Social Media is the Plato's Cave: What You Really Lose When You Scroll

Is short-form content short-lived?

Read what you really lose when you choose social media.

Anyone consuming social media content drops into passive living as a non-playable character, where you watch other people live, or rather, showcase random, carefully selected clips of their life.

It feels like you are involved in their lives or getting inspired, but rarely it actually makes you take inspired action. 

And even if it does, you would have found this inspiration within you anyway, without this social media post.

You could argue that “no, I am intentionally choosing to follow and check certain things only from social media and I am in total control of that”. 

Yes, lovely idea, shame that the algorithm does not let you do that anymore. 

I would say only search engine based medias still enable that; like Google to find websites, Pinterest to find visuals and Youtube to find videos. 

Every other media out there wants you to just get aimlessly lost in their content and spend as long time as possible. 

Only in Google, Youtube and Pinterest you still have some kind of chance to set your own intention first, before you are bombarded by everyone else’s thoughts, ideas and attention-grabbing tricks. 

I am not saying these platforms are without issues either, I mean they also have algorithms/AI, but these are definitely the lesser evils. 

And let’s admit it, it is hard to go into complete caveman offline life anymore, so it’s more fruitful to think of intentional and mindful internet usage, than acting like we are never going to look up anything online anymore. 

Why again would we anyhow want to limit this holy grail of social media?

Presence, clarity and peace.

These are traits that are all slowly eaten away by browsing. 

The more you browse, the less presence, clarity of mind, and peace you will have. 

I don’t know about you, but I could really strive to live a life with presence, clarity and peace. 

Even if you are a creator or entrepreneur, it is still 100% possible to leave social media completely behind. 

To be fair, as a content creator I make all my income outside of fast-form social media. 

And as an entrepreneur, I get all my clients completely without social media. 

So it is a complete scam that businesses need meta, or you can only be a creator on social media. 

I was the last one to join Instagram from my friends. Something of me resisted it for a long time, but I eventually gave in. 

And boy I got hooked. I got so excited about creating visual content, that a few years ago I actually got quite many paid collaborations with it. And yes, it was cool.

But I am not going to say it was fun; because in reality, I always felt like I didn’t get enough likes, or the content wasn’t just good enough, or always something that made me upset about Instagram. 

And what could be more addictive than positive, happy feelings?

Well, complex, negative feelings. 

So I’ve spent years creating and consuming content on Instagram. 

Lately I also have not felt like sharing my personal life anymore to friends and acquaintances, as it feels just creating this empty, entertaining content to strangers and stalkers. 

I would much rather send a video to a friend on whatsapp, than posting a story on Instagram. 

Sharing personal content on instagram feels like being a monkey in a cage; you put yourself out there to be judged, looked at, laughed at and commented at. 

I just don’t think it’s healthy to consume or share the everyday life. 

All of the Instagram content is just lacking either meaning or heart and soul - or all of it. 

I am not saying I am not loving all the dog videos of Instagram, but then again, I hardly think I miss out much in life if I skip those (sorry dogs, I'd rather see you live in parks outdoors).

Since humanity, we have loved to create.

It can be painting, writing, theatre, music, engineering, building, conceptualizing. 

Humans manifest things into reality constantly by creation.

Only difference of creation between now, during the era of social media, and the time before that is that all creation used to start with intention.

Artists didn’t call themselves artists because of sharing their everyday life.

Of course intention can be entertainment, like most of the social media truly is. 

So in that sense it’s not that different from what humans have always wanted; entertaining content. 

So why is it bad then?

Once again, in its simplest; too much fast content makes us lose presence, clarity and peace.

We do not stay there just for 1-3 dog videos in a scheduled time slot to reward ourselves, but we show up dozens of times a day, with zero intention, and zero knowing how many content pieces we end up consuming during a session. 

You could say what does this matter, we all die anyway and it’s just life, what’s so serious about browsing?

Well, I can definitely be wrong, and this is just how I personally perceive things, but I do feel the clearest, most confident and content with my life during the times I am not using social media. 

And it can’t be just random luck, that I happen to constantly meet more and more people who feel exactly the same about it and are craving for slower life.

Imagine, if 30-50 years from now, all short-form content has died out.

As humanity we have finally published to the great public the studies of how bad social media is for brain development, cognitive skills, life-quality and emotional wellbeing.

People would get back to reading, being present with each other, talking live rather than arguing online, and meeting up instead of suppressing loneliness into aimless browsing.

Does this sound like utopia?

Or only way forward in evolution if humans constantly strive for better?

You don’t need to be John Lennon to imagine this kind of world, simply start from yourself today, by committing for a day of social media detox. 

And then maybe another, maybe a week. 

Suddenly it’s a month. 

And eventually you do not miss it anymore, but you rather wonder how did you ever allow yourself to get into it so deeply, now that you’ve gotten back to slow living with presence, clarity and peace. 

Read more columns like this from Wonderlost

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