We human beings are more connected than ever, but we are also not more connected than ever.
Hey, that sounds odd, doesn’t it? Well, it will start making sense eventually if you keep reading.
Chapter 1
Social media was first created to connect people from all over the world, and the fact that it was cheaper than a taxi ride made it all the more popular. You don’t have to book a cab to see your friends and socialize anymore. You can just check up on them using your phone.
With a few clicks, you’ll know what your friends are doing on a Saturday night. Who your friends are with currently, why did your school friend Shayla break up with Ben? Oh well, you might wanna congratulate Arlan for getting into MIT.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying this is a wrong thing, and I won’t convince you to evolve backwards if it was the case, really. The problem with social media is that it is no longer being used as social media anymore. People are no longer using it to know or connect with people online.
With the rise of short-form content, social media has just become some sort of stress ball or perfect time killer when you’re bored, which essentially is not a bad thing because hey, you do deserve some time off of your hectic schedule. But are you sure it is not taking a toll on your mental health?
Mental health? Where did this come from? How is it even connected? Nothing makes sense here.
Well, look, human beings are social animals, and our species only ever survived due to the fact that we stay together and communicate well. Socializing is the only thing that helps us keep sane and, most importantly, it is the only thing that defines who we really are.
With the rise of the current state of social media, we’re losing the only thing that kept us sane and going. No wonder why Gen Z is more depressed than any other generation ever was. Do you not see the picture being drawn here?
I’ll just say this out loud:
You’re not depressed, you’re just chronically online, like it or not.
No one is using social media as it was intended to be used. No one is posting about their day, no one is making even a normal post. Heck, even a lot of accounts have default PFPS. They are not using Instagram for what it was built for, or Facebook or any other social media that you can think of, except a few.
They have either large influencers who curate content in a way that is designed to hack your mind or just large brands marketing and making use of your vulnerabilities. You don’t realize how badly you are being used as a consumer. You’re just one miserable vessel looking for the next hit of your reward chemical, and smart people and brands are using you to make money.
YouTube is doing no good, even though it is very powerful and useful if you want to teach yourself new skills, but we can’t ignore the fact that it is filled with short-form content as well, which makes it no good compared to Instagram.
Chapter 2
We’re all glued to our smartphones, and we reach for them as if they have become our second nature. We don’t even realize it, and the first thing in your hand after waking up is your smartphone. You look for notifications and maybe scroll a little before starting your day.
Oh? Congrats, you made it out of your bed and you’re off to brush your teeth and get ready for the day, but hey, where is your phone? I can’t find it anywhere.
Oh, there I see it now. It’s in your hand as you’re busy scrolling while you brush your teeth. Well alright, maybe now go to the washroom and freshen up, but hey, at least don’t take your phone there?
What? You’ll get bored? Fine.
Time for a shower, but hey, why do you have your phone with you? “I’ll listen to music while I’m showering. I can’t without music.”
Well, I hope you see the point here. We are just so consumed by our smartphones that we don’t even question it anymore. We find ourselves in awkward situations when we don’t have a smartphone in our hand because no one today can even imagine the time they’ll have to spend eating without scrolling or watching a video on their phone.
We are so consumed by technology that we don’t have time to think about all that is wrong with us. What has humanity come to, and what is our future from here on?
This is really scary when you think about it, and the fact that no one is concerned by it makes me worry more.
On a brighter side, however, a lot of people do realize this. Now, I’m not any better than you. I occasionally spend time watching YouTube videos and doomscroll on Instagram.
While doing so, I came across a lot of videos on EDC and how people are slowly transitioning towards analog tech. People are dividing their smartphones into different tasks. They’re making use of a diary to take notes, PSP to play games, digital camera for clicking pictures, e-reader to read books, wristwatch to see the time, and music players to listen to music along with wired earphones, even though wired earphones feel more like an aesthetic touch, but sure.
I’m not against wired earphones. Though I usually try to avoid putting any kind of earphones, I do mainly use wired earphones when I really need one because it is lighter and doesn’t create a vacuum in my ears that makes my ears hurt.
It makes me happy whenever I come across videos like that because it shows a sign that the world is healing. Though it sounds like we’re evolving backwards, slowing down was really important, else we’ll be doing nothing but heading towards a depressing and doomed future.
Chapter 3
One might argue that social media helps us stay updated on the latest news and memes. They say that it helps to socialize better and develop common cultural vocabulary.
I hate to break this to you, but you are highly delusional and you only tell this to yourself to get out of the guilt and shame. Your mind doesn’t easily want to accept that you are actually stuck in this miserable state. Call it sunk-cost fallacy or whatever you like, but that is how our neurons are wired together.
You barely consume 2% of the actual useful knowledge, and trading that with your mental health and brain chemistry doesn’t sound worth it to me. You really don’t have to stay updated on the next tung tung tung sahur or what is going on in the world. If you were really serious about the news, you could have used Inshorts instead or made use of YouTube, but saying that you’re on Insta because it keeps you updated on news is an utter lie that you tell to yourself.
Take a pause and think about it. What was the last information you consumed from Instagram Reels?
Well, now there are quite a few exceptions here. I have seen people having really good feeds that are actually curated to give you useful information, but let’s agree on this: your feed is nothing but brainrot and garbage.
All this doesn’t only apply to Instagram, but rather, this is the condition of most social media platforms. It might feel like I’m targeting Instagram here, and that is mainly because I was once addicted to it and it is what I see others being addicted to.
Whenever you see someone on their phone, you can almost always guarantee that they are on Instagram scrolling Reels.
Chapter 4
Whatever you see on the internet is fabricated using AI. It is all filled with either bots or AI-curated content. YouTube comments are almost all bots. Instagram followers of big influencers are mostly bots. Comments and likes on these platforms are bots. Tweets you read on X are mostly written using AI because in this age, we trust AI more than ourselves.
YouTube thumbnails are all generated using AI, and in fact, their titles are generated using AI. The codebase of the social media app that you use was also written by AI.
Nothing you see on the internet is authentic anymore. Heck, even this blog that you’re reading was fabricated using AI, even though I keep it mostly original and only rephrase a few parts to make the reading flow better, but you get the point.
The entire internet is either filled with bots or AI-generated content, and if you think about it, you spend the majority of your time looking at these meaningless contents that have no authenticity and human creativity.
You’re just consuming AI slop, and I don’t know about you, but when I think about it, it kinda fills me with disgust. So much so that I reduced the time I spend on these apps by a lot and try to live in the moment.
At the end, I would say it is very important for us humans to get a hold of ourselves and regain the authentic human connection that we once had but never experienced only because we were born in the age of tech.
This post is just a note to myself, and I’m by no means convincing you to get rid of social media and adopt my mindset. At the end of the day, it is just you who’s going to pull yourself out of this situation.