As of the third quarter of 2018, Facebook had 2.27 billion active users monthly.
In Poland that platform has 16 million active users. Almost every young Polish citizen is using either Facebook or Twitter to communicate with friends. 80 percent of the users are logging in every single day. Including me. We all know that those platforms are using not only our data to earn enormous amounts of money, but also special techniques to catch our attention. For example, Facebook has created a special department for “attention engineers”. Their main duty is to find ways to maximize profit which can be extracted from our attention and data. This race for attention is becoming more and more competitive. How does it affect us? I guess it is not a surprise that we are all being manipulated? And we are aware of it. Unfortunately, moguls are exploiting our basic human characteristics like curiosity or vanity. We love boasting about our successes and keep posting pictures which show how funny, clever, or brave we are. Then we cannot help but check how many people liked it. Furthermore, we are more than interested in learning what our friends posted. And this is how the magical circle of addiction does not cease to spin.
Professor Robert Sapolsky from Stanford University calls this phenomenon the “Magic maybe”. The idea is simple: you look at your phone to check if – maybe – there is a text, or – maybe – there is not. You have no clue when it is going to show up, but when it does, you get a dopamine spike. And we are talking here about approx. 400mg of dopamine, which is roughly the same amount that people get from cocaine. It is pretty shocking. And it is a serious addiction. It seems to be even worse than alcohol or gambling, because it is not required to be an adult to use these platforms!
The next important thing is that the aforementioned platforms collect and store our data. We are all ‘glass consumers’. The companies know what we like and what we hate, they know our buying behaviors and what we think, hence they can profile ad content to meet our ‘needs’. And they do it with our approval.
The problem is that there is no remedy. The only thing we can do, is to try to reduce our activity on the said platforms, but it is not easy at all. Social media is always with us, wherever we go.
Here you have a short video about this problem.
1. Do you have a problem with addiction to social media?
2. Do you think you can stop using it?
3. Do you know how much time you spend on social media during the week?
Sources:
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ReplyDeleteI use Messenger to communicate with friends, and I use Facebook when I get bored. I think I am able to give up social media. All I would need is a chat application (good old text messages?). I think that I am looking at social media for one hour a day in total.
ReplyDelete1. No, I don't have this problem.
ReplyDelete2. I think that social media is so deeply rooted in our lives that it will be difficult to give up on them.
3. Sometimes I spend a few hours, sometimes I'm not there at all.
I think that every peron that uses social media is a little bit addicted. They are designed to addict. I used to spend much more time on social media
ReplyDeletebut it changed as I was aging. Right now I use social media only to be in touch with friends. I still think that I use phone too much and that I nedd to work on that.
I have even set a time limit to certain apps on my phone so I don't spend too much time on them a day. I spend on social media aprox 3h a week - is it to much?
Franciszek, as you can see in other comments, there is a huge range between people. Some of us saying that less then hour per week is ok, but others spending about 1 hour per day. So, you are somewhere in the middle. You shouldn't worry yet.
DeleteI don’t think that everyone who uses social media is addicted. I am not. I use social media for specific purpose and only for that. I have accounts on two social networks, one I check once a week, the other I don’t use now, because I got from it information which were important in my work and now I don’t need them . I don’t click any links I just check what I need and log out. I don’t need them to be in touch with my friends, I have other ways to communicate with them.
ReplyDeleteNowadays, you are in minority, I think. From all my friends, I know maybe two or three guys who’s not using social media every day, even for a short while :)
Delete1) I think no. My adventure with socal media started almost 10 years ago with Grono (defunct today) and NaszaKlasa. Then, 8 years ago, I started using Facebook. After very short time, the former portals were supeceded by Facebook. Looking back, I can tell that I used to spend more time on Grono/NaszaKlasa/Facebook being a teenager. Now, I think I am using Facebook rather to exchange messages with my friends as well as have access to different foras. I do not spend much time there, I simply log in couple of times a day to check whether there is any new message for me, then I quickly scroll news from my friends, and shortly then get back to other non-social media activities.
ReplyDelete2) Yes, as mentioned in the previous point, I rather sparsely use social media - so I can live without them.
3) Not so much as stated above. It is hard to calculate though as I almost always use facebook, doing other things at a time (e.g. watching movies).
I can recommend you application to follow your activity. I was a little bit surprised when I found that I usually spend about half on hour per day just to check my Facebook account.
DeleteI am addicted to social media, I wouldn't even argue about that. Actually I can even say that I am so used to it, knowing it's an addiction, that I don't mind anymore. I've never actually tried to fight it over. I've been moving from a different social media portals over a years, starting off on NaszaKlasa.pl ending up on Facebook. I enjoy most of the features this portal provides, but mostly I use it for communication with friends for like 3 or 4 years now, also for event searching or sharing files, photos. I don't think I can stop using it, people would get angry at me if I would keep calling them or texting. This way of getting touch with my friends is just a most efficient one, if there will be any better in a future, I would probably not think twice and just switch. I have no idea how much of my time does it consume. I'd give it an estimation to something like 6 hours in total.
ReplyDeleteMateusz, so it means that you are not afraid of being controlled by them, as social media are using all collected information about you? I’m a person who is worry about it. But I’m older than you – that’s maybe a reason of my fear ;)
DeleteDo you have a problem with addiction to social media?
ReplyDeleteNo, but I used to. Now it helps me to have limited time set on my phone has doesn't let me stay on social media longer than the amount I have set. Before that i could easily check my phone every few minutes as stated in the article waiting for some new notification.
Do you think you can stop using it?
I think I could quit all social media but it would be hard to communicate with some of my friends that I only speak through those channels.
Do you know how much time you spend on social media during the week?
No, but my phone does. It,s usually less than 10munutes per day. Pretty acceptable amount for me.
Srsly? Less than 10 minutes? I agree that is acceptable amount but i thought that my result (about 30 min.) is better than yours. And now i'm confused and disappointed about my excessive social media activity.
DeleteNo, i don't have problem with addiction to social media. I use social media very rarely, about 2 hours in week. I think I am able to give up social media. I need only the chat application to communicate with my friends.
ReplyDeleteI can easily give up on checking my facebook account as quality of content that I can see on my board tend to decrease overtime really badly. I just need to switch to some good chat application like messenger. Never tried to count how much time do I spend on it, maybe I will do it next week.
ReplyDeleteI think that I'm social media addicted at some point. As long as I barely use Facebook then on the other hand I have no idea how many hours was wasted just scrolling Instagram without any purpose. I guess it's just the easiest thing to do, funny thing, to don't do anything at all.
ReplyDeleteLooking on friends and even my younger sister I think I'm not the worse- when I'm really busy or I'm spending my free time outside I don't have any need to have my smartphone with me. So I guess at that point I'm doing well.
As I wrote before I don't know exactly how much time I spend using my social media but there are bunch of apps that measure it and I think that's the right trigger to finally use one of them and maybe when I'll see wasted hours counted from only a week I'll be much more aware of it.
So, i'm recommending you application which allows you to follow your social media activity. If you have an iphone is free, but i'm sure that other producers have something similar.
DeleteI don't think I am addicted. I only use Messenger to communicate with my friends and Facebook to check specific informations from few groups. I can stop using them but why should I? It's not like social media is evil.
ReplyDeleteAs a proud owner of Nokia which still reacts to code *#0000# and operates in EGDE transmission, i'm totaly unaware of what's going on in social media at all most of a day. What's better, i don't feel an urge to "catch up" what i had losted throughout. But i do feel the difference, and even when i've used to using numerical keypad of my phone, people don't respond to me so quickly through SMS.
ReplyDeleteOnly social media like application I use is WhatsApp and it's for keeping in touch with my closest friends. So I don't have no problem with not using social media, as I don't do it. I log in to Facebook like once in three months.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI don't like Facebook as a brand. Their Messenger Andorid app doesn't meet my criteria, I disabled it on my smartphone. I don't even install the app - only web browser client. I only use Messenger when I have to, personally I switched to other app.
ReplyDeleteHowever I still use FB - when I was at high school, friends were important part, but recently on my wall there's no friend related content most of the time - I use it as a hub for my passions, e.g. cars, spots, events. Facebook's strength is that it's popular. In a past I scrolled my wall to kill time - it was really frustrating when I realized, that I scroll the same posts for the 5th time! I stopped doing this after that moment.
It's a big problem and a big risk factor for depression. Seeing and beveling in what others want us to see. Pretending not to be ourselves just to fit in. Being judged constantly. It sounds harsh and we all agree to do this. We all suffer from fear of missing out. I had a problem, a big one I must add. But now I think it's all under control, but not gone because with current society social media are a necessity.
ReplyDelete1. Do you have a problem with addiction to social media?
ReplyDelete2. Do you think you can stop using it?
3. Do you know how much time you spend on social media during the week?
1. I think I had in a past but no more. Maybe I grew up or just rose my consciousness to the level that now I see social media literally eat precious time. Anyway, I left it and now I use very little of them, for example Messenger for communicating.
2. Yes, because I already have stopped it. Or no, because I already have stopped it, so I cannot do that again from philosophical point of view ;P
3. I don't know exactly. But if Messenger counts into it, then it will be some. In the other case, really not many ^^.
1. Do you have a problem with addiction to social media?
ReplyDeleteNo, I'm just afraid about high usage, so I cut it somehow.
2. Do you think you can stop using it?
Not in overall beacause it's sometimes easier to use Facebook to communicate. But as I observe society it just became dumb people with phones who can't act in the real life. It's so annoying in subway when you see people that won't help a human in need beacuse they are occupied by devices. So if you know how to use it, use it, if not, quit. Like in every other addiction. As soon as I finish college, I'll quit all accounts. It's just waste of time, and waste of energy on people you don't even like in the real life. XXI century intelligence...
3. Do you know how much time you spend on social media during the week?
Maybe 8 hours I think. I didn't count.