"Nothing vast enters the life of mortals without a curse" - Sophocles
Technology and the rapid rate at which it constantly improves is often a godsend. A Google search is much faster than an Oxford Dictionary search, so who even searches through their dictionaries anymore? Social media today offers connections and opportunities that generations before us would have never even imagined possible, and for this we should be thankful.
What many fail to truly realise, however, is that social media is a coin with two sides. On one side, there are its many benefits, and on the other, its downsides, which may eventually develop into a full-on curse. There's this new documentary on Netflix, reader, in which people who have worked for Facebook, Instagram, and so on discuss the "flip side" of this coin that is social media:
"Okay, but why should I spend 1hr 34m of my life watching it?" you may ask, and the answer would be simple. It grips you. It causes you to suddenly be aware of things you've never noticed before, leading you to finally seeing the world after a lifetime of being blind. It shows you that you are a puppet, and instils within you the urge to break free. It demonstrates and proves that social media, although a blessing in many ways, is also a curse, a drug. Ironic, huh? We feel sorry for drug addicts without even realising that we are in the very same situation. It's no coincidence that drug and software industries are the only ones that call their consumers 'users'.
Social media platforms are in fact addictive because their creators have found ways to carefully manipulate our psychology to keep us hooked. Ever thought about why there are ellipses (...) in chats and in comment sections when a person is typing? Because they trigger curiosity, keeping us waiting for an answer. Likes and comments on pictures are for some people also synonymous with a sense of self-worth and identity. When likes start piling in, people may feel valued, confident. They are then likely to fall prey to the urgent need to feel this way again and again. In other words: posting and getting an adequate amount of likes = self-worth, so I should keep posting and getting likes. If this doesn't scream addiction I don't know what does.
As is stated in the documentary itself, we have "fallen under some kind of spell", one that is "wrecking our lives". The results are shocking. Depression, anxiety and suicide rates have dramatically increased in girls after 2011, a pattern which points towards the effects of social media. Nowadays, teens even want to get plastic surgeries so they can look like Snapchat filters. I'm speechless.
The creators never intended for all this to happen. It just spiralled out of control and will keep doing so unless the spell is broken.
So The Social Dilemma is worth having a look at, huh? The documentary itself goes into much more detail and explains things much more thoroughly, but if I've managed to trigger your curiosity and induce you to chase the truth, then I've done enough.
Don't be clueless. Be aware.
Only then can we break the spell.
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