Have a Cookie
You take out loans from the government. You commit to the act. You go to school, 4, 5, 6 years. Next.
You eat shit trying to teach 3rd graders how to take tests. Or you sit in an office, scuddling from one meeting to the next. Whatever you fancy. Make 50k a year, but hey, you’re on track for a raise; tenure baby. If you’re lucky, maybe you’ll save up enough to buy a free-standing desk. Maybe fix your sciatica. You give it another few years.
A few years go by. You get passed up for that raise by a 75-year-old peri-retiree. Next.
But hey! None of that matters. That’s not me; that’s not who I really am. I am admired. I am cool. I am a fucking titan. You see, someone Liked my post. I am Liked.
Another Like, another Share. Bits of you condensed into a singular, online persona; You.
This is the real you. This is your life. Have a cookie.
The shortfall of eating cookies is that they provide little sustenance. Our bodies don’t know what to do with carbs and sugar in the absence of healthy fats and protein. Cookies are a short-lasting, temporary solution to meeting your immediate demands.
Sound familiar?
This short-breathed sugar-high is no different from the one provided by social media and its dopaminergic kin: gambling, drugs, and so forth. While cookies are arguably as tempting as social media is, there are several great distinguishing factors between the two. For starters, cookies do not yearn for your attention by alerting you with notifications or literally vibrating in your pocket. Eating cookies does not add to one’s ego (in fact, it does the opposite). ‘Big Cookie’ does not deploy quote-on-quote ‘real’ people who call themselves ‘influencers’ to convince you to eat more cookies. The same cannot be said of ‘Big Ego’, aka social media companies.
Social media is a unique darling in that its addictive properties do not take root in our biochemistry. An opioid addict is partially excused for their worrisome habit because their body is constantly screaming at them for its dosage. Without their fix, their whole biochemistry goes off the rails. The brain will convince you to do just about anything to keep this from happening, including but not limited to theft, kidnapping, and/or larceny.
Social media addiction on the other hand is largely psychological. Our phones don’t create the same physical dependence as scag does, but they do act on our brains in a similar way. The wave of dopamine that social media invokes is similar to the quick high from heroin or cocaine. Social media provides immediate notice, in the form of a heart icon or Emoji or whatever, that someone else likes you—your thoughts, your humor, your body. Which feels good. It feels good to be noticed.
But who are you really?
This is where the side effects of that short high materialize. Does the image you’ve created on your social media profile really reflect who you are? Does it convey your thoughts, your dreams, your personality? Perhaps; the exceedingly rare example is someone like @kneesovertoesguy, who uses Instagram only to educate people and help them alleviate chronic pain.
But we are all suffering from the detrimental side effects of social media. Just as the heroin fiend must deal with agonizing constipation, social media users are subjected to equally grim side effects.
Social media is an unwinnable game. It is unwinnable because it forces us to adjust our behavior to please it. The person social media wants you to be is not the person you really are. If all of the sudden social media imploded and we were to live free from its ball-and-chain grasp, we would all behave far differently (and in my opinion, far more healthily). We would see a sharp decrease in our collective ego, a sort of shroud that seems to mask the world in 2022. Social media forces us to ask ourselves: Are you who you really are? Or are you a doppelganger of your true self, one who is more concerned with adhering to the strict rules of a given platform?
Many of us are the latter. We adhere to rules that have been posited unto us by clever teams of behavior scientists and coders. The ironic part? Many of the people responsible for forming the social media platforms we swarm to like flies to honey swear off their own creations. They even restrict their kids from using it.
So who’s left? Us. The suckers. We drank the Kool-Aid, and then went back for seconds. Facebook, TikTok, and the rest of them have done more than just rob us of our focus; they have robbed us of our true selves.
It’s become evident that garnering attention from social media is a temporary high that does not bring us true fulfillment. It does not and will not bring happiness or joy into your life. But it should be noted that seeking out attention for one’s own creation is not an inherently bad thing. To create for self-fulfillment alone is an altruistic endeavor that many of us (myself included) strive to achieve. Almost all creators want their work to be shared and seen by others. Those rare exceptions who create for creation’s sake alone—well, you’ve probably never heard of.
Yes, a director makes movies (hopefully) because filmmaking is their passion and is what brings them the most joy. But someone wanting to share their film with the world does not make them self-centered or egotistical. Instead, I see spreading art as a side effect of creation itself. Recognition is not the primary motivating factor for someone to write a film, book, or song in the first place; it’s merely a consequence of their endeavor. This is where social media differentiates.
An Instagram post can hardly be labeled as ‘art’. These myopic creations are made with the sole intent of capturing our attention, and do little to satisfy one’s creative drive. The result is a platform in which people tend to adhere to a strict set of rules in order to appeal to the largest audience possible. These rules are unspoken; if you want recognition, and by proxy self-affirmation, just stick to what people respond to the most: status, controversy, sex, sex, sex, and more sex. This phenomenon is apparent; just see the droves of sorority girls who pose for photoshoots against sparkling backdrops with glittery balloons shaped ‘21’. People will imitate one another to death if a given strategy brings proven results.
Those shaggy jackets that were briefly popular. Factory-made T-shirts with single logos, be it Supreme or whatever else. Environmentally devastating beauty products sold by a Kardashian, cremes and powders designed to distort your natural features to match their filtered faces. Say, half-ironic old school tracksuits are the latest thing? With pleasure - Adidas. While I have your attention, here’s an ad for it; just click and buy and proceed to party. I promise it’ll make you happy—once you share it.
What’s next? Stay tuned and find out!
Type II diabetes is an ever-emerging crisis born from systematic abuse. It dissuades the body from converting blood glucose to insulin. This is largely the result of self-abuse. One has repeatedly poisoned themselves with garbage food, whether it be Cinnabon or Donette’s or whatever else. Once the high is over, you are left debilitated and unable to focus.
Social media addiction is an ever-emerging crisis born from systematic abuse. It persuades one to base their sense of self-worth on heart icons and emojis. This is largely the result of manipulation. One has repeatedly been poisoned with garbage, whether it be Facebook or Instagram or whatever else. Once the high is over, you are left debilitated and unable to focus.
What’s left after the last Like, whether it’s the 10th or the 400th or the 100,000th? A feeling of great success? Validation? Are you content with who you are? Is it you at all? Or a carefully manufactured you, the you that people most immediately respond to?
Have a cookie. Go ahead, have another while you’re at it.
My primary motivation for writing this blog came from reading Johann Hari’s latest book, Stolen Focus. In it he discusses the various factors that have had a corrosive effect on our attention, which span from social media to social inequity/crime-riddled areas to the failures of our education system. It’s a tremendously written and super insightful read that I highly recommend to anyone looking to improve their focus. It is not self-help; it does not propose any single solution to our collective attention disorder. Rather, it provides insight into our own behavior and the environmental obstacles preventing us from restoring our focus.
In the book, Mr. Hari discusses two simple tools you can use to improve your focus and attention. Both have to do with blocking out distracting things on the Internet like social media. I’ve found that my own focus has spiraled during the pandemic, and these tools have helped me restore it to a certain degree
The first is called a kSafe. It’s stupid simple; a plastic box that you can lock your phone (or anything else that harms your focus) in for a predetermined period of time. This might range anywhere from 3 hours to 3 days. In the two weeks since I’ve been using it, I’ve been able to get into more flow states where I can work for extended periods of time.
The other is a simple piece of software called Freedom that restricts your computer from accessing the Internet for a given period of time. The service costs about $40 a year. It is a tremendous tool for focus-driven work.
Lastly, I acknowledge there is good that has come from social media. But there is also bad. Lots and lots of it. My intention is merely to point out some of that bad, as many others have.
