Contemplations of A Distracted Mind

Have you ever said to your mind, “I’m gonna have a look at Instagram for a few minutes”?

You start scrolling down and before you know it, those few minutes quickly turn into an hour. Sometimes, that hour can even turn into a couple of hours as well.

How often does this happen to you?

You know you should be limiting the amount of time spent scrolling down social media and even feel a bit guilty about it. Yet, you still do it!

But, at least you can take the consideration in that you are not alone. Billions of people in the world face the same contemplation as you do.

In 2019, it was estimated that around 45% of the world’s population uses social media and that people spend a total of 2 hours and 23 minutes on average on social media and as the image shows the trend seems to be increasing gradually.

Why are they so addicting?

Whether you believe it or not, we’re living in the Attention Economy in the context of social media.

Tech companies such as Facebook, Youtube(Google), and Snapchat don’t charge the people who use it any money. It is the brands who advertise on the platform that pay the big bucks that’s made these companies money machines.

As of writing this article, the total revenue of these companies stand at a total of 181 billion dollars in 2019 alone. That’s more than 7 times the GDP of Nepal!

The reason that you get to use it for free is because it is the eyeballs that give attention to such social media that keeps the money pouring in. The business model is based on maximizing the time we spend upon these applications.

As a result, us being addicted to them is no accident but rather by design. These applications are designed to be as addicting as possible and keep you engaged for as long as possible.

Dammit Dopamine

Behind the seamless interface that makes us stick in these platforms and the new features that are regularly added to make it even more addicting, you can be assured that there are engineers and scientists who are working their *brain* non-stop on maximizing your time in them.

Now, there is a reward chemical in our brains called Dopamine which plays a big part in our social media addictions. This is the chemical released in our brain that gives us a “feel good” feeling to anticipated pleasures.

Dopamine spikes occur when we have food, when having sex, consuming alcohol, and of course using social media. These things makes us feel good and that’s why we like them. Don’t we?

Now, what is dangerous is that we have access to our smartphones 24/7 and so it becomes a habit to constantly check social media. The key word to keep in mind is “anticipated pleasures”.

Let’s take the example of using Facebook.

Your in your room doing some homework. There’s a ting in your phone with a notification from Facebook about 20 new likes in your new profile picture. You feel socially validated and feel good. Now, you start scrolling through the news feed.

You see a post.

You now want to see another post.

Why?

You are curious about what comes next since there is a sense of unpredictability in content to come.

You see another post. And another and another. And another!

Before you know it, you’ve already spent 1 hour scrolling seamlessly. That 1 hour hardly even feels like 10 minutes.

We get spikes in our Dopamine levels with every anticipation being met and as a result, it becomes a kind of addiction. And, very few people have the willpower to consciously remove it. The Dammit Dopamine is a big part of this equation.

Consequences

The reason I have taken the time to write regarding this topic is because I have been in the position where I am using social media a lot more than I should and getting distracted from the things that actually matter.

The work to be done. Quality time with family. Investing time to read a good book. Fun Conversations with friends. And, Connecting with your spiritual side, among other things.

I’ve been in the position where I say okay I’ll just be here for short while. But, I most often than not end up there for a long while. All while, there is a sense of guilt for not using my time well in things that matter. But, again the dammit dopamine is an addicting phenomenon.

New Studies are even showing increased usage of social media with increased levels of anxiety and depression. That’s only the tip of the iceberg. Other consequences that have been shown include poorer quality and amount of sleep, feelings of loneliness, and fear of missing out (FOMO).

Deep Work

One of the best books regarding Focus in a Distracted World is a book called Deep Work by the author Cal Newport. The book provides arguments as to how getting the best productive output is possible with a state of high concentration without distractions on a single task.

This is especially relevant in the 21st Century that we are living in where knowledge workers thrive. The book has said how “the ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable.”

One very important concept in the book is about what Newport calls “Attention Residue”. In a nutshell, this means that when we switch from Task A to Task B, a residue of your attention remains stuck thinking about the previous task. Hence, when working on Task B, the level of focus is not as good as it can be.

It is enticing to utilize a 10 minute gap to check the social media. Yet, Newport makes the argument about how this could be reducing the quality of your work. It’s pretty clear that working without distractions makes sense. But, the hard part is to actually implement it in our life.

The one single activity that we can start to do immediately is to sit down and write a Stop-Doing List. By clearly defining what we have to stop doing, we will be able to better inhibit ourselves and retain our focus to product the best work possible. A great tool to use is the framework provided by Stephen Covey which is widely popular.

These social media platforms are not all bad. They help us to keep in touch with our friends and family as well as help us stay up to date on the different things going on in the world with does of entertainment.

But, the simple reality is that they are programmed so well to make us stick to it longer than meeting these intentions. So, I’d say that being aware of how social media works and it’s mechanisms could be helpful for us and living a better life overall.

What’s your opinion? I’d love to hear your perspective ;)

This article was originally published in my Linkedin profile here:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/contemplations-distracted-mind-anupam-bajracharya/