The Social Dilemma

If you haven’t heard about it already, Netflix recently dropped a documentary on the dangers of social media, tech giants and how facebook was created to be “just as addictive as cigarettes.”

If it doesn’t ring a bell, check it out here: The Social Dilemma.

What is The Social Dilemma?

The Social Dilemma is the commodification of social media applications, our data and ourselves. If you haven’t been enlightened just yet, the documentary is a conglomerate of past Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat coders, developers and directors who no longer stand by the morals and ethics of their creations.

We’re the product. Our attention is the product being sold to advertisers

Since the dawn of Instagram on the 6th October 2010, we have found ourselves in the biggest technological movement of all time. Our entire world has become digitalised; from social media to Tesla’s self driving vehicles. Without a doubt, this has been the biggest feat of all time allowing the world to mitigate the destruction of forests by enforcing and encouraging the digitalisation of paper.

With this, we have seen incredible developments in the digital space that positively affects human beings, such as robotic’s in medicine and digital solutions which drive to solve socio-economic problems. However, the real problem is not the very technological developments discussed above, but how we, as human beings, contribute to a data driven war.

One of the most profound quotes from the movie really defined why I believe it is extremely important to monitor our phone usage, irrespective of which application we intend to use.

If you’re not paying for the product, then you are the product

What is the Problem?

Being a very curious individual, I began exploring and understanding the human mind; particularly neuroscience and psychology. I believe that in order to understand the world, you need to understand how thoughts are processed and what constitutes the mind. I wanted to make sure that I had the fundamental research which would give me a competitive advantage in the thinking realm.

Stumbling into this space was a blessing. I began to understand all the hormones the brain releases under different environments such as DMT, dopamine and cortisol.

For the purpose of this article, we will only be looking at dopamine.

What is Dopamine?
Dopamine plays a big role in motivation and reward. If you’ve ever worked hard to reach a goal, the satisfaction your feel when you achieve it is partly due to a rush of dopamine.

Dopamine is a beautiful hormone. A hormone that literally secretes when we have achieved our desired goals and objectives. The secretion of this hormone occurs in our brains after we have accomplished something of importance. It is simply the feeling of euphoria.

Let’s take it back a few hundred years.

Since the dawn of time, we have been told that we were initially a very primitive species that had small communities of hunters and gatherers. Women were predominately gatherers and men were the hunters. In the case of our primitive ancestors, we can assume that hunting was a particularly important task as it would be the primary source of food for the community.

Assuming hunting isn’t necessarily an easy task and especially during a period where weapons had not been developed, we can conclude that not only was hunting a vital task, but also an incredibly difficult one.

Looking at this process from a scientific point of view, we can determine that when the men were hunting and successfully brought back dinner, the entire community would celebrate. Through stimulation and celebration, dopamine would be secreted in the brain and everyone would be happy. This simple process, compounded by repetitive acts would eventually create an ideology of importance to hunting and survival. Dopamine, the reward agent, would be released to confirm that they not only successfully killed an animal, but they were able to survive until their next meal; feeding their wives and children.

Back to 2020

Bring it forward a couple hundred years and here we are. Nothing has changed; our brains are still secreting dopamine when we have achieved an objective. However, the definition of “reward” may have become a little skew. In our current world, our brains are releasing dopamine so much that our dopamine receptors are malfunctioning.

Our brain simply cannot determine when we have achieved something or if we have just received a like on our instagram photo. With the multitude of potential dopamine inducing factors in the world today, our brain is working on overdrive. Why is this a bad thing? Well, the constant release of dopamine is destroying our brains ability to determine when we truly deserve to be rewarded.

Secondly, we are now misconstruing likes, shares and comments as forms of value. These intangible and simply useless features are throwing our brains into haywire; encouraging dopamine secretion with a tap of a finger. We are losing touch with ourselves; we are losing touch with reality.

It’s a marketplace that trades exclusively in human futures

Addiction

As social media was designed to be addictive, we are no longer living in a world where drug addiction is a primary problem (even though it is) but rather an addiction that nobody is aware of. The addiction of our smartphones. The addiction of instagram. The addition of intangible value.

Myself, like others was addicted to social media. I could not go a day without an instagram post, youtube video or some form of social interaction. I thrived on the value I was deriving from an instagram designed to show everyone the day to day life that I lived. I was so excited to share my life with everyone else that I was unaware that social media was becoming my life.

Being an ex addict, I felt compelled to write an article in support for the narrative of The Social Dilemma and the destruction of humanity through these applications. It is important to add that it is subject to “how” these applications are used, rather than being destructive apps in their entirety. These social media applications are powerful tools, but only for the person who can use these tools correctly.

Ex-Addict

I consciously chose to deactivate Facebook 8 months ago and further deactivated Instagram 2 months ago. Initially, due to habit, I found myself picking up my phone, unlocking it and tapping on the screen where my applications once lived. It was tough.

In the short-term I struggled, craving the dopamine inducing likes and interaction. I wanted to know who was where and what everyone was doing. I was living in a dream state, where I felt completely isolated and disengaged from the world. Initially I failed. I went back onto instagram for a week and then would deactivate once again. I couldn’t do it.

However, I didn’t give up. I understood the detrimental effects social media was having on my life, such as being disconnected physically and impacting my life psychologically. It only became a matter of time where I eventually decided that enough was enough and gave it up completely. Like an addict, I had withdrawal symptoms and some days I look back and miss certain elements of social media. However, I can already feel and see the positive effects it has had on my life and my brain.

I can honestly say that I am no longer dependent on the very social media applications I was enslaved to. I now seek physical interactions above and beyond social media interactions. I am more personable, more focused and more productive. I am less distracted and less concerned with the intangibles of social media and the people living in that reality.

I feel like a new human being. I am back in control.

Social media starts to dig deeper and deeper down into the brain stem and take over kids’ sense of self-worth and identity

When are you going to take your power back?