Let's Talk Addiction!

Ahh polls... Don't get me started on social media polls!

While they're great for finding the pulse of your audience and connecting with them, they can also give you maaany sleepless nights. There were times when I would be waking up every two hours only to monitor those poll results listed above — as if there would be a huge disparity in voting percentages in between checks... Let me give you some backstory on how I got to the point where I'd compulsively refresh the page just to watch story viewings and engagement rates go up.

I can't recall ever treating my social media as anything more than a mere pastime. I joined Instagram in 2016. Up until the first half of 2019, my posting frequency could be boiled down to 3-4 uploads every six months, while my follower count never exceeded the 2000.

My status as an online 'ghost' changed when I launched my website, Maripinion, and started using such platforms to marketing ends. By early 2020, amid lockdown and furlough pay, I was deeply immersed in the social media marketplace.

But have these platforms always functioned as a somewhat means of international trade?

Nope.

Social networks originated as a communicative tool that helped users stay in touch with people they were miles apart. That's barely the case nowadays. With over 3.6 billion account owners as of late 2020 data, social media serves multiple purposes. While teens and young adult “influencers” use it as digital scrapbooks to record their daily routines, start-up or established corporations invest to advertise their services.

Regarding the whole “influencing” buzz among youngsters, in her book, IGen, Jean Twenge shares her views on the generation born after 1994. She points out higher levels of mental issues and social anxiety despite the projected outgoing demeanour of several social media personas.

“A stunning 31% more 8th and 10th graders felt lonely in 2015 than in 2011, along with 22% more 12th graders” [...] All in all, iGen’ers are increasingly disconnected from human relationships”.

An excess in screen-time with little to no in-person interaction coincides with Igen's insufficient social skillset:

“In the next decade we may see more young people who know just the right emoji for a situation—but not the right facial expression”.

Also, lack of face-to-face connection makes Igen susceptible to mental disorders:

“iGen is on the verge of the most severe mental health crisis for young people in decades. On the surface, though, everything is fine”.

The impression that everyone leads perfect, neatly-packaged lives is at best superficial. Deriving from low self-esteem, it represents the self-absorbed need to exhibit the “highlights” — a flawless version of oneself — to the online world:

“…social media is not real life. Her photos, which looked like casual snaps, actually took several hours to set up and up to a hundred attempts to get right…”

Even if we know that the photos are heavily manipulated, staged and airbrushed, the pangs of envy and self-dissatisfaction always pinch a bit harder.

As it happens with every trend, I was likewise driven to spread brand awareness and expand my site's reputation at all costs. Obviously, we tend to overlook the dark corners of the Internet when signing up for it; all we choose to see is how enriching they appear to be for our lives.

Only when I had a 1:1 with the mirror and my under eye circles did I realise that my obsessive tracking of media performance stats had exacerbated to the harmful degree of addiction. I was “chasing the high” for my website without considering how much I neglected myself, my relationship with others and, ironically, the website itself.

First off, let's get down with the definition, shall we?

What is an addiction?

Addiction is the repeated involvement with a substance or activity, despite the substantial harm it now causes, because that involvement was (and may continue to be) pleasurable and/or valuable.

I was uneducated about the effects too much social media exposure had on me. I saw these virtual spaces as a bunch of numbers that fluctuated rather than as outlets to build strong ties with a real-life readership; I was deceived by the in-the-moment praise of my work, favouring this at the expense of a gradual and steady business growth.

And you may justifiably ask: “Then why didn't you do something to change that?!”

Well, I didn't have a compelling reason to change. To be honest, I feared change because change is uncomfortable — it compels you to tear apart your security blanket. To reach for the life you envision, you have to fall goofy-eyed in love with discomfort. I was a weak-minded individual with low pain-tolerance and an unhealthy relationship with social media — the convergence of these draining conditions sent me on a downward spiral.

Paid promotions resembled the ideal shortcut to success compared with organic site traffic that was much harder to attain. Branded posts, which are flagged as “Sponsored” and alert your target audience that you have paid to showcase them your content, are easy and I lived on “Easy Street”.

Once again, my decision-making and actions when it came to campaigning were far beyond reasonable. My viewer acquisition expenses were less than £10, which may be affordable to many, but it wouldn't be financially sustainable for me in the long run because I'm not selling anything.

But I kept on drowning in that paid ad sea...

My media-anointed addictive fits can be broken down to three stages:

First Stage

You execute the behaviour consistently until it becomes automatic; it turns into your new normal. The more time you spend doing it, the more impulsive it becomes.

My eyes were glazing over the screen for new updates on my Maripinion page ALL. THE. TIME. I checked when I worked; I checked when I shopped; I checked while I took walks and cradled my phone in my palm. With the passage of time, it became all-the-more automatic. I was unable to slow or control my response time and devalue my brain’s interpretation of each new message bling I heard. I was constantly plugged-in, Instagram-ing, Facebook-ing and Twitter-ing day to night.

Some of these addictive episodes felt like an out-of-body experience when I would pause from life, go observe my channel performance, and return to whatever I was doing — feeling as if nothing had happened. This in-and-out social media limbo became nearly as instinctive as breathing.

Second Stage

You grow dependent on it. Your brain views the act as a necessity for survival.

Melodrama aside, it began to devour me whole. I felt invisible to everything in my life except certain apps on my phone. It was so deeply ingrained into my conscious and subconscious mind that I would have nightmares about algorithms or of monster-looking Digital Executives who wanted to delete my accounts, vanishing my very own existence along with them. How did I let a number define me?

The only way to get comfortable with something new is to do it over and over and over again ad infinitum. Sooner or later, this habitual state turns into your comfort zone. Our brain craves comfort. It gets so familiar with certain activities we've been engaging in that it blindly believes this is safety.

The first time you let yourself reach rock bottom, your defensive brain is like:

Umm, what are you doing? Stop this now, you're hurting yourself!

But as you undergo self-destruction and the brain sees you're not giving up, it might as well adapt. But that's the exact point where you prove your strength: if you can endure in self-destruction, you can endure in self-improvement. It's that little switch you need to pull and steer your life wheel toward a different route.

Third Stage

You try to change but you fail so many times that you lose trust in yourself. Then, you become numb and lose the drive to change. You isolate yourself from the world because you are so ashamed.

I suffered more often in my imagination than in reality. I had visuals of me unlocking the screen and just staring at it with my thumb hanging. I sought refuge in my bed, under the covers, where I would shield myself from the worldly electronic triggers that I didn't trust myself around.

Nothing kills the vibe and throws you into melancholia more than your very own thoughts.

A 2016 study surveyed 1787 men and women between the ages of 19 and 32, and indicated that social networks are

“significantly associated with increased depression.”

You're dreading over life itself. I was allowing my fear to dictate over the website's future; my fear of not following through. My fear of failure.

Dispelling that fear-ridden mindset seemed impossible... Was it though?

According to a 2015 study focusing on individuals 65 and older,

“Higher levels of Internet use were significant predictors of higher levels of social support, reduced loneliness, and better life satisfaction and psychological well-being among older adults.”

A year later, another research was carried out covering all the possible ways that Facebook is correlated with well-being. The researchers remarked that:

“Specific uses of the site were associated with improvements in well-being.”

So what's the conclusion?

Individuals of the 65+ age group who approached Facebook as a means to develop tight-knit relationships reaped the perks, as opposed to those who used it for large-scale broadcasting.

“People derive benefits from online communication, as long it comes from people they care about and has been tailored for them.”

Similar research conducted in 2016 identified the same pattern on Instagram:

“ interaction and Instagram browsing were both related to lower loneliness, whereas Instagram broadcasting was associated with higher loneliness.”

It's important to note that, like any other nascent technology since the Industrial Revolution, social media does not make us more ‘social.’ To the contrary: if overused, it can widen the “alienation” gap between us and our family, friends, and/or co-workers.

Quite inevitably, the more withdrawn we are from our loved ones, the more hours we're likely to expend on our meticulously curated digital identities, consistently hunting for more ‘likes’ to validate our self-worth. In our “Me, me, me” society underpinned by selfies, social networks are the engine that further fuels our egos and vanity metrics.

But why and how so?

A neurological study used functional neuroimaging data to demonstrate the effect Facebook has on the nucleus accumbens, i.e., the pleasure centres in the brain related to the reward-circuitry.

Is it all brain chemistry then?

The findings posited “gains in reputation” as the chief reward stimulus. The mechanism whereby our brains register these gains, say when we upload new content, reflects the same reward circuitry stimulated through addiction to substance compounds (e.g. alcohol and drugs).

Likes, comments, story viewings and shares are all potential products of such gains, activating the nucleus accumbens along with dopamine, i.e., the neurotransmitter associated with pleasure.

Over time, the nucleus accumbens gets accustomed to dopamine signals, craving to be more and more stimulated. This may be a variant of two scenarios: either pursuing more visibility through likes, comments and so forth, or spending excessive chunks of time on social media technologies.

Simply put, if you experience more release of dopamine after using social media, your brain classifies the activity as a rewarding one that you must repeat. This process may be heightened whenever you share a new post and garner positive reactions.

However, the sensation of delight experienced during social media use is ephemeral. The way your brain responses to this positive boost is also recognised in other addictions, such as smoking and gambling.

As the “happy chemical” wears off, you’ll relapse and rush back to the source (in this instance, social media) for more. Social media proprietors spend obscene amounts of money to find the “Bliss Point”, i.e., the right measure of addictives that excite your brain and lure you in coming back.

The Friday of divine intervention

Society teaches us to be kinder to ourselves by tapping into daily positive affirmations or taking bubble baths because we deserve it. I used to endorse that conception of self-love. However, it's not what I needed at the time, and it surely never helped me change and progress. True self-love isn't trashing the discipline and “spoiling” yourself because you had a rough day.

Instead, it's discomfort for the purpose of ever-positive, lasting change. It's chasing the pain and allowing the fear to gush through and stretch your full capacity more than ever before. It's realising that the only time you grow and improve is when you hit that point of wanting to quit... But you keep going!

A notion that many poststructuralist philosophers dear to me espouse argues that the healing of pain lies in pain itself. Contrary to common belief, the more intimate we are with our pain the less we suffer.

A powerful force was tugging on the strings a little harder that life-altering Friday because of the compelling call to action I received from my “Dungeon of Torture” — the Internet itself.

As I was browsing self-help articles about social media over-reliance (during one my countless attempts to overcome mine), I bumped into a recent study that seemed to debunk certain alcohol and drug addiction myths. I read a few lines but closed the window, as I thought it couldn't aid me in any viable way. But I felt a strange gravitational pull towards it, so I clicked back on the link.

The evidence illustrated that individuals were not consuming substances because they were chemically dependent; they are abusing substances because of a deeper underlying problem that has not yet been diagnosed. In fact, the majority of them were outliers — individuals who lacked a sense of social belonging.

That was the psychic switch-pulling I needed to start approaching my media accounts with the proper frame of mind and holistically perceive my life through the right lens.

For so long, I failed to identify the deeper layers of my insecurities. My outward behaviour, namely, how I made my phone the extension of my hand, was the indicator of the turmoil inside. I had to turn inwards and explore those fragments of my soul where I stripped bare of my accolades; a place where I could no longer honour myself.

Who was I beyond the outer numerical shell of likes and followers?

All my life I've been weak and self-conscious about my writing capabilities, but I've never truly internalised it. Rather, I dodged that sincere inspection of my soul as much as I could. That doesn't mean that I ever ceased to sense it there. I knew that the bad habits (my disrupted sleep patterns and low energy levels to name a few) that were brewing just under the surface would be unimaginably difficult to reverse. But I mistakenly believed that I would just eventually change, beat my addiction, and somehow reach my potential as the owner of Maripinion. But when and how? Time waits for nobody and I felt it slipping away.

I was undisciplined. The second I felt pain — mental or physical — I ran away. To flee from anything that harasses you means to become a different person in order to fight for the life you want. I had to change my outlook and become mentally tough.

I say, get comfortable with being uncomfortable. And that's exactly how you change; there is no other way.

I was looking for an external source (in this case, the temporary sparks of media recognition my website was getting) to do the trick and rectify the way I perceived my content and self-capacity. Seeking happiness from others is anything but nourishing both for your sanity and business development.

You are your only constant. You are responsible for cementing your own happiness, self-respect and confidence. None of them is born out of a university degree, a highly paid job, or a relationship of romantic-movie proportions. It begins with your thoughts and the choices of words you make to address yourself every day.

Conclusion

I'm not some kind of vicar that preaches to the congregation during church service every Sunday. That said, I'm not here to instruct you on how to prevent or conquer an over-dependence on social media. You know, the classics: “Turn off your notifications” or “Never sleep with your phone by your nightstand”.

My singular advice would be: stay active on social networks if you have something substantial and impactful to say (passive newsfeed scrollers included). If you run a business, don't treat your people as quantifiable “Follow” button clicks. Don't bombard them with promotional balderdash that looks like French fries — golden brown and crunchy on the outside, fluffy and vacant of any nutritional value on the inside.

Rather, be transparent and meaningful. Inject them with moderate and sensible doses of your messaging that motivates them to go read your stuff or buy your product. You don't have to constantly remind them that you exist. As a good friend of mine has it: ‘You don't have to worry about who will find it, 'cause if it's found it'll be worth that person's time to invest in it.’ (thanks Linds, credits to you!)

Off we go to produce and broadcast content that is worthy of one's time-investment! For me, this is how you heal a behavioural addiction — be it drug abuse or social media misuse. Change your thinking to change yourself. Easier said that done, but isn't that the case with all things in life?

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