Secrets Of Social Media In Real life

Tightened your seat belt and let’s take a flight to Mysterious and Controversial World of Social Media “Secrets Of Social Media In Real Life”

Highlights:
1. Dark sides of social media
2. Secret of FOMO in our life due to Social Media
3. What’s driving your social media use?
4. How secrets of social media affects romantic relationships in our life?
5. Solutions to the terrible secrets of social media
6. Conclusion

Before we start, if you are not habitual of reading and instead addicted to videos and short videos then:

• You are not alone my buddy 😀 . It’s fortunate or unfortunate you are among 72% people who prefer videos over reading in today’s world.
• Comment me in comment section of blog, so I would get motivated to make a YouTube video for this topic 😜
• After this blog may be you will get to know why reading is more important.

Before we dig down about social media lets first know how our brain works. (Although we are not completely known till today and a lot of researches are going on in the world, but the conclusions found till today are phenomenal). Research shows that doing anything repeatedly for extended amount of time can cause psychological changes in the brain. It’s positive or negative, the brain cannot differentiate it.

Recommendation: Read this blog multiple times at least twice for better understanding.

Social media has become a key part of the modern lifestyle. But Do you know some dark sides of social media? What’s driving your social media use? How social media affects romantic relationships?

Enough of here and there let’s start now….(👇)
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Ohh wait a second(⏱️). Before we start I want to share 1 meme which I got on Instagram. Just look at it 👇

Is it a “Fun fact” or “Sad psychological fact” ? Let’s find out below (👇)

Dark Sides of Social Media

Have you ever given a thought that mostly social media don’t give us Dislike (👎 ) or hate kind of button? OR Have you noticed YouTube shows likes count but doesn’t show dislike count anywhere ?

Just think over it…..No no firstly think right now then we will move further… RIGHT NOWWWWWWWW….🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔

I can think of one reason ✋…… umm may be they don’t want to spread hate or negativity in society?

According to the research in Harvard Business School by Amit Goldenberg and colleagues Nathan Young and Andrea Bellovary of DePaul University analysed “Bad news spread faster than good”. 

So this was not the reason when only like button comes to Facebook on February 9, 2009. Instead one of the secrets of Social media in real life is they are using your psychology against you.

2 Top most reasons for that:

• 1st reason: Human psychology of being praised:

One brain urges for the praise (In other words human being feels good when they get praised). So, they use this psychology to get you hooked and to make you stay on these platforms for the longest time possible. More you will be praised more you will come to platform. (So dislike button will play opposite role here and you will leave platform one day. Hence they don’t promote dislike)

So when your photos, videos, comments are being liked you feel good with that. And you want that happiness time to time. (This is not in your control actually, that is your brain’s demand. Will explain in detail below just keep reading).

Also to make this possible they hire people who are capable of getting attention from people. Yes you heard that correctly. And these people also called Attention Engineers. They are same Attention Engineers who also design the Casino games. They use human psychology and create design in a way that user will be addicted to it so easily.

You just sat in the plane. We haven't taken-off yet. Just be sited for the goosebumps further.

So social media send you notifications (🔔) about every event related to you just to bring you back on platform. They try to show photos, videos and other content according to your interest. The target for them is to keep you scrolling and scrolling and scrolling………(hhhhaaaaaa Doom Scrolling 😫 you also got tired of scrolling??) and to not allow to close the application.

Everyone does the same in digital world. So question arises what harm in this? And moreover they are giving us happiness so it’s absolutely fine right? (I agree, just keep reading your myth will get destroyed today)

Before moving further are you among those who keeps opening the application to see number of likes and comments on your post without notification also? Also in morning take mobile in Toilet(🚽) and see social media before sleeping at night? 😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵😵

FOMO means anxiety that an exciting or interesting event may currently be happening elsewhere, which you feel you are missing. (But actually nothing is missing in reality)

• 2nd reason: Human psychology of comparing:

Our brain is habitual of comparing with others. Now some will feel/believe this is true but some will argue no we don’t do this. To understand this we again have to study how our brain works

For instance: If I say you don’t think about the BOMB, it’s negative thing. No don’t think No NO NO NO No NO NO NO……

I asked you to not think. But again you are thinking. (This is cheating 🤣)

So you can conclude that whatever you will listen/see it will start imagining. Our brain is not capable to identify positive or negative, good or bad instead. The more you will listen/see about Bomb, more chain of thoughts will be produced in your mind.

So now just think about social media once. What is happening around you? People share their best life on social media to get praise and validation from society (The brain demands this praise, so it’s not their mistake actually. Will explain in detail. Stay focused!!!). People go on trips and share their best photos & videos. So your brain is consuming this kind of content daily and soon start imagining how much praise I could also get like this and start doing comparisons and then repeating same thing like others and even try to be better than them. So it’s infinite loop and content is being shared in millions.

Things are not over yet…..

Some people (in my known circle as well) even travel just to make other people jealous or to increase their likes, comments and followers. Will explain more in section “How social media affects romantic relationships”. Let's Stick to this topic right now…

Problem actually here is not of comparison only. Problem here is comparing to the fake life because people don’t show their dark time on social media which they are having in real life. They only show the happy life on social media which you actually want to live all the time. And life anyhow cannot happen that way. So you are comparing with others who are actually 0.00001% like this. Who knows they are really living happy life or not?

But our brain starts assuming that the person is living the best life which you actually wanted to live. And unconsciously we start living 2 lives (one real life and 1 social life).

American sociologist Charles Cooley name this phenomena “Looking Glass Self Theory” which also says

We are not what we think we are, we are also not what others think we are. Instead we are what we think that other think about us. In simple terms we unknowingly always keep thinking what others are preserving about our identity and that identity is what we think we really are, as a result we forget who we were/are in reality

~~ American sociologist Charles Cooley

And what if you are not able to live that so called best life?

Results in Depression, Anxiety, Loneliness, Self-harm, and even Suicidal thoughts.

Not only this, Snapchat Dysmorphia – A new term introduced in medical now.

Snapchat Dysmorphia: People are going to plastic surgeons to get their face and body modified according to the photo filters used in apps like Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook.

Yes you heard all above correctly. Our flight soon going to take-off now get ready to feel the heat ✈️.

Before that just look at the stats of social media.

Some stats of social media and it’s daily usage till year 2020. 

1. World Population is 7.9 billion, 4.5 billion uses internet and 4.62 billion uses social media(Jan 2020). So, nearly 60% of the world is online.
2. People are having 7.6 average social media accounts. And time spent on these platforms is 142 minutes per day

Instagram Stats:
1. 1 billion monthly active users on Instagram
2. 95 million photos uploaded on each day 
3. 4.2 billions likes per day
4. 40 billions photos shared so far

Facebook Stats:
1. 500K new users every day. 
2. Six new profiles every seconds
3. 74% of Facebook users check it everyday
4. 5 million active advertisers on platform

Till now do you remember you were suffering from FOMO or recovered during this blog session itself?

The reason of your FOMO is because you are being PROGRAMMED like that. Yes I repeat Social media is not programmed instead YOU ARE BEING PROGRAMMED.

Do you know why social media is free?

When any product is free, always remember you are the product during that time.Your attention is getting on sale here !!!

Secret of FOMO in our life due to Social Media

Just think you get new content every time you visit social media or fresh content in just single swipe refresh. In psychology, we call it “Positive Intermittent Reinforcement” (You don’t know when you’re gonna get what)

Won’t this behavior make you feel missing something when you are not on the platform? They just wanna dig down deeper into the brain stem and implant inside you an unconscious habit, so that you are being programmed at a deeper level. And you don’t even realize it.

If you still don’t believe then leave mobile phone for a day and take a feel of FOMO 😜.

There is an idea people tend to have that "If they know everything then they are not missing out". What if opposite will happen?

Another example is Photo Tagging which is so normal now-a-days. Suppose you get notification which says “Your friend just tagged you in a photo“, Of course you’re going to click on that notification and look at the photo. It’s not something you can just decide to ignore. This is deep-seated like human personality that they’re tapping into. When Facebook found that feature, they just dialed the hell out of that. Because they said, “This is gonna be a great way to grow activity”. Let’s just get people tagging each other in photos all day long.

Don't just enjoy the technology. Learn how this idea came to these tech companies mind.

FOMO can compel you to pick up your phone every few minutes to check for updates, or compulsively respond to each and every alert—even if that means taking risks while you’re driving, missing out on sleep at night, or prioritizing social media interaction over real world relationships. 

If you have come so far then I am sure you have experienced the speed of a plane at runway finally want to take-off now. Your patience level might be finishing now. Don’t worry, this behavior of yours as well we will cover during take-off now. Let’ s start 👇👇….

What’s driving your social media use in reality? ✈️

Till now you have experienced that our brain urges to be praised and habitual of comparing with others. But as we know many times to solve some problems we first have to understand why the problem is coming. Why you need the praise from others time to time? And what are the consequences whether you get or not what you want(So called praise and validation from society)? Yes you unknowingly face the consequences even if you achieve what you want.

Don’t forget to open your side windows of plane to understand completely.

When you get praise for your actions then have you noticed that you feel good inside? Research has found the reason of feeling good here is because of Dopamine chemical released in your brain and you get somewhat relax. Many of researches have found that the amount of dopamine released in brain is equal to taking the cocaine drug.

When Dopamine chemical get spikes in your brain you start feeling good and as soon as the quantity of chemical becomes normal then again your brain feels like to take that chemical and result in again posting new photos, videos on social media to get more praise/chemical. So this is called Dopamine addiction.

Now those who are thinking that they already knew this fact, kindly just keep sited and keep reading!!!

Dopamine is released when your brain is expecting a reward. When you come to associate a certain activity with pleasure, mere anticipation may be enough to raise dopamine levels. It could be a certain food, sex, shopping, or just about anything else that you enjoy.

Does it mean we should make our self Dopamine free?

Answer is NO. Dopamine is an important brain chemical that influences your mood and feelings of reward and motivation. It helps regulate body movements as well. High or low levels of dopamine are associated with several mental health and neurological diseases.

If you think you have symptoms of high or low levels of dopamine, see your healthcare provider. They’ll review your symptoms, conduct any needed tests and help determine a proper plan of care if a medical condition is found.

We will talk about this later. But firstly let’s stick to the topic how it is related to social media and what are the problems here.

According to study conducted by Rutgers University, people's favorite topic is themselves. 
Simply because it feels good!!! 

When you post something on social media especially about yourself, the underlying agenda is that you want validation and if you get the validation you want, it will boost the release of dopamine in your brain as brain’s reward center is more active when the subject is yourself. Further Anticipate the next validation seeking and create that unending social media habit.

Thought or Question arises if this infinite loop can make us happy then what’s the problem here ?

We will consider both the cases What if don’t get the validation? and What if you get the validation? or may be partial validation.

What if don’t get the validation?

As we know, trigger of this dopamine is not in our hand. Instead in the hand of dynamic algorithms. The time and situation when your photos, videos will be in your friends or other people’s feed till that time you will get the likes and comments.

Also, if some people don’t get enough validation count which they expected or validation from a specific person, then post seems to be no worth to them.

So as a result you will again put more photos and videos with more filters.

However your brain eventually rewires to make your self-worth be dependent on likes and attention you get. That’s really dangerous. If getting validated feels so good, not getting validated can cause loneliness and depression.

According to the American psychological association: Mental health disorders increased significantly over the past decade. Depression and suicide greatly increased, since social media became mainstream and part of everyone’s life.

~~ American psychological association

Have we evolved to get social approval dose in every time interval?

What if you get the validation?

It feels like you are so satisfied now. But for how long? Won’t you feel like to stay in this satisfaction forever? Why not !!!.

The first lick of an ice cream cone is Heaven. 10 licks later your attention wanders. You still love the ice cream but your brain starts thinking what's next? 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔 
As there is nothing new in further licks now and your brain needs more heaven.

Seeking validation through social media is so easy that it can be done with just few clicks and then you’re feeling good about yourself. You will become so addictive and your frequency of Dopamine release will be so high that your attention span will start reducing.

Attention span meaning: The length of time for which a person is able to concentrate on a particular activity or subject.

Did you notice first reading habit disappeared from people and nowadays long videos of YouTube are not recommended for SEO. The reason is attention span has reduced so drastically that we want to fulfill our craving in seconds now.

Thanks to one more important thing which is responsible for reducing the attention span.

Guess what??……

SHORT VIDEOS – ONE OF THE DISASTROUS SECRETS OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN OUR LIFE !!!

How many short videos per day do you watch? Yes you!!!
Let me know in comment section below

One of the secrets of social media in real life is whether you get the validation or not you anyhow have to suffer over the time. But where there is a problem there is solution, no worries 😀. We will discuss the solution but first let’s know some more secrets of social media in our life.

How secrets of social media affects romantic relationships in our life?

Got Tired??? Go and Grab a cup of coffee ☕. Or should I ask Air hostess to serve you?😀 

Old Love

Just for few minutes let’s imagine our Parents or Grandparents time when there was no social media.

One has to get attention of just one woman/man. They would spend weeks, months chasing the love of their crush. They would treat women like a queen, open car doors for her, go romantic long walks and before that respectfully ask their father if they could take out.

Before social media, the only way to in-person was physical meet. They used to spend huge time to know each other and to get in love with each other. The love was successful because there were not any distractions. There was also more about having respect for the women and trying to impress her. During that time man used to impress a woman so that they could find true love and build strong family foundations and spend rest of life with.

Unfortunately the time has gone by. Social media has rewired men’s brain.

Let’s do fast forward in today’s world now…

New Tinder Love

Social media changed the way how man and woman brain functioning work. With the help of social media a lot of information about each other is known even before first communication. And man’s nature has accidentally become greedy (why to stick to one when there are many)

We are living in a world where man impresses a woman to only get physical pleasure and to spend nights in hotels. There are so many distractions for youngsters that it’s like a buffet of men and women or just like kid in candy store.

This is not enough….

Nowadays women are also not behind. They are ready to allow men to create physical bond/relationship in first meeting itself. And thanks to Tinder kind of platform for boosting this kind of mind set.

End Result Of Relationship

This all results in lack of creativity of being romantic and further results in quick break-up and patch-ups in their life. The reason is very simple that due to attention span reducing, high addiction of dopamine results their mindset to know more information about partner in quick time span. And more options availability results further in Fight -> Break-up -> New relationship (Because it’s brain demand at last 😀)

Bitter Truth: For some people it does not end so easily. Some people get stuck in one sided love and always remain in useless hopes. Study found that partner start taking help of social media itself to make their Ex partner jealous. And as a result both consume more negativity from each other which results in Block-Unblock, Overthinking, Depression and Anxiety.

Reality of social media is it’s great for your ego but terrible for your sanity.

Solutions to The Terrible Secrets of Social Media

Yes in modern world it’s not possible to eliminate the social media. But do you really want to know the solution?

It’s not possible to remain in always high dopamine state because life never gonna happen that way. The more you will feel high the more you have to fall down soon. But thankfully there is a way to regain control over your impulses and take your power back through a practice called 👇.

This term is trending nowadays. This Blog has already become very lengthy but if you really want to know the solution then you can read from this link. And if you find difficult to understand then comment in the section below we will create a blog or video for you 😀

Conclusion

After doing so much research on social media I am either signing off from major platforms or start practicing Dopamine Fasting 2.0 to consume only required information from social media.

What you guys will do now? Let me know in comment section below.

Don’t forget to share the link of “Secrets Of Social Media In Real life” to social media in order to help others 🤣🤣🤣🤣