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How Social Media Destroys Your Life? | Science behind Addiction |聽Dhruv Rathee - YouTube
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Hello, friends!
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Do you know that in the current era,
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we touch our phones around 2,600 times on average.
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In a day.
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Not only this, according to research,
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after the Covid-19 pandemic, an average India
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has screentime of 7 hours in a day.
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It means that we look at this for 7 hours every day.
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At times scrolling social media,
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watching videos on YouTube,
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or watching films on Netflix.
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Anything.
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If you are wasting 7 hours on it,
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not only does it affect the rest of your life,
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on your studies, job, business, hobbies,
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but it affects your mind also.
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If you take the phone away from some people,
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they start getting irritated.
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They get restless.
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And some people experience stress.
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There is no doubt that this has become an addiction.
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But very few people talk about it.
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That's why, friends, in today's video, come let's find out
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the science behind this addiction.
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The impact it has on your life,
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and most importantly,
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what can be the possible solutions?
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"Sounds, animations, endless content, notifications..."
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"It really became this constant bombardment
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of the highlight of everyone else's life."
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"Lifestyles matter,
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you see, vacation destinations matter,
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fashions, manners of speech,
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ways of engagement."
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"The rewards of social media
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activate the dopamine reward system of the brain."
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"I think we're living inside of 2 billion Truman Shows."
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"This is a checkmate on humanity."
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Friends, you won't believe this,
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but social media addiction can actually be compared
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to the addictions to cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, and gambling.
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It sounds really weird.
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Because cocaine and social media are two very different things.
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Though they are vastly different,
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but the addictions that you've developed,
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can be compared to quite an extent.
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For any addiction, your body follows a set pattern,
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known as the dopamine pattern.
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First, let's try to understand what dopamine is.
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Dopamine is a neurotransmitter
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produced in our brain.
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This is the chemical formula.
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A benzene ring with two hydroxyl groups at the side,
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and an amine group is attached to an ethyl chain.
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A neurotransmitter is tasked with
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sending messages between one part of the brain to another.
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Act as a signal.
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For example, oxytocin is known as the Love Hormone.
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It is activated during bonding in relationships.
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Serotonin is a mood stabilizer.
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It keeps you emotionally stable.
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What does Dopamine do?
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For a long time, scientists believed that
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Dopamine is a pleasure chemical.
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That when we are happy,
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it is because of dopamine.
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But it isn't true.
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According to the latest research,
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scientists believe that
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the happiness that we feel,
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is not because of dopamine,
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rather it's because of the endorphins.
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Endorphins work as a happiness booster
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and pain relievers in our bodies.
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Dopamine is actually connected to motivation and reward.
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When our mind thinks that
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we are about to partake in an activity where
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we might be happy,
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anticipating that,
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our dopamine levels rise.
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Let me explain this with an example.
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Recall the time when you were young.
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And used to wait for your father to come home,
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You knew that your father would bring chocolates for you.
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But you didn't know when your father would return.
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Imagine that the phone rang right that moment,
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and your father tells you when he'd be home exactly.
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You received your father's call,
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he is about to bring you your favourite chocolate,
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even though you haven't consumed that chocolate yet,
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but while waiting for your father to get home,
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you start salivating for it.
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Because your brain knows
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the taste of the chocolate it will experience later.
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The chocolate is the reward, here.
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A reward that you will receive in the future.
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But in its anticipation,
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while waiting for that chocolate,
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your dopamine levels rise.
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Due to this, you experience excitement and happiness.
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There's nothing wrong with this situation.
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A healthy body of a normal human works like this.
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Dopamine plays an important role
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in your motivation, memory, and learning.
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An optimum level of dopamine
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is very healthy for your body.
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But it shouldn't be too high or too low.
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It gets problematic when you have received the reward
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and your brain reduces the dopamine transmission.
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It takes it below the baseline.
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And when you get a repeated exposure of the same thing,
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it creates a Chronic Dopamine Deficit State in your brain.
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When the dopamine is consistently at a low level,
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due to this, you can't experience pleasure at the same level.
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You can't experience happiness the same way.
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And so to get the same level of happiness,
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you require even more stimuli.
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It might seem a bit confusing now,
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so let me use another example.
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Suppose you've received your chocolate,
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the next day, your father brings you another chocolate,
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and another on the third day.
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More chocolates follow on the fourth and fifth days,
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you get a chocolate every day,
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and so by the eighth day,
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by the time your father calls you,
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will you have the same level of excitement?
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Will you get the same happiness
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while waiting for your father?
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No.
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You were getting chocolates for the last 7 days,
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and so the novelty of the chocolate wore off.
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In psychology, this concept is known as
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Hedonic Treadmill.
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There is nothing in this world
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which you can consume every day,
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and get the same level of happiness.
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Imagine that you cracked IIT's Entrance Exam.
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The day you get the result,
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the day you found out that you've cleared IIT,
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and that you can go to IIT to study,
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you will start dancing with happiness that day.
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You will call everyone to tell them the news.
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The next day, when you wake up, you will be very happy.
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You will be in a good mood the entire day.
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But imagine the scenario of one month later.
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Will you be still dancing even a month later?
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Because you've qualified for IIT?
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No, you won't do that.
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And if people spot you doing so,
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people will call you crazy.
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The day you found out that you got admission into IIT,
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is the day you are the happiest.
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If you are still beaming with equal happiness a month later,
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it is not normal.
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The same thing can be said when you become an IAS officer.
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Or the Prime Minister,
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It is like a treadmill.
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You need to keep moving on it,
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to maintain the same level of happiness.
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A year after you get admission to IIT,
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your dream might be to
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become so rich that you can dine at a five-star hotel once a month.
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The first time you do this,
there will be so much excitement.
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But once you become rich,
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and dining at five-star hotels would become routine for you,
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then the novelty of it would have worn off.
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To get the same level of happiness you would have to do something new.
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You will have to become richer.
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Or you'll have to accomplish a new dream.
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The same thing isn't limited to the achievements of your life.
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it is applicable to cigarettes and drugs as well.
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The first time a human consumes drugs,
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even a small amount of drugs
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gives them a big kick.
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It gives them a lot of pleasure.
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But eventually,
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he needs to consume more drugs
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to get the same level of kick,
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to get the same level of happiness.
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And just like that,
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he starts consuming a few grams of drugs,
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and then large amounts of drugs,
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and becomes heavily addicted to drugs.
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Because the pleasure that his brain was getting,
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from the said quantity of drugs,
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keeps on decreasing slowly.
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Social media's addiction
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works in a similar way.
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When you see a notification on your phone,
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your brain expects a reward.
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Dopamine is released.
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When someone likes your photo,
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or someone left a nice comment on your photo,
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it makes you happy.
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Here, you get an instant reward.
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It's like your brain writing a diary entry,
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"I am happy because of this thing.
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I will do it again."
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But slowly, the excitement keeps decreasing.
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A mere 100 likes
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only 20 comments,
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2 measly messages and 10 friend requests.
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It's not enough, you start wanting more.
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And slowly, you start falling into the pit.
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Here, you might be wondering,
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of all the examples I gave now,
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the neurological processes in them,
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are the same.
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So why aren't we equally addicted to everything?
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Why don't we become addicted to clearing IIT?
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Why don't we become addicted to making money?
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Why do we get addicted to things like drugs, cigarettes, alcohol, and social media?
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There are two main reasons for it friends,
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The first is the Ease of Access,
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and the second is speedy rewards.
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How easily accessible are the events?
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And how soon do you get rewarded for doing it?
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These are the two risk factors
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to be addicted to something.
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If you keep getting chocolate easily and frequently,
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you can definitely be addicted to chocolate as well.
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Sugar addiction is actually a thing.
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But you can become an addict to clearing IIT,
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because there you do not get any speedy reward.
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You have to work hard for years
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to get that reward.
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You can become addicted to making money,
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when you have the ease of access.
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When you have an easy way to make money.
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And you're getting a speedy reward).
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And you're earning a lot of money very quickly.
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It is the same in gambling addiction as well.
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The people who gamble away their money
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they waste their money in casinos,
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they have an ease of access.
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They know that if they go to a casino,
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they can win a lot of money.
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So they have an easy access to the methods.
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And then they can get rewarded instantly.
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There are speedy rewards.
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That's why it is easy to be addicted to gambling.
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But to start a business, or to create wealth slowly from a job,
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it is not so easy to get addicted to that,
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it is next to impossible because
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there are no speedy rewards or easy access.
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Now, let's look at these from the perspective of social media.
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Social media and your phone
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are very easy to access.
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Whether it is Facebook, Twitter or Instagram,
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you simply have to pick up your phone,
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unlock your phone with a swipe,
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and with one tap, the three apps can be opened.
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The second thing,
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You get speedy rewards as well.
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The likes you get on your post,
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the comments on it,
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and the messages of so many people,
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that's on Facebook,
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and then the videos that you watch on
Twitter, Instagram, or YouTube,
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the entertainment that you get out of it,
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if it's a comedy video, the resulting laughter,
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is a reward.
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Some time ago, I had made this video,
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YouTube versus TikTok.
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In it, I had told you how the app TikTok,
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has higher ease of access and speedy reward than
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other social media platforms.
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On TikTok, you don't even need to search for videos.
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You simply need to swipe.
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Even if you don't swipe, the next video will start playing on its own.
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And the reward is so instantaneous
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with a new reward every 20 or 25 seconds.
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That's why apps like TikTok,
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are much more addictive
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than in comparison to Instagram or YouTube.
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On YouTube, the ease of access is a bit hindered
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because often you have to search for videos on your own.
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And then you have to tap on the video to play it.
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On TikTok, the videos play automatically
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as soon as you open the app.
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And it keeps swiping down automatically.
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Compare it with other activities.
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Suppose you want to read a book.
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It needs patience.
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Until you've read a few pages of the book,
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you won't be rewarded.
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It takes a lot of time.
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If you want to play outside.
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You will have to put on a t-shirt, a pair of shorts, shoes,
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and then you'll have to walk outside.
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There will be physical exertion on your body
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It reduces the ease of access further.
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If you want to meet with your friends,
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you'll have to call them, make plans with them,
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you'll have to dress up and then go out,
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the ease of access decreases further.
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Do you know what is the most worthless and dangerous thing, friends?
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All the social media companies have intentionally designed their app like this.
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They have conducted detailed studies
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to find out what attracts people more psychologically.
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Things which make people more addicted.
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Things that would encourage people to use their apps more.
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And spend more time looking at the screen,
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and so they used the findings to manipulate their apps.
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These companies saw us as prey.
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And laid brilliant traps for us.
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These professionals draw huge amounts in salaries,
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they conducted several high-level psychological analyses of people
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and surveys to find out these triggers.
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From the colour scheme to the layout of the buttons in the app,
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they have paid attention to all of it.
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Earlier, when you'd scroll on Facebook, eventually the newsfeed would end,
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after you had read the posts of your friends.
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But now they have added infinite scrolling.
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Now, you can continue scrolling,
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and Facebook will keep on showing you something or the other.
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Because their main motive here
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is to make you spend more and more time on Facebook.
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Traditionally, we have always wanted to explore things on our own.
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Meet new people, go to new places,
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learn new hobbies, gain new knowledge,
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but to explore something new requires patience.
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And is time taking.
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The ease of access and speedy reward
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that you get from your phone,
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is much more
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that's why it is so much easier to rely on that.
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This social media addiction,
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is dangerous for your life,
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for a host of reasons.
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The first and simplest reason is that
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you will be wasting your time.
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But this is only a surface-level reason.
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Apart from this, there's an increase in radicalisation.
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If an algorithm keeps showing you things you like,
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then your political viewpoints are developed in an echo chamber.
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If you like right-wing posts, you will be shown right-wing posts only.
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If you like left-wing posts, you'll be shown only that.
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Second, it increases insecurity and depression.
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When you look at the social media pages of people,
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they look so beautiful,
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when you look at them through the filters.
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The teenagers then start feeling more and more anxious
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and may eventually get depressed.
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Especially when they get comparatively fewer likes.
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If you look at Facebook's ad,
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Mark Zuckerberg has built an image
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claiming that you introverted strangers
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start talking to each other on Facebook,
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they start messaging and then exchange phone numbers,
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meet in real life,
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they become good friends, and I think, they get married to each other in the end.
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Wow.
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Facebook is such a wonder for humanity.
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But Harari asked Zuckerberg,
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if Facebook's role is to connect people,
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or if Facebook is tasked with keeping people glued to Facebook.
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"The practical question,
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for a service provider like Facebook,
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is what is the goal?
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I mean, are we trying to connect people,
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so ultimately they will leave the screens,
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and go and play football.
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One model would be..."
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What happens actually is that
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your real-life friends become Facebook friends,
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and you see their updates on Facebook and interact on Facebook,
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through comments and messages,
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and eventually, stop meeting people in real life.
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How many of your Facebook friends have you met in real life?
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Anyway, if we return to our original topic,
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the problem is Social Media Addiction.
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If used in moderation,
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social media can be used for good.
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I'm not saying that you should completely stop using social media.
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After all, you are watching this video through social media itself.
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And my work is completely through social media.
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But the question is,
how do we stop the addiction?
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The answer to it is hidden in the two factors friends,
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ease of access and speedy rewards.
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If you want to stop any addiction,
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then you'll have to reduce the ease of access.
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And you'll have to eliminate the speedy rewards.
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Today, it is so easy to log into Facebook,
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that you pick up the phone, unlock it, and tap on Facebook's icon.
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But if it weren't so easy
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would you really use Facebook so much?
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A simple solution is to delete all social media apps from your phone.
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I'm not asking you to delete your account,
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I'm asking you to delete the apps.
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If you then wish to access social media,
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you can do so from your phone's browser.
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Or on a laptop.
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It will help by reducing the ease of access.
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It wouldn't be as easy as it is now to open those apps.
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Thus, your behaviour would change.
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If this seems too much for you,
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another thing that you can do,
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is to turn off the notifications.
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With this, your mind will not be expecting a reward every minute or every hour.
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You will open the apps only when you want to.
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Actually, the solution depends on your addiction level.
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If you think that you aren't very addicted to it,
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turn off the notifications.
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If you think that your addiction is turning problematic,
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delete the apps.
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If you think that you are very addicted to it,
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and you need to cut it out significantly,
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then use these apps only by private browsing.
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It means that whenever you log in to Facebook, Instagram or Twitter,
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you will have to enter your password every time.
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This would hinder the ease of access even more.
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The simple logic is,
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the more difficult the action would be for you,
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the easier it would be to eliminate your addiction.
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You'll be able to let go of the addiction.
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The same thing applies to phones as well.
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Do you know that on my phone,
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the sound is never on.
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Irrespective of the notification, there will be no sound alerts.
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because I don't want to be distracted because of the notifications,
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to the extent that I ignore my work and look at the phone.
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On average, a person unlocks their phone 110 times a day.
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So when I'm already going to look at it 110 times,
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I'll check the notification then.
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This same logic can be used to control various types of addictions.
[959]
If none of the shops around you sells cigarettes,
[962]
and it becomes very difficult for you to buy cigarettes,
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or you don't have the money to buy it,
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obviously, it becomes more difficult for you
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to be addicted to smoking.
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If you don't have any means to gamble,
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there are no casinos around you,
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obviously, you won't get addicted to gambling.
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Friends, if you think that the things I told you in this video
[979]
are quite knowledgeable and would be useful in your life,
[981]
then I'd definitely ask you to
[983]
check out my course and join it.
[985]
Yup, that's right.
[986]
I have created a course on time management and productivity.
[990]
In it, I have talked about these things in detail.
[992]
Such as the reasons for procrastination.
[995]
And the solutions to counter it.
[997]
How you can increase your productivity in your studies, job, or business,
[1002]
and get more time in life
[1004]
to do the things you love.
[1006]
My purpose for creating this course,
[1008]
is to bring real change into your lives.
[1010]
But this cannot happen with one-sided video lectures.
[1013]
Not only will you get to watch videos like this in this course,
[1016]
rather, there would be an established curriculum
[1018]
with classmates
[1020]
and trainers for each group of classmates.
[1022]
You will be given homework assignments to be done on a fixed time schedule.
[1026]
So that you implement these changes in your lives.
[1028]
There will also be live interactions with me.
[1030]
Where you can get your doubts cleared.
[1032]
To organise all of it,
[1034]
I had to put in a lot of effort.
[1036]
That's why I want you to go check it out.
[1038]
The link to it is in the description below.
[1040]
And the first thousand people
[1042]
to click on the link and join the course,
[1045]
will get a special 33% discount.
[1047]
This discount will be given to the first 1,000 people only,
[1050]
no more.
[1051]
I created this course with Nas Academy
[1053]
and I'd like to share a small teaser with you.
[1056]
"Life is like a, you know, a treadmill.
[1059]
Life is like, you don't wanna increase the speed of the treadmill,
[1062]
just to go faster,
[1063]
because eventually, you're gonna end up falling off the treadmill.
[1109]
I should mention that this course would be conducted in English.
[1111]
I spoke in English,
[1112]
but there will be Hindi subtitles too.
[1114]
I hope this video was informative as always.
[1117]
And let's meet in the course.
[1119]
Thank you very much!
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