I’m reading this article, Let’s knock down social media’s walled gardens.
Social media is like fentanyl or cocaine for the masses. It’s preying on people’s stresses and poor mental health by providing temporary relief or disconnecting from the real world. Social media being a place to connect and maybe even run a small business is like 1% of it. It’s a place for attention seeking people filling their loneliness with fake connections and content while content consumers are trying to achieve the same buy consuming instead.
Ive seen people unable to get out of instagram. Their fingers are constantly twitching and scrolling. This is just like drugs and controlled substances. The government punishes the dealers and is trying to control but failing cause there are plenty of corrupt people willing to bypass this. Same goes with social media. Zuckerberg is probably worse than Escobar.
Social medias promise of social connections was really just the same as what drug dealers offer, the good stuff for new consumers and then once they are hooked give them the cheap stuff. They really don’t care about ‘social’ part of it because the addiction potential is so high.
Start doing mass studies on cognitive problems created by instagram and TikTok. Publish them in big journals and show how social media can go from social to addictions so quickly. People already consider phones as part of their body, I won’t be surprised if people also consider their instagram account more valuable than their health.
— A commenter from Hacker News discussion.