I want to talk about social media a little, and its effects on our brain. Hive.blog is a social media platform too but it isn't a one way street, you gain money and knowledge when you put your time and effort in here. I want to talk about the ones that takes your time but gives nothing in return.
Some social media platforms like instagram uses algorithm to keep you engaged to the app so you spend your precious time on it. On the process you probably postpone the things you have to or want to do. Just like being hypnotized you just cant get out. Think about that happening everyday. Wouldn't postponing the things you have to do everyday affect your life on the long run? It can. And it does. If you watched the Netflix documentary Social Dilemma you know there are people who are in war with social media claiming it destroys people's free will.
That brings up the question of what is free will?
According to Britannica Free will, in humans, the power or capacity to choose among alternatives or to act in certain situations independently of natural, social, or divine restraints.
But because we are being manipulated to stay on these apps there really isn't a choice anymore. It has become something that we all are accustomed to do. We don't question it.
Free will has to involve some degree of creativity and unpredictability in how you respond to the world. That your future might be more than your past. That you might grow, you might change, you might discover. Now, the thing that counters that is when your reactions to the world are locked into a pattern that, by design, is making you more predictable – for the benefit of someone else.
-JARON LANIER
Source
The more i research and learn about this the more i feel like we have been victims to some big social experiment that gone terribly wrong. There are no sane specialists that protects participants from getting harmed. We are simply left alone.
So what can we do to protect ourselves? We need to take initiative in this. Maybe years from now governments will enact new laws to protect us from being exploited by these big companies. But by then we have to take control of our time.
“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”
― Andy Warhol
