Social Media Habits & Addictions

Viswamitra · Dec 19, 2019

@ragzz,

Thank you for sharing the video about TikTok. I didn't know about this app until recently. It looks like it is becoming addictive and many working for the Tamil media industry are becoming addicts of this app. I assume TikTok has a semantic search engine to provide the choices based on frequently used videos of the users.

Thyagarajan · Dec 21, 2019

Viswamitra said: ↑

Impulse control disorder is the term that is generally used for those who have the habit of excessive smoking and/or drinking and/or drug consumption. Even though it is also used for commonly found habits like nail-biting, touching the goatee or mustache or adjusting the hair frequently and so on but these are generally considered not harmful. Recently, technology addiction is added as an impulse control disorder that involves the obsessive use of mobile devices, the internet or video games, despite negative consequences to the user of the technology. The disorder may also be referred to as digital addiction or internet addiction or social media addiction.

Digital addiction can result in what is referred to as anhedonia. In his book, “Thrilled to Death”, Dr. Archibald Hart unpacks the subject of anhedonia. Anhedonia is a result of digital addiction and multi-tasking taken to unhealthy levels. According to Psychology Today, neuroscience now suggests that the brain’s reaction to digital addiction is similar in part to the reaction to tobacco products, alcohol and gambling addictions. In the medical and mental health field, anhedonia is understood as a symptom of depression, schizophrenia, or drug addiction. Anhedonia is a destruction of the pleasure center in the brain that doesn’t allow a person to experience pleasure from the things of life that should bring pleasure.

What are the symptoms of digital addiction? If we turn around to pick up our phone after driving our automobile for half an hour on a total one-hour journey to our destination, it is addiction. We have lived in the past without an emergency phone in our pocket. If we begin thinking in abbreviated vocabulary such as “wrb”, “lol”, “ttyl”, etc. in response to something, it means we are getting addicted to social media. If we are compulsively picking up the phone while driving to look at the text messages or other social media when we hear the message coming in, then, we have an addiction. If we are sharing our best life events including the location with our friends and family always through social media, we are addicted to social media as well.

Unfortunate part of this addiction is, we forget the life is filled with both positives and negatives and we begin focusing our attention to only positives as we need to compulsively post it in social media. The negative part of our lives gets little or virtually (no pun intended) no attention for us to analyze and put ourselves on growth and development path. Our self-esteem is determined by the number of likes we receive and if someone gets more likes than us, we even tend to pull out our post because we begin to believe we were snubbed by the social media friends. Even a minor event in our lives become a selfie opportunity and we begin to think everything from a social media angle as opposed to enjoying the present moment.

How can we overcome this addiction? We need to begin to enjoy outdoor more either through walking or running or even just observing the nature. We can break that habit by leaving the phone or other gadgets away (electronic diet) for an hour or two every day and even rearranging the access to gadgets by putting them far away from your living room. We can think of limiting our social media/internet access to a certain time limit. We can mix some activities by creating new projects to be done away from the electronic gadgets at home or outside or set aside reading a real printed book (no electronic reading please). We can even think of attending a concert. It is really alarming to see that children less than 2 years age knows how to navigate gadgets even before they begin talking fluently. The teenagers are now called screenagers because of this reason.

I am attaching two videos one describing what we are missing because of internet addiction and the other describing how to set right our cluttered mind from internet addiction.

In the interest of brevity, I wrote only what I considered critical. There is so much to write about it. Please feel free to share your ideas and thoughts in response here.
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What has been suggested to overcome the addiction are those activity which we were engaged in before advent of these gadgets and or internet. Geeks and internet addicts forsake healthy activities including social interaction, minimal mobility, cut down on reading etc.
2. I myself found my certain activities practised prior to my visit to IL, have dwindled or vanished. Example listening to Carnatic music in radio and in laptop saved items, conversations and chats over phone with my pals and relatives so on & so forth.
3. It is said habit dies hard. Once it is hardened, difficult to reduce or leave it. Like cigarettes smoking, there is no question of gradually reducing or minimising quantum oftime spent on this irrespective of gadget sports or pastime or whatsoever. Either to stop it once for all or live with it knowing very well the consequences.
Thanks and Regards.
God in Vaikunda - enjoys high speed or ultra super seamless internet for doing His biz!

Viswamitra · Dec 22, 2019

Thyagarajan said: ↑

What has been suggested to overcome the addiction are those activity which we were engaged in before advent of these gadgets and or internet. Geeks and internet addicts forsake healthy activities including social interaction, minimal mobility, cut down on reading etc.
2. I myself found my certain activities practised prior to my visit to IL, have dwindled or vanished. Example listening to Carnatic music in radio and in laptop saved items, conversations and chats over phone with my pals and relatives so on & so forth.
3. It is said habit dies hard. Once it is hardened, difficult to reduce or leave it. Like cigarettes smoking, there is no question of gradually reducing or minimising quantum oftime spent on this irrespective of gadget sports or pastime or whatsoever. Either to stop it once for all or live with it knowing very well the consequences.
Thanks and Regards.
God in Vaikunda - enjoys high speed or ultra super seamless internet for doing His biz!
Click to expand...

Dear Thyagarajan Sir,

Precisely. Surfing internet generally with no target in mind, waiting in a social media site expecting new notification to come, reading and writing text messages while in a meeting, telling someone to keep talking while typing in the phone, etc. are perfect signs of excessive use of the gadget and the last two being outright rude.

I can understand checking messages in the morning hours but taking the phone to the bed is a big problem. At least 1 hour before bed, one should give up screen time.

Getting back to old ways of talking to people and family in person, general social interaction, physical exercise, listening to music, etc are welcome. Once we become conscious of screen time, it is easier to control it. When I see someone driving monotonously in an highway with no variation in speed, invariably it is because either they are lost in a conversation with someone or checking their text messages. Use of smartphone has become high in the list of causes of accidents in the US.

Thyagarajan · Dec 22, 2019

Viswamitra said: ↑

When I see someone driving monotonously in an highway with no variation in speed, invariably it is because either they are lost in a conversation with someone or checking their text messages. Use of smartphone has become high in the list of causes of accidents in the US.
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Hello Viswamitraji same is the situation over many parts of India and metros in particular. Comfort & convenience of one has turned into discomfort and dangerous to others.
With more use of gadgets, muscles might get atrophied early!
ICD is already common in many youngsters and percentage of population suffering from Anhedonia would be up exponentially with lots of app.

Gauri03 said: ↑

When I pick up my phone I try to mentally state a purpose for doing so and if I can't come up with something convincing I put it away. Works more often that you would think.
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exactly. Time conscious and busy persons and those who have too many irons in the fire would know how to control and avoid being triggered toward untimely unproductive meaningless unrewarding activities that includes many.

Thyagarajan · Dec 22, 2019

Rihana said: ↑

With other social media like IL, what has helped me is to ask myself periodically, "OK, why do you spend (so much) time on this." The Likes and number of responses in a thread have long ceased to give a high : ) and the answer to the "why" makes me think. I found that mostly it is a diversion from other work. In some ways, my social media use for me is like a child reading a story book instead of a textbook needed for homework.
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Me too thinks that way. You have summed up for me here.
Thanks and Regards.

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Social Media Habits & Addictions

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