“The Social Media Death Cycle”: How Humanity is Slowly Dying

In 2009 Facebook made a shift that fundamentally altered the course of human history. Right under our noses and without any of us knowing it, we all became engaged in a relationship. This relationship was with this all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful algorithm. In 2009, Facebook started showing posts based on how popular a post was.

It marked the day where our free will, our autonomy, and our self-direction was given up. In slow measured steps, we became ever more dependent on this algorithm.

The social media death cycle started that day, where every day the algorithm asked...How do I keep you on the site for longer?

That was the day that we the users stopped being the audience and instead became the product.

Us users started to measure our success on the platform though how many likes and followers we have. It became and still is a visual representation of our social media worth. When we do well, we get lots of likes. Those likes are lots of dopamine hits. Our social media worth increases and our self worth increases.

Our vanity loves social media. Like an addict, our brains see that social proof and says “LET'S KEEP GOING.” Like a gambling addict on a high, you don’t want to cash out.

You create more content, ever searching for that next dopamine high.

But the house always wins.

Instead of a fair game of 21, this metaphorical blackjack dealer has a black curtain up. Obscuring your view of the cards, and to make matters worse every once in a while the game you are playing shifts. You go from playing blackjack to Texas holdem to roulette and you don’t know when this shift happens.

This constantly shifting algorithm becomes this moving target which we measure our self worth against.

Inevitably we miss the mark, we create content that doesn’t live up to the algorithm and our audiences ever-growing need of more grandiose entertainment. This makes your visual representation of your self-worth drop. Which makes the dopamine stop firing, and you don’t get your daily hit

Like a coffee addiction but 100x worse, our negative feels and self-worth grow. Our depression deepens and lethargy starts to take hold. Feeling bad about ourselves we look for anything to hide the pain.

We turn to consumption to numb the pain. We turn back to social media, our abusive lover to drown out our inadequacies. We consume more and spend more time back on the very thing that made us feel inadequate in the first place.

We consume more, never realizing that insidious truth.

That social media has made us become less than human.

We are the product. A commodity to be sold to the highest bidder.

We feel terrible, we feel inadequate and the solution happens to be some product or service some marketer is selling to us.

So we buy and consume what they are selling to us. To feel good, to numb the pain, to have validation and a sense of belonging.

This is how social media has killed our humanity. A culmination of years of bad decisions run rampant in society. If we desire to continue to operate in this ever-connected world, this system MUST change.

It’s unlikely social media will ever be regulated in any meaningful way from an outside force.

99.99% of those in congress don’t know how to use technology. Those in power who do know how social media works, are the very ones benefiting from this lack of regulation.

Therefore it falls on us to collectively change. It falls on the individual to create a new form of social media marketing. One that puts the people over profits.

To take an idea from presidential candidate Andrew Yang. A UBI or sorts. One not focused on basic income for everyone, but human connection over short term profits.

We must reimagine how we use, engage, create, and consume on social media.

Instead of selling, and being sold to. We must engage in building relationships with those in our circle and those outside of our circle.

The onus is on us as consumers and creators.

Authors note: I believe in progress over perfection. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Tell me what you love, what you hated, and everything in between.

Austin Iuliano is a social media consultant in Los Angeles California. Who focuses on building personal brands into massive marketing machines generating consistent leads, sales, and opportunities through human-centered marketing. If you desire to have more engagement on social media, generate more leads and opportunities get in touch https://dscience.typeform.com/to/OnS1yR

Want to double your sales in 30 days? Learn how social media can support your sales process with this simple recipe. Get your Free Social Media Sales Training & Template: https://dscience.lpages.co/social-media-sales-template-linkedin

Photo by Renato Danyi from Pexels