Jayendra Muley | Prathamesh Themdeo

Buzz words ‘Social media’, ‘Internet’, ’Smart Phones’ are not new anymore (except there are still people not having its access). Generally, these words are our daily rather hourly food! Humankind has come a long way embracing the miracles of technology. Internet and media opened tonnes of opportunities, paced economies, an elevated standard of living. Writing a book will not be enough to tell the benefits that we have enjoyed after the introduction of this new technology. The root purpose of these innovations was to make Earth a better place to live, to rise together as a community. To a greater extent, we are even moving on the path to accomplish the purpose and make ourselves better versions of ourselves. However, the rule of profit tells us that anything is profitable until the point the benefits are higher in long terms than the energy and time spent over it. This is to make a point that we are probably at the verge of crossing the breakeven point in terms of social networking ahead of which losses incurred are more than the benefits enjoyed. Let’s dive into the topic with a small story. Long ago there was an ambitious king who always used to focus on getting a particular job done by his slaves. But, the uniqueness of the king was that he was always concern about the output of the work, regardless of the methods slaves were implementing. Let’s say, King wanted all slaves to earn ten pieces of bread per day, no matter how slaves earn them. So, to earn these ten pieces of bread slaves used to undertake different jobs. One fine day, one of the slaves encountered the easiest way to earn ten breads with a work of mere an hour. Whereas, others used to work hard for a whole day to obtain the same output. As time passed, all the slaves opted for the same way to earn ten breads and preferred staying jobless for the remaining day. In the effect of this, slaves became lazy and never preferred to do hard work even if their future demand for hard work. This laziness resulted in the rise of new problems like obesity, anxiety and even depression. The King in this story is nothing but our Brain, slaves are of course us (humans), bread is an enzyme called Dopamine. Dopamine is an enzyme that our brain secrets whenever we perform activities that result in joy, excitement and pleasure. This is one of the reasons for all our cravings and urges for pleasurable things like food, adventure and entertainment. Sticking to the relevance of the topic we can talk more about ‘Entertainment’. This word must have flashed things like smartphone, movies, TV series, games in your brain before any other means of entertainment. Hasn’t it? This is because the above mentioned are the easiest way that our brain can think of to fulfil its need for Dopamine! Not surprisingly, a single thing connecting all these dots is our new body organ- ‘Smartphone’. Smartphone in synonyms to connectivity, internet, and so-called ’Social’ media. In the early time of the internet, we were required to know mail id or domain name of the person to connect. However, today we don’t need anything except the name of the person. This is where we can see the sharp transition of connectivity into social media. Social media narrowed down the content for us. From 5 hours of book reading to 3 hours of movies > 1hour of series episodes > 15min of YouTube videos > 30 secs of Reel! Carving its ways to seconds of our lifetime. We can see numerous stories and status updates that are completely irrelevant to us. Is it normal to update 1000 people with what you are up to right now? We will say YES because it has become new normal and none of us is away from it. We all are same slaves of our kings. Social media is asking us to continuously compare us with others who are showing there a fractional part of life. Although most of us know that it is curated content, also some of us feel that they don’t get influenced but unconsciously our brain tends to compare it. The issues with social media are not as simple as posting a story. In fact, we don’t even consider the biological impact of its usage as an issue.

To understand the biological impact we need to know common thread between social media and our body which is Dopamine. Dopamine is a neurological transmitter, which is responsible for many things like motivation, craving, attention anticipation, etc. In simple words, dopamine secretion happens when the brain is expecting reward and as we get rewarded, dopamine makes us feel good and satisfied. For example, whenever we crave to eat our favourite food, we remember it’s taste, smell, texture and every aspect which will compel us to eat that dish. When we fulfil our wish of eating, we reward our brain and it secrets Dopamine and we feel accomplished. Another example is when we are watching a TV series and certain episode ends on suspense, we crave to know what will happen next and as we watch next episode our body gets its reward and dopamine get secreted. In the evolution process of human beings to survive in the race, nature associated dopamine secretion for certain activities such as food and sex which were must for the survival of human species. If a being feels satisfaction after performing a sexual activity, he/she will do it again and again and mutation of species will happen. Similarly, dopamine secretion got associated with other things like certain colours, surroundings and sounds etc. Understanding these facts, social media designers invested a tremendous amount of money to design platforms and its interface that are appealing. You must have noticed surprising similarities in the things like ‘red colour of notification badge, unseen stories, last seen, the blue or red colour of the app icon, notification numbers, etc. Which pattern makes major dopamine secretion in the brain is associated with that tool. Notification or message sounds create craving to open the application, as we open it we give the reward and that reward gives dopamine. When we upload any photo we constantly check our likes and shares. Streaks feature in Snapchat is also a trick to keep users engaged. Even the typing… status and loading time of badges is the means of increasing engagement. They want us to get glued to their platform. Secretion of dopamine is not bad but when these things are repetitive and we get the same reward after using it, our brain associates social media as a source of dopamine. In no time it becomes an addiction.

Generally, when we plan our day and follow it, when we opt for learning something new, when we do exercise, read something, dopamine gets secreted. But to follow the plan for a whole day takes us 24 hours, doing exercise takes physical efforts, learning skill takes consistent inputs for a long time. Now consider our body is at 0th level of dopamine and performing activities like exercise, reading and following our plan gives 10 units of dopamine. On the other hand, the usage of social media for a small amount of time gives us the same quantity of 10 units. Remember the analogy of king, slaves will not do full day work for the same reward they can get in a few minutes. The brain will convince you not to read a book, not to exercise and you no longer will consciously use your mobile, it will become a compulsion. You must have experienced using 2-3 social media applications in the loop again and again unconsciously. Moreover, the platform which we call as ‘Social Media’ is not really social. It is a well-engineered marketing platform projected as social media. The whole business model is based on the fact that companies need loyal customers to watch their ads. Social media platforms are the suppliers of this customer base. Friends, networking, chats and all other features are just to glue us to the platform. Giants like Facebook, charge businesses just for showing the ad to a particular set of users. No consent is taken regarding what advertisements user see in their feeds. While watching TV we just switch the channel when ads appear whereas we don’t close an app if we get to see an advertisement. This is because ads are projected as the by-product of social connectivity. However, we fail to notice that social connectivity is the real and small by-product of huge marketing scams that are playing with human existence. Often, data analytics is given as an excuse to such issues, but advertisers, marketers and even companies are not bothered about the severe impact that their activities are making on people.          

Every addictive thing in the world is in the Dopamine reward loop. The bigger thing than social media is porn addiction. As we discussed earlier, sex is a supreme source of dopamine due to our evolution process. Sex gives maximum instantaneous satisfaction to our body than any other source. Watching porn and masturbation stimulate the body in the same manner as that of sex. The process of forced ejaculation is treated as natural sex because the body cannot differentiate between sex and masturbation. So it reacts naturally and secrets dopamine 10 times more than usual. (in our example: 100 units) When this act is performed regularly, the brain starts getting the maximum amount of satisfaction in just a few minutes, and brain always opts for the option with fewer efforts. The decision making of our brain acts as- When I’m getting maximum satisfaction in 15 Min., why should I read 400 pages of a book, why should I study? Then your routine starts to feel dull, you don’t enjoy playing cricket as you used to do, because playing cricket was giving 10 units of dopamine which is far less than your brain’s new normal 100 units. The usage of drugs gives hit of double the satisfaction than that of sex, but drugs’ usage gives impulsive satisfaction. Whereas, watching porn or doing masturbation gives continues satisfaction for the activity period. Hence it is most addictive. It will take away your interest from small things which makes your life happening because it is nowhere near to the thing your brain is used to now. These addictions keep us away from doing usual hard work that we were doing easily which result in mental and physical fatigue.

In the 21st century, every good and bad thing is one touch away. Therefore, the choice is ours –whether we want to control the whole pool of social media or we want to control ourselves. We must bust the myth that ‘not using social media will decrease your social presence’. Around a decade ago, internet was escape from reality but today reality is escape from internet ironically. We must make ourselves more conscious and mature as customers/audience. We need to reimagine the whole internet ecosystem with new business models and designs that are actually concerned about human well-being. Above all, if you are feeling restless even for an instance without social media, then you must consider giving it up so that you actually become social. Kyuki ye Khel Tumse Humse Sabse Bada Hai, Sardarji!!

[Open YouTube, there you will find any ad while scrolling feed,

Tap on options button (three dots > Go to ‘Ad Settings’ > Select your Email id > And Scroll Down  You will find 100+ data points collected according to your searches & history, which is the basis of every Ad. And these are collected without knowing your consent.]