Social media is currently being used by around 30% of the worlds population. They surely have a major influence on society. In this post I will look at the pros and cons of social media and how they affect your life.
Social Media is rewiring your brain
This goes for the internet in general as well. It's been shown that around 10% of social media users are unable to control how much time they spend online. Studies have shown that although its a psychological addiction rather than a physical addiction like some substances, it still affects many of the same parts of the brain.
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It has also been shown to cause a deterioration in white matter in some regions of the brain linked to attention, emotion and decision making. Social media provides immediate psychological rewards with very little effort needed, your brain begins to crave this stimulation.
No one is really your friend
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If you go through your friends or followers list, how many of these people are actually your friends? Yes, you might see there status updates or selfies every now and again. You see a side of them they choose to publicize with the world, but do you actually know them?
Rewarded for Shit Posts
[Credit: New Yorker]
If you look at what's trending on most social media sites you will see a pattern emerge- Selfies showing your muscles, cleavage, flaunt your money and present yourself as a celebrity. This will get you many followers on Instagram/Twitter. It's all about the fastest way to get more followers.
People measure their self worth in how many likes they get or how many followers they've got. Bear in mind that this means posting shit that you know people will like to see. Even if it is not you at all.
I would much rather have no following and post about things that I actually care about rather than have this false sense of success by posting what people want to hear.
Why Steemit is different
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From what I've experienced so far on Steemit, I have had a vastly different experience than that of the other major Social Media sites. I feel like people use their up-votes much more sparingly. They upvote content that actually means something to them.
Whether it's the current community or the rewards system that's at play, it seems that you are rewarded for posting helpful, interesting and well thought out posts which takes time and provides value to readers. You don't see many shit posts rising to the top, even comments seem to be much more thoughtful and people take time writing insightful responses to posts.
Even though Steemit can be addictive too, at least you're not wasting your time with it. You are actually rewarded financially for providing value to others. It is not the same instant gratification like that you would get from posting a quick tweet to your followers.
Also it's a platform for free speech, it is highly censorship resistant. Granted, it's still somewhat community guided. If the community dislikes something or it contains hate speech, I think you'll find that it naturally will not be seen by many. Facebook recently came under fire removing some athiest pages.
It's more than just a social media platform, it's deeper than that. While I'm not sure where where Steemit will be a few years from now, I'm confident the core ethics of this community will remain and I look forward to being a part of it.