Suffering social media fatigue
ONE of the things I learnt last year is both how important social media is, and how insignificant it really is.
For a few months last year, I was a social media junkie. WhatsApp, Facebook and LinkedIn were the last things I checked at night; the first things I looked up when I woke up. When I sent a missive into cyberspace, I would check my status updates to see how many “likes” I got.
As I chugged along through the year, it began to occur to me that I was getting a bit too fond of my social media interactions. I liked all those positive strokes of Likes and Comments. Soon, I was checking several social media and messaging apps throughout the day.
Then I decided to spend some time in Australia. I stayed in Melbourne for a month or so, on leave and then telecommuting.
One weekend, the entire state of Victoria was on high alert for massive floods touted to be a once-in-acentury event; I cancelled all travel plans that weekend and stayed indoors.
In the end, the worst of the floods did not materialise but there was sporadic flooding across Victoria. Aussies took it in their stride, so inured are they to extreme weather. On previous visits, I’d been hit by thunderstorms that led to massive power failures, and by shrieking winds that could literally blow you off your feet. When life confronts you with its sheer physicality, your first resort is not to go to social media. It is to survive and find shelter somewhere safe. Facebook updates won’t help you cope with lashing rains or winds; in fact, it won’t even survive a power outage or a breakdown of your WiFi connection. An extreme weather event reminds you that life is real, it happens in the here and now, and it assaults your five senses.
Social media is a mere repository of life, not life itself.
So one recent morning, while mulling over what to write in my weekly blog, I prepared for the article not by checking what people are saying on social media but by spending a pleasant hour in the garden, pruning rose bushes, and watering plants. The sun beat down but I was well protected with sunscreen, hat, gloves and a longsleeved top. The air was cool, the bees hummed, and, after a while, time stood still. The hour slipped by. I have no photos to remember it by; no smart status update to post; only a memory of a lovely hour, and a deep sense of gratitude for life. For those few moments, that time was special, because it was just time happening with no expectations and no pressure.
Life happens, and sometimes we want to share it with others on social media. Sometimes we don’t. That is the proper order.
I was wondering if the sense of social media fatigue I experienced was just me; but it turns out, it’s not. Signs of social media fatigue are cropping up.
Twitter’s monthly average user subscriber growth was flat in the second quarter of 2017. While Facebook’s user base is growing, it is losing ground among teenagers and millennials.
A survey by professional services network Deloitte of consumer mobile use trends suggests that heavy usage of smartphones and devices – which are often used to check social media – is plateauing. People check their phones 47 times a day – which is high, but no higher than in past years. The report notes: “The number of times we look at our phones each day has not increased over the past three years, and the urgency with which we reach for our phones has plateaued as well .... ”
Some thought they were using their smartphones too much, notes the report. And which age group expresses the highest levels of concern? Seventy-five per cent of those aged 25 to 34, and 72% of those aged 18 to 24 report that they “definitely” or “probably” use their phone too much. Almost half (47%) of all ages said they try to reduce or limit smartphone use. Again, that trend is led by the two youngest age groups.
It isn’t just users who show signs of social media fatigue. Some social media pioneers are turning into jeremiads warning about overuse of the platforms they created.
YouTube’s cofounder and former chief executive Chad Hurley said last year that excessive checking of social media is unproductive.
He predicted: “I think there’s going to be a sense over the next few years that there’s going to be a social [media] fatigue that sets in. There’s so much information that is being produced, that people start tuning out.”
In November, Sean Parker, one of the co-founders of Facebook, was reported as saying that he thinks social media is damaging the health of humans’ brains. “It literally changes your relationship with society, with each other .... It probably interferes with productivity in weird ways. God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains.”
As many psychologists have noted, social media is designed around psychological theories about rewards and behaviour. For example, when people click Like or Share, two things happen: It immediately rewards the person who put up the post; and it engages the person who clicks Like or Share, turning a casual, bystander reader into a participant.
Over time, such practices lock users into the social media ecosystem and users get addicted to the rewards (number of Likes) in it.
When we look back on this decade, we will probably think of the smartphone and social media as key inventions that changed our lives. But it is even odds whether we will say they enhanced our lives or made them more stressful and less satisfying.
Meanwhile, there is an easy fix if you find yourself checking your phone for your social media updates too often. Stop and smell the roses. Or at least take a walk. And, no, Pokemon hunting while in the park doesn’t count. — The Straits Times/Asia News Network