of good content? It’s a double-edged sword.

It’s addicting

In fact, the problem goes deeper than attention loss. Social media, on the surface, seems like just a bad habit. However, it’s more than that. It can turn into an addiction.

Think about gambling. People place bets, and they’re rewarded with a high when they win. So they keep chasing the high by gambling more.

When we’re mindless scrolling, we’re similarly looking for a reward at some point in our scrolling. When we hit a post that we like, the brain takes it as a reward, releasing a surge of dopamine. We feel good, we reinforce the habit.

Similarly, when we post on social media and get likes, it also triggers a surge of dopamine and makes the brain feel rewarded.

Now imagine doing that for hours a day, it’s a lot of reinforcement for the social media habit.

When we use social media to escape feelings of stress, depression, or loneliness, the psychological dependency on social media worsens.

Social media companies know this. In fact, they’re using our brain’s reward systems to keep us on the apps. But not all of us are aware of this, and those of us who are may still find it hard to kick the habit.

It influences our points of view

In a bid to reduce my social media use, I deleted Twitter despite enjoying it. I even made a few friends there! But it’s noisy as hell.

I’d scroll down my feed looking for friends’ tweets. I never find them before I get distracted by other tweets. 1 tweet leads to 10 comments and then links me to another tweet and another 8 comments. Before I knew it, I’ve exposed my brain to hundreds of voices.

After a while, I found myself getting more political posts. Why? Because they’re the most thought-and-emotion-provoking to me, and I interacted the most with them while looking for friends’ tweets.

Tweets that reflected my point of view are my favorite. Seeing strangers share the same opinions made me feel I’m part of a tribe. Not true, but it feels nice (as mentioned above, my brain released dopamine). So my brain began to seek out the trending page just to recreate that feeling.

Twitter’s algorithm picks it up and directs me more of that type of content. I don’t notice, because they keep me engaged. Do I notice that it’s changing how I see the world? I don’t, because I thought I chose the content I read.

Deepening division

Social media using our behavior to calculate what type of content to bring us creates a bigger problem – the polarization of views.

You see, because the platform sends us content that we engage with, it creates a little bubble in which only certain content is visible to us.

The good thing about it is we’re exposed to like-minded people. If you’re an artist you’ll be recommended more art-related content. It even helps make ads less annoying by making them more relevant.

However, the bad thing is also because we’re exposed to like-minded people. When we hold a particular ideology and keep reinforcing it without learning about other ideologies, it narrows our minds. It could also strengthen misinformation.

For instance, someone had doubts about vaccination and interacted with anti-vaccination content. Gradually, she started seeing more anti-vax content, reinforcing her suspicions. It’ll likely tip her over into becoming anti-vaccination too. (To be clear, the science says vaccination saves lives.)

It’s a source of misinformation and mean spirits

Speaking of misinformation… Remember when the COVID-19 pandemic just started, and people were sharing memes about how you can test your lung function by holding your breath, or protect yourself from the virus by keeping your throat moist? All not true! Still, these posts were shared over and over.

Also shared widely were anti-vaccine posts, political posts containing falsehoods, or posts promoting conspiracy theories like Qanon. Lately, there are even posts claiming that the snow in Texas was fake. These posts are damaging to society and create paranoia.

As part of my work, I come across a lot of emotionally-charged opinion content. Typically, they’re videos like this: a person talking into a professional-looking mic about political and social issues peppered heavily with sarcastic and critical remarks.

Other times, it’s a rant from a random person in their car, also opinionated and animated, often angry.

These people scare me, the former more so than the latter.

Considering the fact that the COVID-19 hold-your-breath test was widely shared, I’m afraid that any eloquent speakers can start a podcast or a talk show about rousing issues with the right equipment, and come across as convincing.

It’s okay when they’re based on facts, but when they’re not, their professional-sounding videos and confident tones can mislead people into thinking they’re telling the truth.

The need for us to discriminate between information and misinformation is more pressing than ever. With the crazy amount of content floating around, it can create a great deal of confusion.

Besides, I usually feel my anger rising as I listened to these people. Their tones are usually scathing, condescending, and ultimately mean-spirited. Whether I agree with them or not, I don’t want to listen to them and get all mad as well. My peace of mind is more valuable.

If you enjoy listening to angry commentators, ask yourself this question, “maybe they make you feel understood. But, are they making you feel wholesome and positive?”

So, keep an eye on your social media use

I probably should’ve watched the Netflix documentary before I wrote this, so if I missed important points, please pardon me. These are points I’ve gleaned from my experience. Do let me know what you think!

I do realize that I’m just adding my voice to the increasingly noisy world. So, I’ve thought long and hard about shutting up – I haven’t decided, I’m not even sure I can. Can a blogger ever shut up?

To wrap it up, I think it’s more important than ever to pay attention to our social media use. It’s too easy to let the habit overtake our lives. While it can be fun, we have to be aware that social media takes up attention and time, messes with our reward system, and can influence or misinform us through what’s on our feed.

I feel that to foster healthier mental health and in turn, a healthier society, we’ll all benefit from reducing or eliminating social media use.

What do you think?