Samir GardnerThe Effortless Method · Coach

Why Most Are Addicted To Social Media

12 Mar 2022 · 2 min

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1:46

In this monologue, the speaker explains why platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok are highly addictive. He argues that these platforms serve as sources of social feedback, offering users a sense of belonging to a tribe of like‑minded people. When users receive likes or comments, they experience validation that can compensate for lacking love or relationships offline. The core addictive mechanism is the variable, unpredictable reward: users never know how many likes or comments a post will garner, and the surprise of receiving more than expected triggers heightened excitement and reinforces continued use. This combination of social validation and surprise‑driven reinforcement drives habitual engagement on social media.

Chapters

Instagram, Facebook, TikTok are all a platform for social feedback. Humans want to be around people that are like-minded. And so when, for example, someone else likes your comment or likes your post or comments on your post, it makes you feel a part of a tribe of like-minded people, basically. Sometimes people go on social media simply because they lack something. Like for example, a lot of people might just lack love, so they go on social media for validation. Some people might lack relationships, so they go on social media to find a tribe. Humans like way more the surprise than already knowing what they're gonna get. So when someone is about to post on Instagram, right, if he already knows how many likes he's gonna get, how many comments he's gonna get before posting, then he's not gonna be as excited or stimulated to post that thing. Because he knows he's gonna get like 10K likes and 100 comments. But if he didn't know, which basically happens 100% of the time on social media platform like Instagram, you don't know, it's inconsistent. You never know how much like you're gonna get at every post. So let's say you're gonna post something it's a surprise for you to see how many likes you're gonna get. And if you get like, let's say by surprise you get 15K likes and usually you get like 5K, then you're gonna be like, oh, and you're gonna feel like very, very excited and happy and everything or stimulated just for the moment because it's a surprise and a surprise drives you way more to do things rather than already knowing what the reward is.