How to Cure a Social Media Addiction
Overstimulation is Turning us into Zombies
Picture this:
Your family goes out for a nice dinner at a restaurant
However, your cousin or even your son in many cases, remains engrossed in his phone throughout the meal, scrolling through social media, and not actively participating in the conversation
Now, you may not have a son, or even a cousin, but this could even be you without you even realising it
As someone focused on advancing your career, making money & being an Example
You want your close family to:
- Create strong bonds with friends and family
- Overcome their excessive social media use
- Thrive in his academics & Hobbies
- Find a healthy balance in life
Now, for the ease of explaining this in the third person, I’m going to use having a son as an example, but this can be interpreted in multiple different ways, such as yourself, your daughter, etc. You get the idea.
The more your son is “stimulated”, the less he is likely to put in the effort in activities such as homework, going out, playing sports
This is especially true for activities that spike Dopamine too much
When we look at the son’s routine, we divide his activities into Cheap Dopamine (Over-Stimulation) and healthy Dopamine (Normal Stimulus)
Reducing as much as possible Cheap Dopamine is key to keeping them Motivated to live life fully
The more behaviours on the left are present in their lives, the harder it will be for your sons to feel motivated to do things that require effort
You want to replace as much of the left column with the right column as possible
18% of Americans aged 18 to 29 reported using social media for more than 6 hours per day.
This leads to:
- Mental and physical health decline
- Impaired Relationships
- Academic Failure
- Social Isolation
As a parent focused on advancing your career, making money & being an Example
You want your sons to:
- Create strong bonds with friends and family
- Overcome his excessive social media use
- Thrive in his academics and hobbies
- Find a healthy balance in his life
When you scroll on social media and watch YouTube videos, take a moment and ask yourself: ”What exactly am I looking for right now?”
You don’t really know, right?
However, you know that eventually, you’ll find a post/thread/story that you’ll like
You have 100% certainty that sooner or later you’ll find something that you like
If you like it, that means it’s either going to entertain you, teach you something or make you think (or a combination)
The addictive nature of social media it’s all in that “sooner or later”
By anticipating a reward, your dopamine levels spike and you feel some pleasure
So you keep scrolling for hours
Do you know what’s another phenomenon that’s actually quite similar???
A f-ing slot Machine at the Casino
Scrolling in Social Media is the Slot Machine lever that you push
The Social Media post you see, it’s the Slot Machine result
The Social Media that you like it’s the winning combination on the slot machine
The time and attention you spend on Social Media scrolling are similar to the Money you spend on the slot machine to keep pushing the lever
Classical conditioning is a learning process where an organism associates two stimuli, resulting in a behavioural change.
It was famously demonstrated by Pavlov’s experiments with dogs.
For example, ringing a bell (conditioned stimulus) paired with food (unconditioned stimulus) led the dogs to salivate (conditioned response) at the sound of the bell, even without food.
Let’s use classical conditioning using phone notifications as an example.
This involves associating the phone’s notification sound (conditioned stimulus) with the feeling of excitement or anticipation (unconditioned response) caused by receiving a message or notification (unconditioned stimulus).
Over time, with repeated exposure to notifications paired with positive experiences, the notification sound becomes a trigger.
Now, when you hear the same sound, you may feel a sense of excitement or urgency (conditioned response) to check your phone, even if the notification is not particularly significant.
This association demonstrates how classical conditioning influences our behaviour and responses to technological cues.
SOLUTION TO CLASSICAL CONDITIONING
The first thing that you have to do is:
- DISABLE Notifications from your Phone
- Disable auto-login
This will avoid the Classical Conditioning Effect
Phantom Vibration Syndrome is Real
You or your son may believe your phone vibrated when it didn’t
This is due to the rewiring of our nervous systems caused by technology and constant phone usage
SOLUTION TO PHANTOM VIBRATION:
- Disabling Notifications completely Negates this Problem for Good
- Put your Phone in DO NOT DISTURB mode (unless you know you might have emergencies, which rarely happens)
Ego depletion is a psychological concept that suggests self-control and willpower draw from a limited resource, like a “mental energy tank.”
When we engage in tasks that require self-regulation, decision-making, or resisting impulses, this resource becomes depleted. Consequently, subsequent self-control tasks become more challenging to perform effectively, leading to reduced willpower and increased susceptibility to giving in to temptations.
The idea of ego depletion highlights the importance of managing one’s cognitive resources wisely and taking breaks to recharge.
Research on ego depletion has practical implications, such as understanding how to structure daily routines or make important decisions to optimize self-control abilities.
How does this apply to social media and YouTube?
Each time we resist the urge to check social media on our phones, we are utilizing our self-control.
However, as we resist more and more, our willpower resources gradually deplete, making it harder to maintain self-control in subsequent situations. This depletion can lead to a point where we give in to the temptation of social media usage, even if we initially intended to avoid it.
SOLUTION TO EGO DEPLETION:
To combat ego depletion in the context of phone and social media usage, it’s essential to recognize the limitations of our self-control and implement strategies to reduce its impact.
The best thing you can do is Disable Notifications (as you did for CLASSICAL CONDITIONING) and keep your phone away so you are not making the decision of whether or not you want to use it
That will avoid draining your willpower
Deep Work: focused, undistracted, and intensive concentration on a demanding task, enabling high-quality and productive results
Shallow Work: comprises simple, low-value tasks that do not require intense focus or significant cognitive effort. It often involves routine, administrative, or easily replicable activities that may not contribute significantly to long-term goals or outcomes.
Context Switching: is the act of shifting attention from one task or activity to another, resulting in a mental overhead that can decrease efficiency and productivity. It occurs when individuals switch between different projects, topics, or environments
SOLUTION TO OPTIMAL PERFORMANCE
To reach optimal performance, we want to maximize deep work and minimize context switching and shallow work
To do that:
- Disable Notifications
- Keep your Phone away
- Batch Together tasks like answering or checking emails
- Take frequent breaks but DO NOT use your phone or you’ll lose some of the progress you made
One of the techniques I use, to help manage Social Media Usage is PSMU
PSMU stands for Proactive Social Media Usage
When we scroll Social Media or watch YouTube videos, we tend to be in a passive/consuming mode
However, we can counter that by taking Notes on what we are Consuming DURING the Consumption Itself
Try it out and you’ll see the power of the technique
By taking notes during our “Consumption”, we take a proactive role
and we are more aware of the type of content we are consuming
Imagine watching random videos or reels on Instagram, taking notes and writing, “I saw a video about a cat doing random stuff”
Or “I saw a YouTube video about a celebrity cheating on her husband” (lol)
This brings your awareness to the present and makes you the real decision-maker instead of a “zombie”
SOLUTION FOR PSMU
- Curate your timeline
- Put a Time limit with an alarm
- Actively Take Notes on the content you Consume
- Log out of YouTube so you are using the searchbar instead of being fed by the algorithm
Psychological Sigh
if you’re feeling stressed in any circumstance, inhale twice through the nose (the first inhale is longer, the second one is shorter) and then exhale long through the mouth, If you want, you can repeat it a second or even a third time
Forward Movement
Forward movement is associated with a suppression of the fear response and an activation of what you could call the courage or confrontational response. Forward movement reduces anxiety. When we’re in forward movement, we suppress threat detection in the amygdala, which generally leads to pausing, freezing, or running and retreating.
RSA
The fastest way to reduce your stress is called Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia → Make your exhales longer or more vigorous than your Inhales
HOW TO CONTROL HEART RATE
LONGER EXHALES in respect to Inhales → SLOWING THE HEART DOWN (CALMING) LONGER INHALES in respect to Exhales → SPEED UP HEART
WRITE THINGS DOWN
When you get anxious, write down your thoughts on a piece of paper
Then divide your thoughts into
- Controllable → Things you can control
- Non-Controllable →Things you cannot control
Then write down a strategy for things you can control (Controllable).
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