Addiction or satisfying some important needs?
There are few new things in psychiatry nowadays. After the initial breakthrough of neuroscience some 10 years ago, when every psychiatrist, neurologist, psychologist and even philosopher was a bit of a neuroscientist, there were some less important fashionable subjects of discussion, including genetics, sexual & body dysphoria, ADHD and whether to keep giving amphetamines to children and, perhaps the most enduring subject, the addiction to computer games and social media. This went further and triggered the defining of a clinical entity of its own, classified among heavy addictions such as cocaine or alcohol. But, must the social media be regarded as a disorder or as a functioning solution to a problem, albeit an inefficient one?
Perhaps we should point out that most countries in the Western world have bred “addictive societies”. The citizens are often called “consumers” and everything created or made is “delivered” as a “product” or a “service”. The main triggers are hunger and greed, and everything is optimized so as to capture attention and induce or facilitate “one more click” or “one more scroll” on the smartphone. I don’t think that people grasp it well, but the entire design of the Western society is based on addictive behavior being induced and rewarded (by “social status” or “coupons”, for instance). So, social media addiction is nothing more than just another addiction in a sea of collective addictions… And for this reason, escaping from social media would likely mean entering in another readily available addiction, easily accessible in the surrounding environment. So, keeping this in mind, I would like to highlight two aspects.
One should not overlook the desire of the human being to make an impact, to leave a trace in this world. Each social media comment someone makes is a veiled attempt to make an impact on another person, on someone else. If the other one replies to that comment, or at least gives a “like”, the initiator gets a boost of attention but also a boost of impact: he/she feels that he/she made a difference with that comment, something that has been acknowledged by the other. So, giving “likes” and writing comments, or even sharing someone’s work, could be seen as “attention seeking behavior”, but also as a way to create an illusion of making or having an impact. And this is addictive. Why?
A case could be built on the hypothesis that each person excessively willing to leave a trace (and make an impact) was neglected by her parental figures during her childhood. It is rather simplistic but, in general, we seek more of what we didn’t have. If the attention seeking behavior is linked to a lack of explicitly shown love, we could also argue that the craving for impact is linked to emotionally cold, dismissive and indifferent parents, who failed to validate the need of their children to make an impression on them. And a child who doesn’t matter to his own parent will try to matter to somebody else and – why not? – change the world though his/her impactful actions. Starting a new religion (or just a sect), starting a war (or ending one) and going to Mars (or only to the Earth’s orbit) are all impactful deeds. And somewhere – we hope – and ‘they’ hope – an insensitive mother might watch, might finally be emotionally touched, might finally smile a bit…
Another aspect of social media would be linked to making meaningful connections. When the family and the friends in the “offline world” are not (emotionally) enough (for various reasons), people online can step in and make a difference. It is not unusual to have better friends online than offline. The social media offers something rare in the “real world”: the ability to speak your mind without being challenged or criticized, the ability to belong to a group with which you share common values, and the opportunity to pay less attention to how you look (you can have a handicap or see yourself as ugly, something that is irrelevant if you hide behind an avatar). Plus, social media is also a “safe space”, since you can always retreat, cut the connection, leave the chat room, “unfriend” and “unfollow”, without the need to explain yourself, something which is much more difficult to do in the “real world”, where you need to face adversity, negotiate, go through emotionally challenging situations and where you have far less control on any consequences that might arise. On social media, you can always delete your profile and create a new one, with a (hopefully) different persona; in real life your persona (or social mask) is unique and any mistakes you make (such as saying something controversial) do have consequences, some of them for many years or for your entire life. So, if you are risk adverse, social media is a breath of fresh air. But, it is also a failed opportunity to face your fears and to initiate change. Classical drugs help you do exactly that: avoid.
So, instead of asking you about your social media addiction potential, I should better ask you about your need to have an impact and about the quality of your emotional upbringing as a child. It is something worth pondering on. It is also important to meditate on the “perceived positive side” of social media. And finally, questions about the addictive design of the Western society should also be raised…
I think people should quit social media and mind their own business. Life will be much easier..
the addictive design should be forbidden.
Very interesting. I think you’re on to something …
Interesting piece, as usual, cezar. In my view, social media is one of the worst inventions ever. For all the good it can (and does) do, it also does far more harm, largely because the providers, in particular Meta and X, do not care at all about their users, but only about their growth and profits.
This “anything goes, as long as as we make another billion bucks a year” attitude has led them to open their tools to anybody with internet access. There are no effective security checks, little or no vetting of account personal details and so on, making it easy for bad actors, like Russia’s and China’s highly active troll farms, to set up shop and pour out the most dangerous nonsense; lies conspiracy theories and propaganda – fake news in all its forms, no matter what people like Steve Bannon, Alex Jones, Donald Trump, Marjorie Taylor Green, Andrew Tate and his equally odious brother, and many more like them would have you believe – that has destroyed trust in the electoral process in countries across the world and enabled the rise of countless terrorist organizations like ISIS and al Qaeda, and extremist political movrments like the MAGA Republicans in the US, AfD in Germany, Konfederacja in Poland and many others That is not to mention the “dark Web” that facilitates the activities of drug and people smugglers and illegal arms dealers – organised crime generally, including pornographers, money launderers and so on – thoughout the world.
Governments seem incapable or unwilling to force change, and the providers themselves will never do so – it would be like turkeys voting for Christmas, they will never do anything to knowingly harm themselves or their bottom line. All this has left the world in a far more dangerous and unstable state than it should be.
For all the dangers of global warming that will soon flood the world with climate migrants (to add to the millions of conflict refugees and victims of religious and ethnic persecution that are already on the move) looking for new homes, and of course the millions of workers whose jobs will disappear as a result of the boom in AI and robotics about to change the workplace (arguably salready gaining traction), I often think that the unregulated use of social media platforms represents an even bigger danger to us all……
I agree that the world looks quite complicated now, Bob… And I began to self-censor what I’d like to say/write because a lof of people are in the extremes and few would like to listen to any arguments or to have some sort of debate. Then, I don’t know what I’m actually doing online, since blogging, written articles, photos, even music, are all out of fashion for quite some time and the present trends are simply too dumb so as to attract me in any way. I guess that social media was a period and it was interesting to be part of it during my lifetime, but I feel less rewarding to continue with it at the same pace. As for the big companies, as long as they have nothing interesting (or of quality/value) to offer to me, I don’t see them well in the future.
I still happily blog (with an audience close to zero) because I enjoy the cresative process. I write what I want to say and if it upsets people – well, sorry. I interact less happily with Facebook because it remains the best way of staying in touch with my widespread friends and family – but I’m seriously considering dumping that too, since I ma being flooded with a combination of ads for stuff I don’t want, or rcist nonsense. Never used – nor will ever use – X because I don’t understand it (for the same reason I’ve held back from Mastodon….).
I’m happy with my choices and enjoying my life, and these days I’m not sure anyone could ask for more!
As former trendwatcher I studied and used a lot of social media and I think the SoMe in itself is not a bad thing advbooks or newspapers are bad. But the bad thing is the amount of time your putting in it and the way use it.
More and more people are showing their life as an exhibition and spend hours and hours on the web. Our brains are not capable in absorbing so much information in such a small account of time. And that hours after hours.
Attention Trust is very valuable nowadays getting some big tech guys richer and richer. And idiots are using the web as tool for frustration.