Talks about social media and how the excessive use of it literally affects our mental health are all over Youtube, in all sort of articles and of course presented in numerous posts on Steemit. So why would I make another one? Because it's an important topic that has to be analyzed from different angles in order to get the big picture and I've been for a while an advocate against the side effects of excessive use of social media among friends and relatives and around here also.

“I think we have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works. The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we’ve created are destroying how society works.”
Chamath Palihapitiya, former vice-president at Facebook

When I refer to social media and its dark incentives and side effects I often think and talk about Facebook and Instagram because I consider these two the most powerful ones. I came to that conclusion from my own experience and not only on reading articles on the internet or watching videos and interviews. I used Facebook for about ten years and Instagram for about two in which I invested a whole lot of time. If I had one dollar for every hour spent on Facebook I could probably live for a year without having to work one day, but Zuckerberg doesn't pay for that.

As Chamath Palihapitiya mentioned in an interview, the main hooking tool for keeping us on these platforms is the dopamine triggered by simple buttons and bells in the app. Every time we hear that notification ring we almost unconsciously unlock the phone to see who commented on our post and reply to that to comment. And that can last for hours. It is designed that way. These who created Facebook and Instagram had their "professional advisers" and clear goals with their apps. They haven't made Facebook a success by chance.

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“The thought process that went into building these applications, Facebook being the first of them, … was all about: ‘How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?'”
Sean Parker, co-founder of Napster

The story about Mark Zuckerberg creating Facebook in his college dorm I don't buy as well as I don't believe that terrorists flew a plain into the World Trade Center on 9/11. It's too big of a project to be made in a college dorm. Tell me about his college colleagues testimonies or show me pictures of him and his middle finger and I still don't believe that shit. I know how media can manipulate everything so I'm not into these success stories. Nothing gets that big without the approval of the big boys and Facebook is not an exception.

Now that we're clear about the initial goal of Facebook and what keeps us connected all day lets take a look at Instagram. Almost the same thing with the "blue pill", but a bit more refined as I consider it. I say that because it's mostly intended to offer its users better quality pictures(having the option of editing them embedded in the app) and a fake vision about the quality of life portrayed by some users. It's the place where everyone from rocks starts to waitresses post their shiniest and most expensive stuff building a "happy and almost perfect" social media life. That's completely false, of course, since we all know there's no perfect life, but still believe in these Instagram fairy tales.

We don't see the big picture though when we first start our experience with the two social media apps. Without even knowing we become stalkers and addicted day dreamers. All because every user is portraying on Instagram that perfect life that I mentioned before. That shiny one that keeps us connected all day checking what new shoes X bought and what did he/she ate at launch, what expensive car drives etc. And all we do is admire theirs everyday thanks to Facebook and Instagram.

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We don't know, but some of these new cars might be rented and a lot of smiles are fake as their nails. But that doesn't stops us from becoming frustrated about the perfect life that X is having on the platforms of "perpetuated perfection and happiness". Even if we don't know personally these persons, we still follow and drawl at their possessions seeing our stuff and life as complete garbage while getting depressed and developing a low self esteem with every new post of their. That I know also from my personal experience...

Instead of appreciating what we have, we build "social media" role models with the pictures collected, struggling to fit these profiles and getting even more depressed and sad when we fail. Living like that on long periods of time will seriously affect our mental health. Simply because we refuse the reality we live while chasing social media ghosts in endless attempts.

Life on social media is not real life. Period.

For the ones hooked hard on these damaging activities seems no way of getting out, because they don't even realize it. The social media dream is so sweet promising, but actually bitter, that can keep us asleep for years. It's not hard to get out though. It's just a one second decision and a few clicks, but as Sean Parker mentioned in an interview the whole thing was designed to be addictive and hard to quit. It was revealed by specialists that all these incentives of such apps are developed by psychologists and researchers that know very well how the brain and the human behavior are working. Some rumors say that even the CIA is involved in the whole Facebook thing, having their "particular reasons" for doing that.

In ending the article I will point that I haven't mentioned twitter among the other two social media platforms because I see it from another perspective. Most of the users are keeping their eyes on it for news and short tweets spending less time on it. I observed that also with my twitter experience. It's not that much about showing off your personal life and what you ate while comparing it with others thus it's not becoming addictive that easy.

That's my opinion.

Thanks for reading!