As we’re starting to see there are a lot of reasons why social media is so compelling to humans beings. We get addicted so easily, and then without even realizing, once these platforms have us wrapped around their finger, we become trapped! Social media can show us what all our friends and other connections are up to at all times. People post things to make their lives seem exciting and fun. Users post photos and videos with other friends demonstrating how incredible their lives are! If you’re not contributing to this, unfortunately you lose relevance. Social media is theoretically a place to see interesting things, learn about current events, and be entertained, but there is a heavy pressure that comes with it. If you aren’t keeping up with everyone’s posts, or contributing your own posts, you lose connection. Social media pulls on the strings of one the human races most fundamental desires; to not miss out.
Just like a lot of human tendencies, the desire to be in the know is an instinct of ours. This fear is referred to as FOMO, which is an acronym for “fear of missing out”. This concept goes beyond just social media and also explains why people read the news paper or magazines, so they can inform themselves of what is going on. Social media utilizes our natural desire to stay informed to keep us as active users on their platforms. To understand how we become dependent on social media to stay informed, think about this example. Someone checks social media everyday for a year to see what their friends are doing and what is going on in the world around them. One day they decide to delete all platforms of media. Now this person has lost touch with what their peers are doing and has to find out about the world in a new, more difficult format such as reading a newspaper. We become reliant on social media platforms to keep us up to date on our interests.
The feeling of connection is very important to humans. It is one of our basic needs. When someone uses social media for long enough it becomes one of their main ways of staying connected to their community. This is one of the sole reasons that social media has so many people hooked. There is an infinite amount of new information being posted, so it never gets boring. Social media constantly provides new, interesting information specifically filtered to hold your attention. The most popular app in my opinion which does the best job at providing constant updates about communities and our world is Facebook. As I have stressed repeatedly in this blog, it is important to at least understand how we are being manipulated by these platforms so we are not just mindless consumers of their products. By no means am I saying we need to unplug ourselves immediately, my goal is just to continuously inform about the reasoning behind our addiction.
Picture Sources:
-https://www.statista.com/chart/5005/news-consumption-on-social-media/
I can’t even count the number of times I’ve had FOMO, honestly. The fact that humans have become so developed that we can inform ourselves with the click of a button is amazing. However, with this innovation comes with people willing to exploit it. I love your point at the end, that we just need to be aware of this fact in order to avoid manipulation.