Social Media

Eew.

Me, again. I need to get more Cedar art.

Got taken to task regarding detoxing from social media by someone who firmly informed me that “Blogging is still social media.”

Well, maybe. For me, “social media” are the platforms that use dopamine feedback loops and outrage to generate “engagement” for the purpose of making profit for the platform.

Interesting that when I open Google and start typing “dopamine feedb …” Google fills in “dopamine feedback loop social media”¹.

Anyhoo, those constant little hits of Happy Chemical that you get from seeing rapidly-cycling “Likes” and “Comments” rewires your think pudding to do whatever you did to get more², and while you’re waiting for the next pop, you’re scrolling, getting more hits from affirmation and/or outrage. This isn’t healthy. Good news is that it takes about 30 days for your brain’s dopamine cycle to reset to normal³.

Aside from the naked use of Games Theory to bollox up your neurochemistry for the purpose of bringing in record profits for the lizards sitting in corporate boardrooms, I’m firmly of the opinion that social media platforms aren’t healthy for society as a whole.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the rise in social media corresponds with a rise in “negative mental health outcomes⁴” — especially in young, not-yet-fully-formed minds.

Social media platforms do not encourage respectful discourse, nor debate. Not enough outrage to generate a minimum number of clicks in courteous discussion, so better for the bottom line to limit posts to bumper-sticker philosophy size articles and responses. There is very, very little about anything to do with humans that can be properly explored using one-liners — but that is what social media limits us to. And the smarmier and more cutting the one-liner, the better we are rewarded for it.

As we discovered during the Recent Governmental Over-Reaction To Covid, on social media perceived experts⁵ are either Teh Holy Lizard, to be genuflected towards, and How Dare You Question The Words Of His Holiness; or Hitler Lizard, anyone who doesn’t spit upon hearing his vile name Shalt Be Apostate; and Lo, Deserves — Nay, Earned! — All Teh Abuse!

Pfagh.

Here I can send hours penning 503, 574, 629, 632, 652 words riffing on Social Media; leisurely cruising Google for research so I can use links, graphs, fox pictures, and smarmy footnotes to convey information to the Gentle Reader far beyond “Social Media r bad!!!!” with a picture of a dumpster fire.

Plus, social media is designed to herd us into closed little ecosystems, paddocks where our Benevolent Lizard Overlords — from the comfort of their boardrooms⁶ — can gently noodge us to use language they approve of⁷, determine what adverts are healthy for us to see⁸, push acceptable news onto us — for our own health, you understand.

Sod that for a game of soldiers.

Back to blogging, for my own mental health if nothing else⁹.

Ian

1. This is what us finely-trained former law enforcement types call “A clue”.

2. Thus “Feedback Loop”.

3. For various values of “Normal”.

4. A tasteful phrase used because “Depression”, “Suicide”, “Anxiety”, “Enough pharmaceuticals in the blood to open an apothecary”, and “Whoo, maybe time to schedule a stay at Grippy Sock Bed & Breakfast. Again.” are considered tacky.

5. I say “Perceived” because quite often when you drill down, social media experts have … no actual experience in their “area of expertise”.

6. Sipping on $1000 bubbly and nibbling canapes made from the roe of the Tibetan Silver-sided Schnooklefish (only three of which are left in the wild) no doubt.

7. I unironically used the word “Unalived” in a sentence the other day and damned near had an aneurysm when I realized.

8. And healthy for their financial bottom line, but that’s beside the point, right?

9. Plus, blogging lets my individual … quirkiness … shine. Something that social media seems desperate to stamp out.