At the root of it all, we are all basically just rats in a cage. By that I mean we are constantly chasing the next dopamine hit, and we tend to stick with activities that provide the most dopamine for the least amount of effort. The only real difference between us and rats is that we are aware of ourselves. We have consciousness. It's both a good and bad thing.
Netflix, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Games, etc, all serve one purpose: to keep you entertained and hooked. Entertainment provides the most amount of satisfaction for the least amount of work but it's also one of the least fulfilling ways to spend your time long-term. People are weak though and succumb to hours spent across all of these platforms. I know not everyone here is hooked to the degree of the general public but the fact is that we are all still probably hooked too much.
There's nothing wrong with unwinding. The problem is that all of these services have engineers and psychologists doing their upmost best to keep you hooked and constantly wanting for more. Obviously it's no secret that there are extremely complicated algorithms in place to learn about you and then tailor content for you. So not only are you not really learning anything since it all becomes an echo chamber, you're basically being drugged.
And the (literal) buck doesn't stop with any one single instance of these platforms since they all feed on each other. People take what they've seen from Twitter or YouTube or wherever else on the Internet and put it on Reddit. It's a black hole from hell. Not only are all of these individual services addicting by nature, but they all link in and out of each other so that you're more likely to spend more time on average amongst them all. It's the same reason you see car lots right next to each other or Dollar Trees next to Walmarts.
All of this was probably never by design. I don't truly think Mark Zuckerberg or anyone else predicted this future where everyone's time is sucked away through meaningless entertainment that rarely offers any actual educational, artistic, or social value. The creators have simply built platforms in a capitalistic society that is designed to maximize profit by taking the most valuable thing in the world that you have: time.
Sometimes though I do think there is a mastermind out there somewhere that designed this system to keep people dumb and complacent. The "haves" never wanted the "have-nots" to think very much as that's bad for them. You distract people with a bunch of useless garbage to the point where that's all they think about and then you pretty much have nothing to worry about. Of course I don't think someone actually masterminded this, but it practically plays out this way.
I'll admit I am somewhat upset at all the time I've given some of these platforms. I've never been much on Facebook or Twitter, but I've definitely fell down the YouTube rabbit hole and probably spent too much time on Reddit. Hell, I've spent too much time on here as well (and it would be foolish to pretend no one is getting paid to keep me here), but I do consider it my most productive of time-wasters as it is somewhat educational.
I also think that the more addicted you are to instant gratification, the more likely you are to be complacent in your job. There are so many instant gratification jobs these days but like most of these Internet platforms designed to suck up your time for very little reward, they're something you should look past as well. I think it all feeds into itself and it's best to take a high-level view of this stuff and really decide where you should be spending your time.
Basically I think the solution is to just quit all social media and time-wasters altogether and get back to a point where things like learning and the satisfaction from doing difficult things are the only sources of dopamine you allow your brain to have. For most people these days, it isn't enough because they're trained to get a lot of reward for little effort.
I'm probably preaching to the choir here, but I just think it's interesting and more of a warning than anything. Not expecting anyone to quit the Internet, just make a more concerted effort to really live a life built for themselves and not constantly giving all of their time away to someone else. I mean, technically, you're constantly giving your time to someone else (I have taken up some of your time on this planet if you made it this far), but at least make a more concerted effort as to who you are going to give it to so that you maximize your rewards. That's my goal at least for myself.
