Social Media is Killing Us: The Rise of Instant Gratification
Take Control of Your Mind
Our brains crave pleasure. I mean, who doesn’t like good things? In the past, our ancestors had to go out to hunt/kill their food.
Things have improved since then, and life has been good for recent generations. Everything is at our fingertips. The internet made this possible.
We have quick access to meals. We shop online and get our items in hours or days. We use social media to entertain ourselves, meet new people, and connect with friends and relatives. It’s a big part of our lives.
I work fully remotely. Like most people, the first thing I do in the morning is to grab my phone and start scrolling. A habit I’m trying to stop.
One morning, I found myself scrolling on X (formerly Twitter). For 30 minutes straight my face was glued to the screen and I was scrolling mindlessly.
I previously deleted the app for a while hoping it would help me overcome my addiction.
I downloaded it again thinking I had finally taken control of my impulses, but I found myself in the same trap. And this is by design.
The developers of these platforms understand how the human mind works and they’ve used that to their advantage.
In 2020, Netflix released a documentary titled “The Social Dilemma”. The documentary explores the dark side of social media.
It features interviews with former employees and executives from Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Basically, the People who built these platforms.
They revealed how social media apps are designed to manipulate users’ behavior, harvest personal data, and keep us hooked for as long as possible.
The longer your nose is glued to your screen, the better for them. Attention is the new currency. This brings me to the topic of the day — instant gratification.
Instant gratification and procrastination are best friends. People indulge in activities that meet their short-term needs. We do this to delay pain. After all, why would you want pain when you can please yourself at the click of a button?
This is where problems show up. We want things fast without working too hard. We wait until our problems get too big and painful to bear.
With that said, it’s a no-brainer that we need to learn to delay gratification and control our impulses. The question is how?
How to Delay Gratification
To be honest I’m a work in progress in delaying gratification. It took me a while to understand the concept.
Delaying gratification is important because it brings clarity to our lives and helps us stay in control of our constant need for pleasure. I went in search of ways to delay gratification and here’s what I found and implemented in my own life.
How to Delay Gratification
1. Set goals
“A goal is not always meant to be reached; it often serves simply as something to aim at.” –Bruce Lee
Please don’t take that quote out of context. Reaching our goals is amazing. But it’s not the most crucial part of setting goals. The most important thing is the person we become along the way.
Most people avoid setting goals because they’re afraid of failure. That’s why we turn to social media to numb our minds and distract ourselves. Trying is hard.
You and I know that there are certain goals in life that we should have achieved, yet we use the excuse of “I have no time” or “I’m too busy”. But we’re not too busy to like memes and watch cat videos on Instagram. We’re not too busy to follow the latest trends and hottest gossip.
Social media has its good sides, but we need to find a balance. A goal can look like “I’ll make my bed every morning immediately after I wake up”. This way, you’re more conscious of your actions rather than waking up and searching for the next source of pleasure.
2. Reward yourself after achieving your Goals
This is a follow-up to setting goals. Like I said earlier, you can set a goal to make your bed every morning. Reaching our goals makes us feel good. And since there’s no one to clap for us we need to reward ourselves.
A reward can be “After making my bed in the morning, I’ll use social media for 10 minutes” (set a timer if you wish). The point is to be conscious of how you use it.
My goal is to complete this article and reward myself with food after. Everyone is different and I can’t tell you exactly how to live your life.
Rewards don’t have to be social media use. It can be rewarding yourself with a new pair of shoes or a piece of clothing.
Let’s say you set a goal to reduce your screen time to 30 minutes from 2 hours. When you achieve this you can reward yourself with something you like.
3. Practice mindfulness
Have you ever picked up your phone to do something only to find yourself doing something else? This is more common than you think.
Mindfulness is the ability to be fully present and aware of where we are and what we’re doing in a given moment. It’s being less reactive or overwhelmed by what’s happening around us.
Social media use can drain our energy and we become overwhelmed and anxious.
Here are some ways to practice mindfulness
- Pay attention: It can be hard to notice things around us. We live in a busy world. Once in a while try taking time to experience your environment with all of your senses — touch, sound, sight, smell, and taste. For example, on your commute to work use your phone less and observe your environment. When you eat your favorite food, take the time to smell, taste, and truly enjoy it.
- Live in the moment: Find joy in simple pleasures. Try to intentionally bring open, accepting, and discerning attention to everything you do.
4. Get rid of distractions
I remember when I first started to cut down on my social media use. One of the things I did was turn off notifications and use an app blocker. This helped me focus on my work and not constantly get distracted or seek pleasure when I got bored.
I tried my best to stay consistent and I’ve gotten used to it. Most people have several apps on their phone. All of these apps are fighting for attention.
The best you can do is fight back. Fighting back looks like deleting apps that don’t serve you and turning off notifications.
Fighting back is also keeping your phone away from you during work or when you want to focus on more important tasks.
5. Know the consequences
As much as we love to seek pleasure in different ways it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t consider the potential consequences of our actions.
Instant gratification isn’t always a bad thing, but it can lead to negative consequences — especially when it happens consistently.
It can become a habit that makes us procrastinate on important tasks. For example, let’s say you have a looming deadline on a work project.
Because the project might seem daunting at the moment, it’s easy to reach for your phone to indulge in instant gratification.
Before you know what’s happening, time has gone and you have less time to complete the work.
You already know the potential consequences of delivering late on a project or delivering low-quality work because you spent less time on it.
Next time you find yourself engaging in an activity that brings instant gratification, take note of how you feel afterward. It’s usually not good.
So, take a step back and zoom out to see how your social media use is affecting your personal and professional life.
Final Thoughts
Social media has impacted society in many positive ways. I’m not here to condemn it. I’ve benefited from using it.
But at some point, we need to be honest with ourselves about how it affects us. This is about awareness.
Take control of your mind and be aware of how it influences your life. here’s a recap of how to delay gratification.
- Set goals
- Reward yourself after you achieve your goals
- Practice mindfulness
- Get rid of distractions
- Know the consequences
I wish you all the best as you embark on your journey.
Peace!
