Social Media: A Psychic Cancer

Signed-off-by: Christine Dodrill <me@christine.website>

blog/social-media-psychic-cancer-2021-07-29.markdown

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+---
+title: "Social Media: A Psychic Cancer"
+date: 2021-07-29
+author: Heartmender
+tags:
+ - nosocialday
+---
+
+There is a leech at the heart of many people's daily routines. It is a vampiric
+leech designed to broker access to dopamine, created and maintained by
+psychology experts in order to manipulate you into scrolling, posting, sharing
+and to just be angry. By leeching away these positive feelings (and feeding into
+the baser sides of the lizard brain's anger) it makes it harder to focus on
+things other than its iron grip on your focus.
+
+How many times have you looked at newsfeeds today? How many minutes have you
+burned scrolling down in a desperate hope to find something that gives you the
+happy chemical? How many times have you thought against posting something
+because it has a lower chance of being accepted by the community?
+
+How many times has the notification bell given you joy by seeing the number go
+up?
+
+This is becoming a cancer on humanity. It is leeching our focus and
+reprogramming our minds through operant conditioning.
+
+Yet at the same time it is a pillar of modern civic participation, and with the
+pandemic it has become a vital communication flow for people that were once able
+to communicate in person easily.
+
+I'm not sure how to best handle this issue, this is a bigger multifaceted issue
+than individuals can really take on their own. It's a societal problem. It's
+bigger than just people or small groups of them, it's something that affects us
+all.
+
+I'm going to participate in Social Media Detox Day on August 2nd, 2021. To get
+more information about it, click here: [detox.earth](https://detox.earth/). I
+will embed [a video by Techlore](https://youtu.be/HUQqHYjl2Pk) below:
+
+<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HUQqHYjl2Pk"
+title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay;
+clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture"
+allowfullscreen></iframe>
+
+I'm going to keep notes on paper with my feelings. I will probably not release
+them.
+
+Be well.