Reasons: On social media apps down regulating dopamine levels amongst several other reasons.?(There are always simple answers to what I do based on the decisions I take)
- When a product/services are free, it means YOU are the product.
- Social medias (among other products/services) hire addictive behavior experts to get you hooked on their product/medias
- What is dopamine and why it is important to all of us
- Mindlessly scrolling through your social media feed and getting your attention span shortened are detrimental to your cognitive health and behavior, via down regulation of dopamine levels
- Development of behavioral addiction by the use of social media
- TL:DR The company that is supplying you free products or services is offering them free to you, because they are profiting from the data that you are providing for free.?When you use your social media account, by inputting your personal information aka statistically expressed socio-economic status such as your demographics (age, sex, marriage status, place of residence, race, income level, employment, nationality, ethnicity, religion, home ownership and level of education), you are giving up your personal data willingly for free for the company that runs the business. In the case of social media, Facebook for example is collecting data to sell to other corporations as one source of their business profit. Another good example is your discount card from grocery stores, drug stores, and etc. (Unrelated but another major source of Facebook’s profit is their advertising business). In the case of Google, they are offering us the use of their search engine for free, in return for collecting data similar to what Facebook is doing. Based on the data Google collects, they know how to place their ads per location, or when you are signed in to your Google account, that information is catered to you. So Google is an advertising company.
- TL:DR Companies who offer you free products/services such as social networking? platforms use gambling principles to try and make these platforms as addictive as possible, with the goal of maximizing the profit that can be extracted from your attention and data. In order to generate more income out of their products/services, companies such as social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X, TikTok, etc.) hire attention engineers to make their products/services as addictive as possible.? ? Attention Engineering is the systematic approach to understanding and influencing human attention in digital environments. It draws from psychology, neuroscience, and user experience design to create interfaces, content, and experiences that captivate and engage users effectively. So these attention engineers research your social media activity and your online presence to see a pattern.
- TL:DR Dopamine affects your brain’s executive functions. The role of dopamine in our central nervous system (CNS): motivation, punishment and reward, muscle movement, sleep patterns, dreaming, mood regulation, attention, working memory (ability to store and recall memories), concentration, appetite, and ability to express self-control and learning. Executive function = In cognitive science and neuropsychology, executive functions (collectively referred to as executive function and cognitive control) are a set of cognitive processes that are necessary for the cognitive control of behavior: selecting and successfully monitoring behaviors that facilitate the attainment of chosen goals. Executive functions include basic cognitive processes such as attentional control, cognitive inhibition, inhibitory control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility. Higher-order executive functions require the simultaneous use of multiple basic executive functions and include planning and fluid intelligence (e.g., reasoning and problem-solving).
- TL:DR Down regulation means the production decreases. When the levels of dopamine are down regulated, it means that your brain’s ability to create, for example dopamine, is decreased. Dopamine creates a positive association with whatever behaviors prompted its release, training you to repeat them….When that dopamine reward system gets hijacked, it can compel you to repeat self-destructive behaviors. To place one more bet, binge on alcohol—or spend hours on apps even when they make you unhappy. Notifications themselves aren’t the problem. But they become one when social media platforms pair them with positive affirmation such as likes, follows, updates from friends, and photographs of family, pets, food, and beautiful scenery.
- TL:DR Being on social media enhances behavioral addiction. Not everyone, but some percentage of the population who use social media do develop addiction. Addictive social media use will look much like any other substance use disorder and may include mood modification (i.e., engagement in social media leads to a favorable change in emotional states), salience (i.e., behavioral, cognitive, and emotional preoccupation with social media), tolerance (i.e., ever-increasing use of social media over time), withdrawal symptoms (i.e., experiencing unpleasant physical and emotional symptoms when social media use is restricted or stopped), conflict (i.e., interpersonal problems ensue because of social media usage), and relapse (i.e., addicted individuals quickly revert back to their excessive social media usage after an abstinence period).
So, to summarize all, just because when people decide to end using social media platforms, that does not always mean that they want to end their relationships with all their friends.
Also, just because when someone talks about their dopamine levels, it has NOTHING to do with drugs or physical addictions! (lol) Those who talk about dopamine levels who do not have addiction problems are only referring to their ability to learn, to keep up their memory, and to have your brain’s executive function, as well as concentration and sleep to function properly.
Here is a link to a good concise video of Tedx Talks by Dr. Cal Newport, who received a Ph.D. in computer science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, that I highly recommend you watch:
Herd mentality is the tendency for people’s behavior or beliefs to conform to those of the group they belong to. The concept of herd mentality has been studied and analyzed from different perspectives, including biology, psychology and sociology. This psychological phenomenon can have profound impacts on human behavior.
Social psychologists study the related topics of group intelligence, crowd wisdom, groupthink, and deindividuation.
Cognitive biases are unconscious and systematic errors in thinking that occur when people process and interpret information in their surroundings and influence their decisions and judgments (Kahneman et al., 1982). These biases can distort an individual's perception of reality, resulting in inaccurate information interpretation and rationally bounded decision-making (Kahneman, 2011).
A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment. Individuals create their own "subjective reality" from their perception of the input. An individual's construction of reality, not the objective input, may dictate their behavior in the world. Thus, cognitive biases may sometimes lead to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, and irrationality.
Some sources on the science behind above statements:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/05/23/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-announces-actions-to-protect-youth-mental-health-safety-privacy-online/
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/17/opinion/social-media-health-warning.html?unlocked_article_code=1.0U0.hKlr.e1HFoDY2A3oE&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
https://wapo.st/3VpGLBD https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/06/17/surgeon-general-social-media-warning-labels/
Absolutely fascinating read ??! Socrates once implied that true wisdom begins with recognizing one's own ignorance, which speaks volumes about navigating social biases and our cognitive landscapes. Leveraging mindfulness in our digital interactions can truly elevate our collective cognitive functions. Let's be the change in the digital realm. ???