The opportunity cost of social media
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Social media has become a vital aspect of our day. If you are like me your day starts with social media and possibly ends with social media as well. In fact, I just checked the screen time metrics on my phone and found that I spent a whooping 6ish hours on my phone screen! Most of it on social media -
I literally spent close to 25% of my day browsing memes, liking photos and rejoicing TikTok trends.
I want to dissect the Good and the Bad of browsing through social media so that we can make an informed choice about it.
The good -
Immersive —
Social media applications are intentionally built to be immersive. Have you noticed that after 3 tiktoks or so, your hand is able to scroll past videos without your conscious decision. You are inside the app’s experience. I think this immersive state is super powerful! Imagine if we had such an immersive experience with education.
Intelligent —
I am an anime loving, fitness enthusiast who enjoys coding. (a mouthful intro, I know) Social media apps are able to correlate that and my interests, recent search history, current location and spending habits to curate an enticing list of videos/photos. Such an intelligent algorithm can be leveraged to learn pretty much anything in the world! From solving a rubix cube to building your very own cryptocurrency. 😛
Interconnection —
Social media has made it easier than ever to stay connected with our friends and family across the globe. I feel that I am more involved in the happiness of my loved ones thanks to social media!
The bad -
Fake —
As most of us might already know — Social media is mostly fake — fake happiness, fake mantras and fake ideas of success. Despite knowing that it is fake, we sometimes let that (mis)information get the best of us.
Fruitless —
Most of the time I spend browsing social media, there is no agenda. Actually the only agenda I am fulfilling is wasting my precious time!
