Thread by @antonpadmasiri

Social media is bad for you in general. Use it wisely and hack it to your advantage (THREAD)

There are a few whom I follow on twitter who I'd label as avid tweeters. They will post upward of 50 original tweets, replies, quoted RTs a day. Easily.

To the best of my judgement, these tweeps are not tweeting as a part of their profession or for brand reasons (journalists, academics, industry experts etc.). They are tweeting on a personal capacity and straddling different subjects - politics, environment, sex, celebrity.....

The regularity with which these tweeps engage and stamina they have to stick with a debate got me thinking and reading up on psychology of SM. What I read prompted me to post this thread hoping others - mainly younger gen - might find it useful and do some reading of their own.

First, human brain 101 (just in case) - humans have 2 main parts to the brain. New and old. Old brain is the exact same that we inherited from our chimp cousins. It's a simple read-react system. Perceives social status, perceives and reacts to threats (flight/fight) + emotions

New brain, thanks to evolution, is for cognitive functions. However, if the old brain detects a threat (perceived or real), it takes over. In the face of an actual threat (cheetah in the bushes), survival is more important than writing a paper on hunting tactics of a cheetah.

Social media tickles our old brain. The "likes", "shares" and the "retweets" trigger dopamine releases signifying social status and on the flipside being unfriended, a friend request ignored, blocked, messages ignored create neurochemical deficits causing sadness

You know those arguments we provoke and are provoked by? At the right level of nastiness, the old brain detects a threat and takes over. It reacts with a stress response increasing blood pressure + supplying glucose to give energy for running away from or fighting the cheetah

Alas, there was no cheetah. Just elevated pressure and sugar in the system. Enough of these unused stress responses and suddenly you become insulin resistant causing you to develop diabetes and heart disease.

Business models of SM platforms rely on almost exclusively engaging our old brains. Easy dopamine hits via "likes" and "retweets". "Passionate" engagement for what we apparently believe in although they are baseless opinions. We are hooked and then sold to the advertisers.

Isn't it ironic that, in the age where almost all human knowledge is available for free at the click of a mouse, we spend disproportionately large amount of time on SM platforms arguing about stuff we have absolutely no control of and knowing full well the other side won't agree

This democratisation of opinions have created worse voters and unlike before the internet, where propensity for nutty ideas going viral was limited, now SM can snowball them into global phenomena. We need to hack it to our advantage.

❌ Arguments over things we have little control over
❌ Responding to provocateurs
✅Find subjects that interest you so you can research. Many Ivy League unis have made their courses freely available on the web. Spend more time there.
✅Exchange pleasantries, tips
✅Panda videos

For humanity's sake, do not give up your cognitive brain. Contrary to popular view, less time spent "engaging" and more time spent in solitude reading up freely available, well sourced material will make better informed voters and any sense of achievement more lasting.