Hyper-productivity
The overstimulation of our brains and nervous systems that happens through the digital media has now become a common standard. We can stream music, listen to podcasts and news as well as use social media for pure entertainment. At the same time there is a trending notion of improving your looks, enhancing and optimising your daily routine, and becoming the best version of yourself being sold to us on every digital step. Even though, objectively, trying to level up your life and working on yourself is a positive phenomenon, the key to truly improving it is finding a healthy balance between work, whether it is physical or spiritual, and resting. So how in this day and age are we supposed to verify the information and stay critical of this kind of online content?
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Advisors of the year
On popular social media platforms you can come across many self-proclaimed experts in different disciplines. For example, there is always someone who talks about how to work out to achieve your goals faster, invest in a way that you can become a millionaire before turning 30 years old, improve your relationships or mental health. Many of them don’t have any education in that area, and I’m not trying to argue that everyone has to have a degree before saying something, but I strongly believe that context matters. Instead of using their followers’ dedication to ‘sell’ their advice as the only truth, they could be telling it as their own experience or just a story, so you can interpret it and apply it to your life in the way that suits you and not necessarily as a rule that will definitely change your life experience. It is possible to see their intention by comparing a certain video with the rest of their content. If they are copy-pasting the same advice to different situations or using a different clip to present it to the audience, then we may assume that they just want financial benefits from the clout.
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Reconnect with yourself
On the other hand you can also trace back your own intentions of consuming this medium. After seeing a questionable video you can take a step back and evaluate its message. Maybe a while ago you saw a similar video, what did you think about it then? Did you apply any of the suggested actions, did they help? Even though we know that social media stimulates our interest using algorithms, it is still so hard to resist them. A brief break in the consumption of the media makes you less emerged, and therefore more critical and able to assess the information more objectively. If it is needed, you can also go further and fact-check the information in other sources, not necessarily academic, but just to have a range of opinions.
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The constant scrolling shows us a paradox: we spend a lot of time looking at and engaging with the content by liking it and saving it for later, but rarely return to any of it. It happens because scrolling the endless feeds causes dopamine hits and fear of missing out. What if the next video offers me a better solution to my problem? The option to save or like the video makes you feel personally connected and instrumental, and therefore gives you an illusion of being productive or learning something without actual engagement. Staying critical and taking a step back while scrolling does not necessarily mean that we have to reject all the technology, but be mindful of how it works and what it does to our brains. Next time try to set a time limit, watch the content with a particular intention, or balance using social media with other entertaining activities. From that distance of slowing down, you regain control by choosing when and how to engage, which makes you more aware and may avert following possible misinformation.
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