Beware. Social Media Is A Drug.
Chris Brogan wrote a very interesting post recently about the pressure to remain visible once you join the online world. His perspective on it was that it’s a pressure to remain busy, but I think it actually highlighted a potential significant problem in our current society, and it may have uncovered why there is so much drama and bullying on online platforms.
The fact is, social media has evolved into a drug for a lot of people.
The good news is that unlike drugs like crack and heroin, we can adjust our minds so that we control social media and make it a positive aspect of our lives. Crack and heroin addicts may say they can do the same thing, but in fact they are merely heading for a downward spiral.
The high
When I first started out on Twitter, I wasn’t sure I liked it. I can’t say it was a bad trip but it definitely gave me headaches. No matter what I said, I wouldn’t get a response. My sense of self was compromised to a degree. I’d look at what was being retweeted by my 67 followers and it was fluff a lot of the time. “I went running today” would get 27 retweets.My (I thought) prime blog posts would not get even a cricket’s attention. I tried to be funny. I tried to be profound. I couldn’t get any reaction. When my replies page would show one new entry, I’d throw a party.
I almost quit Twitter at that point. I figured it was either a stupid platform or that I was just missing something, like I never figured out that cheat to win Mario Brothers. But then I saw people using this hashtag called #blogchat. Since my blog was paralleling my Twitter experience, I thought I’d jump in. And that is when I got my first social media high.
Suddenly, I was getting more responses than I could keep up with. People were talking to me. And even more astonishing, after 3 months on Twitter, I got more followers that night than I had gotten in total up to that point. I was now legit. And I wanted more.
Although I didn’t realize it at the time, this was the first step in social media becoming a drug rather than a hobby.
As time went on, I started joining more chats. I started getting really nice comments on my blog. You would think that under normal conditions that would have been a sense of accomplishment, right? But if you’ve been exposed to social media, you know how it works. You see lists come out of the top blogs in xyz category, and you want to be there. You hear that someone got their one-millionth comment or their 30,000th follower and you want to be there. There is always another high you can shoot for. Enough, well, it’s never enough.
The danger of the highs
Drug addicts on hard drugs like heroin and crack get sucked in to their way of life because the body becomes immune to the power of the high. You have to keep taking more and more to get just back to normal. Otherwise you feel sort of vacant and you start to doubt yourself. You start to lose track of your real life because this desire to get to your high becomes all-empowering.
I have come to understand that if we are not careful, social media can do the exact same thing.
Whether we desire it or not, social media becomes so powerful that we actually start to weave our sense of self-worth into how we’re doing. The pressure is immense and never-ending, but even more, it is always building. There are always people performing better than you, and as you get more successful, there are more people who simply are verbalizing their own doubts about you. Your real world can begin to shrink down into how many comments you’re getting, how many followers that other person has, and how your blog’s traffic is doing. You find that even if you are sick or tired or on vacation, you need to keep blogging or tweeting so that you can get that high. If your blog post doesn’t do well, then you want to pop right back, but now you feel even lower than you did before.
This is where social media, if you’re not careful, can become extraordinarily dangerous. You can begin to doubt that people really do appreciate and like you. You feel that if you go a day without blogging or tweeting, all of your hard work will come tumbling down. And then what? What did you do before all of this? Where was your sense of self-worth before you got retweeted a lot?
I fear that because of these qualities, for people who are going through hard times or whose self-confidence is low, social media can be extremely dangerous.
What we can do
Luckily for me, I realized this cycle of existence before it took over any part of my life. I found myself paralleling all I was doing online with the brief period in which I played Farmville. I would wake up a few minutes early so I could harvest my fake crops and plant new ones. Then I could harvest those when I got home from work. What in the heck was that all about? My blogging and tweeting were becoming the same way. I found myself wanting to write a week ahead. I found myself getting really competitive about everything. Most of all, I found myself feeling that I HAD to keep pushing as hard as I was. And why?
I was beginning to get addicted to all that social media offers.
I backed away for a time and saw that actually, if I gave myself freedom just to do things when I wanted to, the whole experience became a lot more fun. If I let go of the pressure to get that high, like the big post or the huge number of retweets, my initial joy in social media could return.
If you are feeling like you need to blog everyday, you’re in danger. Real danger. You must stop and ask yourself why you are feeling that push. Is it because you really want to write everyday, or is it because you are looking for that next big post? That next high? Are you participating in 5 chats a day because you just enjoy the conversation, or are you trying to beat so-and-so’s Klout score? Are you really wanting to tweet or are you just trying to get to that landmark number of followers?
If you do not answer these questions honestly to yourself, I firmly believe that you can become reliant on social media as much as drug addicts become reliant on their drugs. And I don’t want to see you go down that path. Social media, as so many have said, is a tool, but it is not a tool of self-worth. It is merely a new kind of telephone that happens to have different kinds of numbers attached.
Your search for self-worth will not end successfully here. If you are not willing to accept success and accomplishment, there is no level of online success and accomplishment that will convince you that you’re worthy of good things. All you are looking for is within or in the offline (real) world.
Enjoy social media. Hone your craft. Meet new people. But when you find yourself searching for that next high, whatever it is – a new Klout score, appearing on a list, a huge viral blog post – take 2-3 days off. Read, watch movies, chill with offline people. Because that relentless drive is what can bring you into territory that you don’t want to travel to, and there’s no real reason to go there.
Be careful. And if you find that thinking about these things scares you or makes you realize you might have some other stuff going on in your life, do not shy away from seeking help. Real help.
OK?
First Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ell-r-brown/5970377597/ via Creative Commons
Second Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/leehaywood/4295460613/ via Creative Commons
Third Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/imarlon/5869890155/ via Creative Commons
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We’re on the same page once again Margie. Let’s keep this conversation going.
@Chris_Eh_Young will do my best 🙂
I took almost the entire day off from social media yesterday. I only did a small bit on Facebook and that was really it. I need to rest from all of it sometimes. I blog five days a week because I am working on my writing skills. That is a different motivation than some other folks have and I know what motivates me. It is all a matter of balance for me.
@NancyD68 Balance is the key concept there, Nancy. It’s when the balance starts getting away from you that you need to worry 🙂
I have been publishing less and trying to focus on the same reasons of why I wanted to publish every day.
I guess I did it to get more ideas and try to get feedback for me to improve myself in many aspects.
I completely understand what you are trying to say!
@RaulColon thanks, sir!
You played Farmville. Hmmmm…..
All excellent points. It will be interesting to see where all these dopamine hits lead us in the end. Loved all your points but especially ” Social media, as so many have said, is a tool, but it is not a tool of self-worth.”
Cheers sistah!
Positively,
Peggy
ps talking to you on the phone is da bomb.
@PegFitzpatrick I went through a very *very* brief phase of Farmville. I was pressured by friends who needed me to become their neighbor so they could get new fencing or some such. It was a scary chapter in my life that I hope never to revisit 🙂
And likewise!!
Using social media is like going to the casino. We get, what we psychologists call “intermittent reinforcement.” Sometimes we get rewarded with responses and sometimes we don’t, so we will try again and again to get that “hit” of positive reinforcement. This is why it can become seemingly addictive. It’s our brains trying to get the reward.
Personally, I have backed waaaay off of social media of late and my business is busier than ever. I blog 1x/week, tweet a few times a day, rarely on weekends, update Facebook a few times a week, and kicked Google+ to the curb. I am less visible to some people, but “just right” visible to my ideal client, which is the point for me. I have the choice to be social face-to-face with my friends and family or spend that time with friends online. As much as I love my online peeps, my 8 year old gives better hugs : ).
@susangiurleo That’s a great analogy, Susan. It is very much like the casino. Do you know when to cash out, or are you going to keep on trying for that pay-out that will get you your dream house in Malibu? The latter, whether at the casino or in the online world, is probably not very likely.
Real-life hugs, according to most studies, are indeed better than online hugs. I’ll grant ye that 🙂
I jumped in with both feet with a very active crowd and thought that was how it was done and the pace you needed to maintain. It wasn’t sustainable, and it wasn’t healthy.
I have found my place for now, at my pace and I’m not trying to keep up with the Jones’ anymore. I’m back to having fun and keeping it sustainable.
I too saw many people get hooked on this drug, and some to the point they are just gone now and that’s a shame because they were really good people; fun to know.
@bdorman264 Glad to hear it, Bill!
It is easy to start thinking about social media as an all-or-nothing proposition. Either you’re doing stuff 24/7 or you’re doing nothing. I think that’s a dangerous and unnecessary dichotomy. You can do what you do and what i’ve learned to do, which is to have fun and let your own compass guide you as to what you want to do and how much you want to do.
It is indeed sad that so many have fallen by the wayside =/
Great post! I do agree that social media is a drug.. It was worth reading! Tried Twitter before but I didn’t like it, didn’t have many follower at all! Just one, and it was my sister!
@fergusonsarah Twitter takes quite a while to get used to – longer than you think. If you aren’t prepared for that it can lose its shine really really fast, for certain. Thanks for the comment!
I know a lot of people who comment on posts simply to get interaction from the “cool kids” of which Chris Brogan is one. The rare times I comment on Chris’ blog (or yours for that matter 🙂 ) is he/you write something that bubbles something in my brain that maybe others (or he/you) might want to think more about. It’s a nice feeling when it gets a reaction, but entirely unnecessary for me, though it does reinforce to my agent that she has not backed a losing dog 🙂
What worries me more is when others kinda glom onto me and mistake an interaction for a relationship, a kindness for something more than exists in the social media space. I worry about helping those I have never met in real life becasue I can’t “see” or “feel” the vibe of the interaction. I can’t imagine how people like Chris Brogan deal with “fans” who think they have a personal relationship with him. Maybe he doesn’t do it well? I dunno. My solution is to back off, get scarce.. a fear of social media intimacy 🙂 (though once I meet someone IRL, it becomes different…) @susangiurleo is probably a better expert than me on something like this…
@dogwalkblog Ah, social dynamics in the internet space…tricky stuff, that. Ultimately people are the SAME online and off. I know there is this concept that annonymity makes people more aggressive, and that is true for some, but most are just who they are. Since turning 11 years old, we all want to be affiliated with the cool kids. And, again, the recognition is intermittent, therefore something we often seek repeatedly. People are seeking social proof by being in a cool kid tribe. We think “I must be worthy if so-and-so knows my name.”
This happens in business all the time. People are flattered with the CEO of the company invites them to play golf. We just don’t see these personal dramas play out off line because they are not public exchanges.
People are fragile. Those who have mental health struggles will do so online and off. Because I have a trained eye and ear, I see people who are struggling daily with low self-esteem, desperate need to be seen, fear of intimacy , bat shit crazy. None of that is bad, it just IS. Individually, we all need to determine our personal boundaries in how we will respond when someone bumps into our space in an uncomfortable way. Most, often ignoring it is best. Sometimes it has to go deeper.
But know that we can’t save anyone through the screen and it is perfectly OK to walk away when we feel overwhelmed and our coping is compromised.
@dogwalkblog@susangiurleo It’s a huge problem, this definition of friendship. Jay Baer did a great job of dealing with that issue in the wake of Trey Pennington’s death, and I had to face it on a more personal level after Bruce Serven’s death. We fling the word “friend” about rather easily, especially in the online world, but that isn’t just a word that can be bandied about. It has meaning, expectations, and repercussions, doesn’t it? And if people aren’t really your friend and don’t know how you define the word, they will find themselves constantly and accidentally ticking you off.
So true. It is a drug many can’t seem to keep away from. Looks like we’ll need to consume in moderation 🙂
@janwong so it seems 🙂
This post really hit home as I was thinking about the same thing today.
Am I addicted to the sense of worth I get from the attention I get on social media.
Is my pressure to tweet, update and blog no different than a crack addict living from one high to the next? Can I really take a day off and not think about my on-line influence being threatened?
The sad truth?
– Hi, my name is Ray Hiltz and I’m a social media addict.
Now do I have to go to all my followers and apologize for all the dumb posts I published? I’ll take it one day at a time.
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