There are various ways how the unreflective social media use is bad; not all apply to all people, but many do.
From the perspective of productivity, yeah it drops dramatically when you spend the entire day online, but it is not the only thing that drops. Meeting people outside your home, and even interacting with people in your home, is impacted, too.
And even on the most private level (even if you live alone and don’t care about anyone around you, and you have sustainable free income and zero ambition), there is still the selfish question “does it actually make me satisfied”, and I am afraid the answer is.… kinda yes, kinda no.
Consuming random stuff online feels fantastic in short term; that’s what makes it so addictive. Tons of things in your reach; if something annoys you, just click on something different, duh. You can spend the entire day doing the most enjoyable thing, so in theory it should be your best day, but in practice… it’s not? (Not sure how much I can generalize from my example here.)
One aspect is the “endlessness” of it all. There is always another forum, another web comic, another whatever it is that you want to consume, and that’s… surprisingly, not the best way to have things. Seems like humans naturally need change, need to take breaks. We have multiple needs, if we keep satisfying one of them and ignoring another, after some time is starts to feel bad.
For example, when you finish reading a great book, it’s time to close it and relax, and let your mind organize the impressions. There may be a feeling of regret: “I wish I had more of this”. But in some sense the moments after you finish reading the book are an important part of the experience. The input stopped, now your mind is playing with itself, organizing the experience. Rememeber the “peak-end rule”; when you reflect on the book, you will mostly remember its best moments, and whether the ending was satisfying. With an endless book, there is no ending; no feeling of “now I know how it all ended”. Similarly, you can chat with friends around the world, but those chats usually have no conclusion, no agreement on things, no next chapter. It’s just an endless stream.
The only way to stop engaging with an endless thing is to walk away in the middle… which feels bad if the thing was good, but if the thing was already bad then what were you doing there already? It’s usually like our enjoyment gradually decreases, and we leave after it crosses some threshold (probably much later, because we don’t notice immediately, or we may hope that the enjoyment will return). In contrast, a finite thing can simply be good, and then you can walk away satisfied and start doing a different kind of a good thing.
Another aspect is “trading quality for convenience and quantity”. Good movies are better than most youtube videos, but those videos are there, and they are okay-ish, and there is a lot of them. Similarly, good books are better than most online debates.
Sometimes this is on purpose, especially with paid content (but with advertising, everything is) -- the endlessness and quantity are the ways to extract most money from you. Now of course, even a good classical writer may publish another book to make more money. But the books are separated, each one requires a new decision. Internet tries to take this decision from you by making the endless flows continuous.
In summary, a life spent reading good books, watching good movies, and doing offline activities with your friends will probably be more enjoyable in reflection than a life spent scrolling endlessly. And this is true even assuming zero ambition.
There are various ways how the unreflective social media use is bad; not all apply to all people, but many do.
From the perspective of productivity, yeah it drops dramatically when you spend the entire day online, but it is not the only thing that drops. Meeting people outside your home, and even interacting with people in your home, is impacted, too.
And even on the most private level (even if you live alone and don’t care about anyone around you, and you have sustainable free income and zero ambition), there is still the selfish question “does it actually make me satisfied”, and I am afraid the answer is.… kinda yes, kinda no.
Consuming random stuff online feels fantastic in short term; that’s what makes it so addictive. Tons of things in your reach; if something annoys you, just click on something different, duh. You can spend the entire day doing the most enjoyable thing, so in theory it should be your best day, but in practice… it’s not? (Not sure how much I can generalize from my example here.)
One aspect is the “endlessness” of it all. There is always another forum, another web comic, another whatever it is that you want to consume, and that’s… surprisingly, not the best way to have things. Seems like humans naturally need change, need to take breaks. We have multiple needs, if we keep satisfying one of them and ignoring another, after some time is starts to feel bad.
For example, when you finish reading a great book, it’s time to close it and relax, and let your mind organize the impressions. There may be a feeling of regret: “I wish I had more of this”. But in some sense the moments after you finish reading the book are an important part of the experience. The input stopped, now your mind is playing with itself, organizing the experience. Rememeber the “peak-end rule”; when you reflect on the book, you will mostly remember its best moments, and whether the ending was satisfying. With an endless book, there is no ending; no feeling of “now I know how it all ended”. Similarly, you can chat with friends around the world, but those chats usually have no conclusion, no agreement on things, no next chapter. It’s just an endless stream.
The only way to stop engaging with an endless thing is to walk away in the middle… which feels bad if the thing was good, but if the thing was already bad then what were you doing there already? It’s usually like our enjoyment gradually decreases, and we leave after it crosses some threshold (probably much later, because we don’t notice immediately, or we may hope that the enjoyment will return). In contrast, a finite thing can simply be good, and then you can walk away satisfied and start doing a different kind of a good thing.
Another aspect is “trading quality for convenience and quantity”. Good movies are better than most youtube videos, but those videos are there, and they are okay-ish, and there is a lot of them. Similarly, good books are better than most online debates.
Sometimes this is on purpose, especially with paid content (but with advertising, everything is) -- the endlessness and quantity are the ways to extract most money from you. Now of course, even a good classical writer may publish another book to make more money. But the books are separated, each one requires a new decision. Internet tries to take this decision from you by making the endless flows continuous.
In summary, a life spent reading good books, watching good movies, and doing offline activities with your friends will probably be more enjoyable in reflection than a life spent scrolling endlessly. And this is true even assuming zero ambition.