Effects of Social Media on Self

 Number 1, it's designed to be addictive. According to a recent study, the average American is now spending 1.74  hours a day on social media including Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and Tumblr This number is only going to rise due to the fact that these companies make more money, the longer you stay on them. Think about this The more time you spend on social media The more ads you see And the more ads you see, the more ad revenue these companies can make. So of course, it's in their best interests to keep you on their platform for as long as possible In order to generate more ad revenue This is the case for just about all forms of social media. They are working as hard as they possibly can To think of ideas to make their platform as addictive as possible To keep you on it and to keep you coming back Facebook even uses a form of tracking called pixels to gather data from other websites that you go to to learn about what things you like They then taper advertisements to your own tastes and put it onto your newsfeed You can't really blame them though because business is business Number 2, it gives you a false sense of accomplishment.

 I'm sure we've all found ourselves scrolling down pages and pages of social media for hours at a time. Why is social media so addictive? A study actually found that liking, posting, and even sharing produces a dopamine rush very similar to what you would receive if you hug someone. So when you start receiving these feelings by doing nothing except fooling around on social media you lose all the motivation to get it the old school way which is actually going out there and meeting new people discovering new things or creating new things because why go through all that trouble when you can just keep on scrolling. Right? Number 3, it lowers your self-esteem Browsing social media gives you a false sense of what the world really looks like. Everyone is posting only the most exciting, the most beautiful, amazing news, and pictures of themselves because we want others to like us. Who doesn't? And the best way to do that is to paint the most beautiful picture of ourselves for others to see. Very rarely will you see someone revealing the hardships in their life on social media And the truth is that the majority of the time most of us aren't always looking that great or going on amazing adventures having the times of our lives? The majority of people have internal struggles going on just like you and me but on social media, it seems like everyone else is having a blast all the time. So when you constantly see all of this you feel left behind. You feel inadequate, your self-esteem will plummet. Number 4, it hurts your social skills. A study found that kids who grow up using social media show a significant decrease in social skills compares to those who don't. This is because communicating through social media is very simple as compared to communication in real life When you communicate through social media you really just have to be fluent in the English language and understand how to use emojis In real life there is things like social signals,body language ,tonality ,dealing with groups and much much more These things are super complicated and extremely subtle it's not something that you can learn in a day When you are on social media you can communicate with others without practicing any of these things so in the end you don't get to see what really works you don't get to see what makes others feel good, what makes others feel uncomfortable Socializing is just like any other skill and that you need to practice in order to get good and to stay good Number 5, it is one of the worst investments you can make in your life. Time is the most valuable form of currency that you have It's valuable in the sense that it will only decrease, you will never have any more of it. When you invest your time into social media it's like investing money into a stock that will always drop down to zero.

 It makes no sense. You'll never get a return on investment you can only lose And one day 5 years from now, you'll realize you're 25 or 30 or 35 and you ask yourself: "Hey where did all my time go?" Well, it all went into that crappy stocky investment and you lost it all. Instead, invest your time into something else. Honestly anything else. Because your return on investment will always be higher than at least zero If you spend two hours a day drawing art, Who knows? Someone might pay you decent money someday for one of your pieces. If you spend two hours a day creating youtube videos, who knows? You might be able to create a passive income stream that will last you for years. Doesn't that sound way better than zero? In the end, social media isn't inherently bad. Honestly I use it from time to time. Facebook has things like events, groups, messenger, that are extremely useful tools but if you just mindlessly scrolling through your feed,you gotta ask yourself "Is this benefitting me in any way?" Because if it's not, then why keep on doing it? This episode was brought to you with the help of the guys at audible.com You guys all know how much I value reading but a lot of us don't really have the time to sit down and read a physical book. I get it. But audible provides you for smart alternative of being able to listen to your books on the go. So whether it be on your commute while you're doing chores or if you're going out for a run audible provides you with over a hundred eighty thousand audiobooks to pick from. To get your free audiobook today, go to audibletrial.com/improvementpill And the book that I'm listening to this week is the "Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up" by Marie Kondo. A magic little book that gives you an extremely solid argument about the benefits of tidying up.