The Social Game
When I was a teen, I remember my friend talking about this new site online called thefacebook.com. We were both in the same band at the time, and he was thinking of making a page for the group. The only caveat was to start using the band page I needed to create a personal profile- so I signed up. Things were great for a while, other friends I knew signed up and people were connecting with us and listening to our music. As Facebook grew up though things started to change. What was once a place to connect with friends became a bloated mess of news, notifications, messages, and advertisements. I eventually decided to quit Facebook for good and I’ve never looked back.
About this same time, a newcomer was emerging on to the social scene and its name was Instagram. I was immediately intrigued by its simplicity - a collection of photos with descriptions and that was it. This was a breath of fresh air to me as my frustrations with Facebook centered around its complexity. As every platform inevitably does though, things have slowly changed. The interface started getting more features and becoming more powerful. Shopping, instant messaging, and video slowly began transforming this simple idea into a nuanced and trend-setting social power. With these features rolling out, I found myself spending more time on the platform and began constantly checking the app for either new posts, likes, or news. It felt in some ways like I was addicted. So I started researching the topic and was surprised to find out it wasn’t something wrong with me, but the design of the platform itself.
Many techniques are deployed to keep you using apps, one of which is called gamification. This technique has long been used in advertising and has moved into the tech world through coding and app design. These “features” are intentionally designed to be addictive and prey on our own brain's neural biases to get us hooked. That’s when I took action and temporarily deactivated my account. After about a month of not using Instagram, I reactivated my account to see what I would find. It only took a few days to realize I didn’t miss it at all. Here are my reasons why.
Fake Relationships
Keeping tabs on my friend's activities just felt superficial. What I interpreted as connecting was actually just a highly curated reality show starring my friends. This made me more lazy about actually going out and enjoying quality time with them.
Addictive Features
With a little research, I learned how these “features” are designed to be addictive but it wasn’t until I stopped using the platform did these tactics become apparent to me. One suggestion I’d give if you want more control, but don’t want to leave social media is take the apps off your phone and only use a computer. This automatically bypasses much of the addicting features and behaviors attached to the mobile apps, but still allows you to stay connected.
Attention Based Business Model
The core idea of these social platforms is focused on advertising and attention. If they can get your attention, and keep it for long periods of time, they make more money. You essentially become the product, and for the vast majority of users, that’s all they will ever be. Now some people have been able to tip the scale and receive value from these platforms, but those stories are few and far between.
These three things [and a few others] have created the perfect storm so to speak for me to call it quits on Instagram. Although I don't have accounts from "the big three" anymore [Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.] I haven't become a social hermit. I've instead turned my attention to platforms and apps that provide lots of value and revolve around my interests including design.
For some, deleting a social account may be an extreme route to take, but this really comes down to where you find value online. If you get lots of value from your social accounts, then, by all means, keep them- this isn’t all or nothing. Just make sure you know how to play the game, or the game will play you.