Why I know I’m hooked on social media

I’ve tried to resist my smartphone and Facebook but now I’ve read the chilling proof about why my resistance was futile.

AT first, I resisted my smartphone.

It had once been a useful device that meant you didn’t have to stay home all the time and wait for people to ring you – but now it has taken over my life, a cuckoo that’s moved into my nest and never moved out.

I vaguely recall appreciating real-life interactions and valuing the present, but those moments gradually became less of a priority as I began to view the world through a smartphone and what it connected me to: social media.

Facebook was my first. I was among the more than 2 billion people who used it every month and one of the 1.3 billion people who checked in every day.

And my smartphone use wasn’t too far off the average consumer who apparently checks their phone 150 times a day and makes more than 2000 swipes and touches.

The apps people use most – and therefore see their advertising the most – are owned by Facebook, Twitter and Alphabet (which owns Google and YouTube).

In terms of scale and followers, Facebook and YouTube are similar to Christianity and Islam respectively. Just pause for a moment to let that sink in.

But I’ve now managed to deactivate my Facebook account. It was tough at first, like banishing yourself from your own village. But I did it and have never looked back.

Of course, though, there’s still Instagram and Twitter. Doh!

Lately, I’ve been asking myself whether I have some sort of addiction to all this stuff; whether it consumes too much of my time when there are more important things to do.

And then this week – there it was, one of the most chilling interviews I’ve read in a week of pointlessly swiping and touching my phone.

Facebook’s original president, Sean Parker, admitted the company intentionally sought to turn users into addicts.

The 38-year-old calls himself ‘‘something of a conscientious objector’’ on social media and was giving an interview to Axios magazine about how social networks purposefully hook into our brains.

‘‘It literally changes your relationship with society, with each other,’’ he said. ‘‘It probably interferes with productivity in weird ways. God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains.’’

He recalled that when Facebook was starting out and he met people who said they weren’t on social media because they valued reallife interactions, being in the moment, and intimacy, he would always tell them he would ‘‘get you eventually’’.

Parker explained how the intention of these apps was to get as much of your time and conscious attention as possible.

‘‘And that means that we need to sort of give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while because some liked or commented on a photo or a post of whatever. And that’s going to get you to contribute more content, and that’s going to get you… more likes and comments. It’s a socialvalidation feedback loop … exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because you’re exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology. We understood this consciously. And we did it anyway.’’

Good grief. Now, even my 69-year-old mother has just joined Facebook.

But now that we know all these manipulative strategies, are we able to fight against them and deliberately free ourselves from their grip? Unfortunately not. Most likely, I’d just share it on my social media so people can read about it on their phone.

Facebook’s original president, Sean Parker, admitted the company intentionally sought to turn users into addicts.’