The Impact of social media on Flow

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Flow is a phenomenon described as, “a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.” (Csikszentmihalyi, 2008, p. 4). Everyone has experienced being absorbed in a task. ?When you identify the activity, you will remember, you were so absorbed that time slipped away, focus on the task was total, and attention was complete. It would have required a level of competency to be able to achieve the end goal, however, it wouldn’t have been easy. These activities will stretch your skills just a little further than they usually go, just enough to bring your concentration to a peak. Csikszentmihalyi said, “The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile. Optimal experience is thus something we make happen.” (Csikszentmihalyi, 2008, p. 3)

We can find flow in work, or sport, and perform at our optimal level, we can achieve it when we play, we can actively search it out in pursuits that stretch our limitations. In his book The Rise of Superman, Steven Kotler notes that when flow happens, we can pull thoughts, memories, and instantaneous moments and package them all together while slowing time down. The far-flung corners of our brain talk to each other, creating novel stimuli, and flow occurs. You intuitively know what to do. Instinctive and cognitive thoughts combine, and the neurochemicals that are released are among the strongest the body can produce. Is it any wonder we search it out when we come to realize its existence?

However, that is not the point of my blog post. There needs to be an understanding that flow has a fatal enemy, distraction. The loss of focus. We simply cannot achieve flow if we cannot focus.?Flow needs all your brainpower centered on one task. So, what happens when your phone vibrates, a message alerts, or your Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, or WhatsApp register a like, a thumbs up, a heart, or a smiley emoji? This is an algorithm-driven distraction. In a powerful statement, a young girl explained, "I developed a strong urge to pick up the phone at any time of day and night. I would stay awake late into the night using the app, I’d use it in the bathroom, and even while driving, which was madness.”

“It began to interfere with my sleep cycle, which I now recognise, had an effect on my mood. I would respond to that by using the app even more – it became a vicious cycle.” https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/i-addicted-tiktok-ruined-life-23923749

On average, people get three minutes and five seconds of uninterrupted focus at a time, on any given task during a workday. When they are interrupted, their focus is lost, and to get that focus back to its original level takes an average of twenty-three minutes. https://news.gallup.com/businessjournal/23146/too-many-interruptions-work.aspx.

On average people check their phones with no prompt every twelve minutes, and they touch the phone screen on average two thousand five hundred times a day. “It’s the first thing most people reach for in the morning. We then, throughout the day on average, experience phone disruptions every eight minutes." https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/oct/14/the-lost-art-of-concentration-being-distracted-in-a-digital-world

We are losing our ability to focus enough to simply read a book. Books on the bedside table, not touched as we scroll on our phones in bed and never reach for the book. This scrolling introduces blue light to our eyes and stops the release of chemicals that tell us it is time to sleep. Lost in an unfocused blue light-addicted scrolling cycle, we lose sleep time, and this adds to the loss of focus the following day. A vicious circle, of distraction, loss of focus, loss of sleep, and loss of IQ.

However, it’s not our fault, as we are led to believe, it’s not a lack of discipline or a weakness. We are being coerced by machines, by engineers—hundreds of them—who have one job: keep us online. Our ability to focus and reach flow states is being disrupted by algorithms designed to keep you on your phone to appease advertisement agencies.

Aza Raskin invented the infinite scrollbar. Now when you scroll on the internet, the pages just endlessly keep appearing. You no longer must press a little number button at the end of the page to get the next list of articles up, now it’s just endless. You finish a YouTube video, the next one automatically pops up, and on and on. Constantly releasing the same chemical into the brain, dopamine, the chemical of addiction. “It’s as if social media companies are taking behavioural cocaine and just sprinkling it all over your interface, and that’s the thing that keeps you coming back and back and back.” https://bootcamp.uxdesign.cc/how-the-invention-of-infinite-scrolling-turned-millions-to-addiction-3096602ef9af

Aza Raskin says he is so sorry for inventing this technology. Why is he sorry? He estimates that people continuously scrolling, wastes 200,000 lifetimes per day!! It also robs our ability to reach flow states. We cannot find the prolonged focus needed to get there.

Before I leave you to consider this, it would be remiss of me to not give you some advice to help you take some of your time back. Time to focus. If it’s not to get you to a flow state, it might just be to help you give attention to what’s in front of you, your partner, your children, the book, your surroundings.

The obvious is to not take your phone with you to social gatherings, dinner, or places where your attention is expected from others. Switch it off; better still, don’t bring it.

Switch off notifications and banners on your phone. You don’t want it vibrating or dinging every few minutes.

Use do not disturb mode, focus mode, or the sleep option depending on your phone.

Use headspace or calm apps to help you meditate or focus on specific things, like your breathing. Learn to focus again.

Finally, find something that brings you to the limits of your boundaries and competencies and stretch yourself into a place of growth. Absorb yourself in the action and the task, that is where you will find flow. This is where you will find your optimal experiences. Not with the distraction of a phone screen.

References

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2008). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Harper Perennial Modern Classics; 1st edition (July 1, 2008).

Griffey, H. (2008, October 14th). https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/oct/14/the-lost-art-of-concentration-being-distracted-in-a-digital-world. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/oct/14/the-lost-art-of-concentration-being-distracted-in-a-digital-world

Kotler, S. (2015). The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance. Quercus Publishing (January 1, 2015).

Martin Bagot, S. S. (2022, May 11th). https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/i-addicted-tiktok-ruined-life-23923749. Retrieved from www.belfastlive.co.uk: https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/i-addicted-tiktok-ruined-life-23923749

Robison, J. (2006, June 8th). https://news.gallup.com/businessjournal/23146/too-many-interruptions-work.aspx. Retrieved from https://news.gallup.com: https://news.gallup.com/businessjournal/23146/too-many-interruptions-work.aspx

Supernova. (2020, November 16th). https://bootcamp.uxdesign.cc/how-the-invention-of-infinite-scrolling-turned-millions-to-addiction-3096602ef9af. Retrieved from https://bootcamp.uxdesign.cc: https://bootcamp.uxdesign.cc/how-the-invention-of-infinite-scrolling-turned-millions-to-addiction-3096602ef9af