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Remember Mindfulness – close eyes briefly
Social media addiction
Some social media applications are deliberately designed to be addictive. The providers want you to keep coming back. The facility to scroll, to ‘like’ a post and to ‘follow’ another person are all designed to involve you and keep you seeking positive feedback, so you feel unsatisfied if you don’t get it. Social media addiction is actually feedback addiction. It produces changes in brain chemistry similar to the effects of substance abuse. Symptoms of this, such as preoccupation, excessive time spent on the activity, exclusion of other interests and fear of missing out (FOMO), are clinically recognised although not included in the US Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Am I aware of the dangers?
Our egos interact with social media applications in a way that suits the ego perfectly, because social media is designed to meet our expectations and desires, however inflated and unreal they may be. Ego demands recognition on its own terms which basically means as much as possible. Sites that give us numerical tallies of friends, followers, likes, mentions and comments are just what an ego loves, and it goes for them like a dog at a bone. No matter that we’ve never met our friends or engaged with our followers, for a moment we can feel good and that, for many, is addictive. Today I ask help in managing my ego.