Have you ever wanted to press the delete/unsubscribe/remove button on any of the popular social media (personal or professional), messaging or video apps? And if so, why didn’t you? Probably because some form of fear crept into the decision-making process. And that’s precisely what these companies want us to feel, and they’re very good at it.
Popular applications spend a lot of time and money on getting you to use their apps and making you remain on it (and active). The average person spends nearly four hours on their phone every day, most of it glued to any one of the popular social/chat apps. And to achieve this, these companies have built features into their apps that manipulate our brain chemistry. These tricks were developed in social science laboratories (albeit for research exclusively) and unfortunately are widely used today in casinos, betting shops and online gambling/lottery.
Think about the “pull-to-refresh” feature common to social media apps, where when you drag the screen downwards, and it prompts the screen to refresh. This action is similar to a slot machine, and takes advantage of our attraction to unpredictability, which scientists call “intermittent reinforcements”. When you check on your social media account, it’s because your brain is saying there’s something exciting waiting for you (a “reward”) — that’s the unpredictability that keeps you coming back.
When you’re in a casino, take a look around; most of them are windowless and have no clocks, and that’s done on purpose — to keep you there. Similarly, when you’re entangled in infinite scrolling, that’s because social media apps don’t want you to look up (time & backwards), their feeds are deliberately designed to be endless.
And there are many other gimmicks: streaks, auto-play (the next video or episode), invitations (to connect or re-connect), swiping (similar to scrolling), tagging, likes, and of course notifications. These attention-capturing tricks harness our brain’s dopamine system, which is our brain’s way of recording what’s worth doing again, and these companies use this technique to nudge us toward unconscious behaviours that we think “we actually want to engage in”.
Most of all, phones and apps take advantage of our inherent social impulses and anxieties, especially our “fear of missing out” (FOMO) and the impression that we need to reciprocate when we feel someone has done something for us. For example, those ticks on Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal and other platforms that indicate when your counterpart has read your message. Your friend knows you’ve seen those ticks, so there’s now a social pressure for them to respond. And what about those little dots that indicate when someone is in the process of replying to your message? What’s the likelihood you’re going to put down your phone before you’ve seen their response?
Whether it’s personal or professional, the same rules apply. Yes, social media and messaging is bad. It’s also good. And like most things on the internet, it depends on how you use them. Our happiness often comes down to how we frame things, so if you feel like social media or messaging is making you less joyful, then maybe it needs to go, or just use it for the right reasons and bring some balance to your digital world. You don’t need to delete your social media accounts. But you surely can. Just don’t be scared.
Popular applications spend a lot of time and money on getting you to use their apps and making you remain on it (and active). The average person spends nearly four hours on their phone every day, most of it glued to any one of the popular social/chat apps. And to achieve this, these companies have built features into their apps that manipulate our brain chemistry. These tricks were developed in social science laboratories (albeit for research exclusively) and unfortunately are widely used today in casinos, betting shops and online gambling/lottery.
Think about the “pull-to-refresh” feature common to social media apps, where when you drag the screen downwards, and it prompts the screen to refresh. This action is similar to a slot machine, and takes advantage of our attraction to unpredictability, which scientists call “intermittent reinforcements”. When you check on your social media account, it’s because your brain is saying there’s something exciting waiting for you (a “reward”) — that’s the unpredictability that keeps you coming back.
When you’re in a casino, take a look around; most of them are windowless and have no clocks, and that’s done on purpose — to keep you there. Similarly, when you’re entangled in infinite scrolling, that’s because social media apps don’t want you to look up (time & backwards), their feeds are deliberately designed to be endless.
And there are many other gimmicks: streaks, auto-play (the next video or episode), invitations (to connect or re-connect), swiping (similar to scrolling), tagging, likes, and of course notifications. These attention-capturing tricks harness our brain’s dopamine system, which is our brain’s way of recording what’s worth doing again, and these companies use this technique to nudge us toward unconscious behaviours that we think “we actually want to engage in”.
Most of all, phones and apps take advantage of our inherent social impulses and anxieties, especially our “fear of missing out” (FOMO) and the impression that we need to reciprocate when we feel someone has done something for us. For example, those ticks on Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal and other platforms that indicate when your counterpart has read your message. Your friend knows you’ve seen those ticks, so there’s now a social pressure for them to respond. And what about those little dots that indicate when someone is in the process of replying to your message? What’s the likelihood you’re going to put down your phone before you’ve seen their response?
Whether it’s personal or professional, the same rules apply. Yes, social media and messaging is bad. It’s also good. And like most things on the internet, it depends on how you use them. Our happiness often comes down to how we frame things, so if you feel like social media or messaging is making you less joyful, then maybe it needs to go, or just use it for the right reasons and bring some balance to your digital world. You don’t need to delete your social media accounts. But you surely can. Just don’t be scared.