YOUR ARE THE PRODUCT – SHOCK, HITS & DOPAMINE
So social media is broken, but what if they took the “Numbers” off the videos, likes and shares? what difference would that make? what if the social media platforms stop rewarding shock videos that only serve to desensitise its audience and started to reward quality content, positive content and creative innovations. What difference that would make?
Its a common understanding that each “Like” or “Share” or “View” gives us a dopamine hit. Which must be the origin of the word Dope and there for Dopey, but what many people do not understand is that THEY have become the product and to get your hit of dopamine you must serve up your content in a way that is shocking and desensitises its audience, and we only have ourselves to blame….WHY?
Because it is WE who click on that video of someone falling over, someone getting arrested or someone hurting themselves or others in someway. The only reason the numbers go up is because WE watch them, and when the numbers go up the creator gets a hit of dopamine and with that they tailor their next piece of content in that same vain.
I believe social media is only really capitalising on a whole loop of negativity put into our systems through mainstream media, alternative media, advertising, music, religion and Hollywood and never has that been more apparent than today. So the problem is not social media, it is only a baby in the universe in the grand scheme of things, but those numbers, those views and those likes are engineered BY US to reflect our interests.
So what can we do?
Here is a great video by Tara Truly Social that covers some of these topics and offers great advice on how to combat the issue.
