How social media strategizes us to think that we are paying attention

Your brain is always on the lookout for something interesting.

This is a good thing in most cases. When you go to the grocery store, you can tell the hunting is going on. Are you looking for good sales or trying to decide between Thai food or chicken curry. In a bookstore, you can look at a few covers and see an interesting title or a colorful design in a flash. The next thing you know you are carrying a pile of books at home.

This constant search uses a part of our brain called the temporal lobe. As the name implies, this is the region that allows us to “catch and release” anything Controls attention On a temporary basis. We like this kind of temporal activity because most of us get bored easily; We are happy if there is a constant stimulus of attention. The attraction of material “things” means our brains can change focus and keep looking for something worthy of our attention.

I am referring to shopping because, when we go to a store, our temporal lobe is firing on all the cylinders. I live near an Amazon 4-star brick-and-mortar store that sells only top-rated products (sadly, It looks like it will be closed soon) I’m way too late. It’s fun to browse top-rated board games, then explore the top-rated gadgets. I’ve been reviewing products for the last 20 years, so seeing all the “good things” in one place is a dream come true. I’m fascinated by products for sale. I get lost in the moment and time settles down.

If our brains were not easily captivated, we would always be in the slow slogan of monotony. You can also say that a sign of burnout or frustration is when we are not fascinated by something and have to work harder to find interesting deviations in our lives.

I feel it at the moment when I’m on the road, walking through the airport and staying at the hotel. I’m not interested in discovering new things without pillows at the hotel. I am not easily fascinated by new experiences, when I usually go back to my phone instead.

That’s the problem. Social media has changed the smartphone market in recent years, and not better. The algorithm is constantly feeding us interesting information, pictures, posts and videos. (This is a reason Articles on being productive on your phone Exists.) Our temporal lobe is happier to be involved with the content because we scroll and scroll and scroll.

What is actually happening? Go back to my example of shopping at that Amazon 4-star store: Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and every other social media app constantly shows us interesting, catchy posts and videos. We scroll happily because our brains are connected to wires for interesting diversions, and social media is the most effective option.

You might think it’s not like addiction and you’ll be right. At least, most are correct. I like to think of constant scrolling Temporary attention syndrome, An illness that is like an addiction but not quite the same. With addiction, we desire a stimulus that we know is obligatory and effective. With temporary attention syndrome, we are constantly looking for new stimuli. We like that it is temporary and transient; The more transient the better. We soak the stimulus and move on to the next, usually within a few seconds.

Over the past few years, after studying social media and how it pays off but at the same time incredibly dangerous, I’ve noticed that the problem is getting worse. We are desperate for how the temporal lobe works. We are scrolling more than ever.

The solution is not so simple. We need to extricate ourselves from this constant stimulus, readily available in our plastic devices. The big challenge of our age is to come up with a way to disconnect ourselves from the cycle of fake attention stimuli.

Social media isn’t actually providing a spectacular experience anyway; The correct answer is, as a first step, to understand that some basic brain science is involved, then to get out of the cycle, instead of finding new things to focus on and controlling our use as a way to fight addiction.

Where to start? My advice hasn’t changed in the last two years: make sure you only use these apps for a limited time, or delete them until you need them again. It starts with acknowledging that apps control us and choosing to control them instead.

Need help overcoming your scrolling problem? Send me a note via email and I promise to respond with a few more tips and provide some basic anti-scrolling techniques.