Instant Gratification For The Masses

I think one of our biggest problems as a society today is that we’re teaching children not only to post their lives constantly, but to get in the habit of seeking immediate feedback.

It’s this need for constant, immediate feedback that concerns me most. We’ve taught ourselves to skip the long term goals, or creating meaningful work, in order to focus all our attention on the short term shots of dopamine we get from likes and comments.

On top of this, we’ve also created a culture of fear that if you’re not on a platform, you’ll miss out. You’ll be ostracized, a loser, and unknown… Surely your social life will suffer, right? Surely you’re brand will suffer. Surely, people won’t like you, right?

I disagree with all of that. I counter that with, maybe you’ll finally find something actually worth saying?

Sometimes we need a break from all the noise!

I’m a working adult, and I know I need it. I can’t imagine how the children and young teens growing up in it right now feel.

Are we really creating our best work? Are we really working towards long term meaningful goals? Or are we just mindlessly walking day to day controlled by the immediate feedback, or lack thereof that we get from others?

Are we taking challenges and facing fears, or are we just running along with the blind masses?

Great work takes time. It takes all of our focus working towards long term goals. Those things are hard to do when we’re checking social media every five seconds for new shots of dopamine.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not meaning to come off like I’m above this, because I’m not.

I write this because I used to be like this all the time. I got in the habit of scrolling through my feed, checking everyone else’s life, everyday. I don’t even think I was using it abnormally. That’s just how it’s taught to be used.

Every time I got bored, I would check my phone. I would scroll through my news feed. It was like a slot machine that I just kept going to over, and over, and over. I didn’t like it, but I was afraid to choose any other route.

I don’t even think I was aware of what I was doing. I was just controlled by it.

I may not be above it now, but I’m at least aware of it, and I now I’ve taken myself off social media to spend a full year creating work with no feedback. When I come back to social media, I’ll have a full 365 days of content to post, that I first made for me.

One of my good friends is Cooper, from Garage Gym Reviews. He’s got over 100,000 followers on instagram, and around 61,000 subscribers on youtube, at the time of this writing.

He used to tell me all the time that I should do more with my art. I should post more on social media. I always agreed with him, but I just never could find the time. When I’d try to post something, I would always get caught looking at everyone else’s feeds out of habit first. I would use the excuse of looking for inspiration, or trying to make sure what I’m saying would be well received. Thus, posting took forever, and worried me, so I never really had any consistency.

Now that I’m off social media, I feel like I have way more free time. The proof is in the work. Since going off social media, I’ve created hundreds more journals, way more drawings, and discovered a long term goal worth pursuing.

Cooper also told me that he schedules his posts in advance, and that he has some type of app installed on his phone that empties his news feed, so he doesn’t get overwhelmed by the information either.

In conclusion, it’s hard to create any meaningful content with any consistency when we’re always checking everyone else’s lives. It’s not normal to see as much information about everyone else’s lives as most of us do. Remember, this is new. This is all because of the creation of social media which is barely over a decade old. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, or controlled by it, take a break, or leave social media all together. Life will be okay.