Imagine a world where you measure yourself up against every single person you meet. A world where your worth is calculated in ratings given by every single person you meet. Where you can see how well you’re doing in real time. Adjust your behavior, image, or attitude to influence your ratings. This is actually the world a Black Mirror episode, Nosedive, depicts, with eerie resemblance to our current interaction with social media. A world where ongoing metrics quantify how well our personalities, acts, and physical selves are performing.

The rating machine

Fiction aside, now imagine a world where your participation in this ratings game brings millions of dollars to the people who created the rating machines. Where, in essence, you are the unwitting and unpaid employees of these companies, earning them millions thanks to your hard work and dedication that takes hours and hours from your every day. That world already exists.

That sums up our relationship with social media and its ubiquitous, addictive social feedback loop. In his book, Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked, Adam Alter explores the intricacies behind what makes our new technologies so addictive. In particular, in this extract from chapter nine of the book, he analyzes the role of social interaction in getting us hooked. Alter explains that it isn’t so much the quality of the service an app offers, nor the price, nor the first-comer advantage that guarantees the success of one new technology over another, but rather the ability to share and like and comment. He illustrates this in a simple comparison between two similar apps created just one year apart, Hipstamatic in 2009 and Instagram in 2010.

The comparison is powerful when you note that Hipstamatic, the first-comer app, with photo editing technology that surpasses that of its rival, boasts over 4 million users on its website, while Instagram hovers around 1 billion users. To get an idea of just how big that difference is, 1 million seconds is 11,5 days and 1 billion seconds is 31,7 years. That’s an extraordinary gap in two apps which were both named app of the year, Hipstomatic in 2010, Instagram in 2011.

Although it is tempting to assume that it is the purchase of Instagram by Facebook that lead to Instagram’s fame, Alter wants us to understand another more subtle reason for Instagram’s bolting to success, and that is social interaction. From the start Instagram users posted their pictures to a dedicated social network. Instagram, like most social networks, taps into people’s endless desire to compare themselves to others. With likes, regrams, and comments, Instagram has people constantly seeking to reassure themselves and measure their worth compared to others, tapping into deep-seated desires for social approval and popularity.

The most addictive social media of all

Instagram has been so successful at this that it has been dubbed the most addictive of all social media, ranking worst for young people’s mental health.

Social currency of likes, regrams, and comments

In a world where likes, regrams, comments, and followers hold social currency, it’s no surprise that that social currency turns into real money in the hands of influencers. But there is also a price to pay for the glamour of influence and Alter speaks of the case of Essena O’Neill who famously denounced the addiction to social media, social approval, social status and physical appearance. Her disavowal of social media, changing her account to Social Media is not Real Life, made her one of the first to draw attention to the troubling contradiction of social media influencers. The value of an influencer’s content is its authenticity and yet there is nothing authentic in “contrived images and edited clips”.

So, what’s the upshot?

What attitude do we have towards this fabulous new tool? It’s really a matter of master or be mastered. Social media is irresistible. It’s made that way. Social interaction is irresistible. We’re made that way. But that doesn’t mean we have to accept blindly to let social media control our wants, actions, desires, and days! We can take our destiny into our own hands. Become active users instead of passive victims.

Become active users instead of passive victims

How do we do that?

Well, you can call technology to the rescue. There are various apps, such as these,  which you can download to keep your social media consumption in check. This may be a good start for some of you who feel their relationship with social media has become out of control. But this isn’t a cure-all. What we need is to change our relationship with social media. The following steps can help.

First – Become aware

Awareness is the beginning of taking back control. Read studies about techniques of behavior modification in social media. Listen to the growing voices of tech defectors who decry these techniques. Adam Alter is one. You’ll find many more here on this website. Pay attention to what they’re saying. If  Silicon Valley parents and  tech giants are limiting the screen use of their children, there’s perhaps good reason. If big names in social media are going on dopamine fasts to boost focus and creativity, there’s perhaps good reason. Find out why and decide how you want to deal with your own relationship with social media.

Second – Become a thinking user of social media

Go further. Take a step back and reflect. Reflect on why we’re online, what we go there for. Why we spend so much time. What are we looking for? Consider what we find and if social media is truly filling the needs, wants, and desires we are searching for? Gauge your mental state. Do you feel better after taking a spin, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 4 hours, all day, on Instagram? Or do you feel empty, joyless, insecure.

Third – Choose how YOU want to use social media

Don’t let an algorithm decide how you spend your day. Choose for yourself. From awareness and reflection, we become active users, taking advantage of the multiple possibilities social media offers us. Never before have our creative talents been more solicited. Never before have we had at our fingertips so many resources for learning, entertainment, self-expression, socializing, innovating, business creating, sales, marketing, self-promotion, job-seeking, fundraising, defending the causes that are dear to us. The list is endless. Take that list and choose how YOU want to use social media.