Social Media - Insatiable Hunger For Our Attention

Everyone is hooked on this, most of us can't imagine their life without it, and most of us don't really seem to know how dangerous and debilitating it is, yes it is none other than the global phenomena of our generation- the social media. Can there be people today who refrain from it and still have friends and still know what's going around the world? Of course, yes. Social media does not have the power to control the aspects of our social life. To not be on social media today seems frightening because we have given it way too much power to have control over us. Restricting it or completely giving it up can be liberating. There is more to see in life than in tiny screens. In fact, people who stay away from it are shown not to be just okay but better off than people stuck in social media. So, is it true that we would be better off if we quit social media?

We are convinced that social media is one of the fundamental technologies of the 21st century. In reality, it is not a fundamental technology but leverages some fundamental technologies and is basically a source of entertainment. It is an entertainment product. The companies involved in running it gives us addictive treats in exchange for minutes of our attention and steal away our personal data which can then be sold. Do we ever read the terms and conditions before pressing the 'accept' button? Not really. So, rejecting social media should not be a big deal, it is just refusing one form of entertainment for others. Many of these companies have special people behind their product's development who know how to play with our minds and make these products as addictive as possible. It is intended for us to use it in an addictive fashion because it maximizes the profit which can be extracted from our attention and data.

Another reason people are stuck on it is that they think it is vital to their success in the 21st-century economy. But the market always values something that's rare and valuable, if our work is appreciative people will still find us. Using social media is not at the core of our professional success. And it is definitely not harmless, it brings with it a whole lot of significant harms. Its addiction is playing with our concentration skills and negatively impacts our psychological state. It is time when we need to evaluate the importance of our attention. And life without social media has real positives associated with it.