Social Media Diet

So, what's it like in the Rabbit Hole?

Whilst being active on social media, our objectives are essentially selfish. Let's be honest, we can list our desires from social in a very short list.

  1. Wanting to get noticed. 
  2. Wanting to get noticed. 
  3. Wanting to get noticed.

The advice for getting noticed runs in the millions of posts across the web. It is literally deafening and equally overwhelming. There is so much stuff out there that we have gone blind. Our brains are zoning out the noise, our subconscious has been trained to ignore the majority of content that's being pushed out in front of us. The major social networks are managing to convince us that to get noticed you have to advertise, organic content isn't going to hack it.

Unless you make a conscious effort to seek content out for a particular and motivational reason, you are actually ignoring most things. Again they are hoping that advertising will make a difference to this.

However the most engaged conversations that I witness is when someone posts a controversial comment, accuses a big corporate of bad service or they say something about themselves that is deeply personal. After all we are very very curious (nosey) and interested in other people’s bad news or controversy. The, let's call it, old fashioned media have known this for centuries. The bad and controversial news about government leaders, business and celebrities is what interests people the most. Good news stories don't sell newspapers or online clicks for the advertisers.

Just pause for a moment. What was the last good news story you remember? Please do share it in the comments below, we all love hearing a good news story, there's so much bad news out there.

We are all ‘social media-holics’ in one way or another. Granted there will be people not on social media yet, but have a look at the stats, they are astounding.

3 Billion active social media users on the planet and growing every single day. Facebook has a mission to get Africa on the internet for one primary reason, allow them to get onto Facebook. 

LinkedIn has a mission to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce, last count there are 3 billion of those! Their platform is at half a billion currently, so they have some distance to travel and no doubt they will do it. 

Can you imagine how much content is going to be posted on these platforms when developing nations achieve massive internet access in the remotest parts of the world?

All the social platforms know that the western world are highly addicted and eventually will start dropping of members, so they have to look at other nations in the world to keep their billions of revenue coming in.

Nothing wrong with that of course, except creating more addicts in the world, more 'social media-holics'.

If you have managed to cut through the noise and found this article, well done to you!

My advice to you and I'm only talking to you directly, nobody else. 

Reduce your social media posting to just one post per day of your own content. Then spend more time if you wish, on just one platform of your choice, engaging with your connections' content. 

And with that I mean real conversations not a link post as such. 

Just do this once per day, spend just 20-minutes researching your connections and respond to their real conversations.

That's it, it's my new minimalism social media strategy.

Looking forward to having more meaningful conversations with you.

@stayingaliveuk | #makesocialworthtalkingabout

Online is great and talking is even better. Everyone's ultimate goal in business and life is to make real connections, where you meet someone face to face. Before that meeting a conversation is the ultimate icebreaker. I value my LinkedIn connections and realise that I don't really know you or what your goals are and how I might facilitate or support those goals. Feel free to click through and book a call with me http://styin.me/discovery-call-20mins.

Have you been on a Social Media Diet yet?

Well if you haven't yet, I promise you that one day you will.

I feel for parents these days. They have the toughest job, especially with addicted kids and teenagers. Addicted to their emotions and technology. I know we joke about Wi-Fi and Battery life being before Physiological needs on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, but it's probably true. Try taking a teenager's smartphone away from them and they won't be talking to you for weeks, if ever. You might as well have chopped off their right arm. 

This is the opening sentence by Tristan Harris during his latest Ted Talk filmed in April 2017;

'I want you to imagine walking into a room, a control room with a bunch of people, a hundred people, hunched over a desk with little dials, and that that control room will shape the thoughts and feelings of a billion people. This might sound like science fiction, but this actually exists right now, today.'

He used to work in one of those control rooms. He witnessed that the major social networks that we love and hate are planning to make sure that they grab, as he calls it, a bit of your mind's time. So all those social networks, all of them, want a bit of your mind's time, time you never knew you had to give to them. Even when you are reading this article you are giving a bit of your mind's time to something you never knew was going to happen or even needed it to happen. By me writing this, sharing it on the internet, I am asking you to invest a bit of your mind's time into reading my article. 

I've been sucked in by all of the networks in believing that I also should be, not only investing my mind in absorbing the content, I should be creating it too so others can invest their mind's time into my content.

Tristan talks about a feature on Snapchat called 'Snapstreaks'. Here's what he says;

'And they invented a feature called Snapstreaks, which shows the number of days in a row that two people have communicated with each other. In other words, what they just did is they gave two people something they don't want to lose. Because if you're a teenager, and you have 150 days in a row, you don't want that to go away. And so think of the little blocks of time that that schedules in kids' minds'.

Watch Tristan's TED Talk in full. 'The manipulative tricks tech companies use to capture your attention.'

Kids and teenagers are addicted to the internet, fact.

And dare I say it, I am and you are probably too. Want to take the test? Follow the link below. Maybe try and carry out the test on your child and teenager, somehow?

http://www.globaladdiction.org/dldocs/GLOBALADDICTION-Scales-InternetAddictionTest.pdf

Analyse Your Results:

0-20: Not at all nomophobic. You have a very healthy relationship with your device and have no problem being separated from it.

21-60: Mild nomophobia. You get a little antsy when you forget your phone at home for a day or get stuck somewhere without WiFi, but the anxiety isn’t too overwhelming.

61-100: Moderate nomophobia. You’re pretty attached to your device. You often check for updates while you’re walking down the street or talking to a friend, and you often feel anxious when you’re disconnected. Consider a personal detox.

101-120: Severe nomophobia. You can barely go for 60 seconds without checking your phone. It’s the first thing you check in the morning and the last at night and dominates most of your activities in-between. You may need to seek professional assistance.

Read the full article: Technology and Internet addiction: How to recognise it and recover from it.

https://www.comparitech.com/internet-providers/technology-internet-addiction

You might also enjoy an article I wrote back in 2013 title: 'Do Social Networks Sell Drugs';

https://www.stayingaliveuk.com/blog/2013/06/do-social-networks-sell-drugs

Now I know that they do, as I have probably been an addict since then.

All of us for sure will be going on a Social Media Diet. And I have it in my mind to be writing the first one of it's kind. Mind you it means I will also have to try it out! Now that might be a lot tougher.

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Online is great and talking is even better. Everyone's ultimate goal in business and life is to make real connections, where you meet someone face to face. Before that meeting a conversation is the ultimate icebreaker. I value my LinkedIn connections and realise that I don't really know you or what your goals are and how I might facilitate or support those goals. Feel free to click through and book a call with me http://styin.me/discovery-call-20mins.