The Trap of Social Media and Smartphones

When a piece of reading shakes you, you must stop, in order to begin to think. That is exactly what I did when I read a statement by Zygmunt Bauman (a Polish sociologist, philosopher, and essayist of Jewish origin) made in an interview published by the portal elpais.com: “Social media is a trap”. A couple of months ago I decided to sell my smartphone in order to buy a camera. The logic behind that decision was related to the fact that phones nowadays lose their value quickly. According to my calculations, it was more profitable to make some money by selling it than to wait for it to lose much of its value within a few months. In any case, I preferred to acquire the camera I had long been wanting rather than having to save from scratch to buy it. That is what I did, and what came after that decision had significant implications for my personal life. I have to admit that giving up a smartphone these days is not simple. When you have gotten rid of a device like that, you realize that you no longer have permanent access to the social networks you usually use, and you begin to have difficulty finding out what is happening around you, since most of the information used to reach you instantly through your mobile device. You are no longer up to date on the emails you receive, or on the last-minute matters reported through Twitter, Whatsapp, or Telegram. You begin to feel somewhat disoriented, and you have the faint sensation that those around you possess some kind of advantage that you do not have. It can even become difficult to reach certain places. In my case, at least, before going somewhere new I always used to check on Google Maps how to get there, which was the fastest route, and whether I could get there on foot, by bus, or by metro. Without a smartphone, I seemed to be condemned to rely more on instinct and to guide myself by common sense. With the smartphone I was instantly aware of what my friends were doing; I was connected with them, with their work, their travels, their anecdotes. I also learned new things and met other people through social networks or blogs. I had my favorite music at hand through YouTube's suggestions, and I had Google Translate to find out the meaning of any word in any language — perhaps this was one of the things I missed the most, because I am always learning new languages and there are many occasions on which I come across some word that I want to translate. The banks and payment methods I was accustomed to could no longer be used in the same way; I had to use the computer. Transfers, purchases, and inquiries began to take more time than usual. In short, all of present-day life seems to be configured in such a way that it is implicitly accepted that we are all 100% connected to the Internet with smart mobile devices — and I had given up mine. For the first 5 days I seriously considered buying myself some inexpensive substitute that would at least allow me to connect to a social network such as Whatsapp or Twitter and to search for some information on Google, but it was shortly before the end of the first week without my smartphone that significant changes appeared in my daily routine. The first change I noticed was quite evident: I felt calmer, less stressed, and less anxious. All the pressure, distress, stress, and anxiety caused by that whole bombardment of information were gone. The fact of not receiving information, news, messages, articles, emails, tweets, or the like does not mean that the implications of certain events disappear merely by ignoring them, but when you allow yourself a respite, they grant a certain sense of freedom. The constant bombardment of information we receive daily through the Internet or social networks sometimes makes us perceive that everything is moving at a speed greater than we can process. The abundance of bad news, natural disasters, acts of corruption, and other human miseries makes us think that the world is not a good place to live, that we cannot do much to change that reality, and that there is no hope of things improving. The cumulative effect of sensationalism can, over time, increase our pessimism and damage our creativity to alarming levels. When I stopped my interaction with the network, I began to notice myself more positive, cheerful, and hopeful. But perhaps the best of all was that I was moving from plans to action. It is normal that, upon receiving so much information in so little time, from different spheres and directions, your capacity to react begins to diminish. Everything becomes theory and analysis; we invest more time in thinking than in acting, because contributing to or interacting with the network is, in a certain way, an intellectual exercise. Leaving the analyses behind, I set about making valuable decisions and saw more clearly the changes I needed to make in my routine in order to be more efficient — from small things such as: organizing books, throwing out old clothes, selling things I had not used in a long time, and disciplining the arrangement of the information on my hard drive; to more significant things such as: signing up for new courses, checking my state of health, or starting a journal. Although I am a person who exercises regularly, it occurred to me during those days to design new routines to strengthen my body and increase my flexibility. Stepping away from social networks led me to concentrate more on the present and not to think so much about the future, which is something the Internet greatly induces in people: expectation during the waiting. The waiting for a message, the waiting for a subscription, for a payment, for an email, for a download, for a piece of news... Halfway through the second week I noticed that all those activities I had left behind on a waiting list, I was beginning to carry out. No longer being prey to expectations, I proceeded to action and managed to do everything that had always been in the plans; they were small tasks, but ones that, when they accumulate, begin to turn into a monster that constantly reminds you of what you have not done. In the first days of being without my smartphone, it was common to spend uncomfortable moments in places where one usually waits, such as: in the waiting room of a doctor's office, in the line to pay for some product, or waiting for one's turn at the bank. While everyone took advantage of those moments to check their phone, I did not have that alternative to distract myself, so I used that idle time to read some book or essay. When I did not have any reading at hand, I would venture to explore the place or look at the advertisements. I realized that while I spent all that time on my phone, I was losing attention to what was happening around me — people's reactions, people's stories — I could even say that I improved my social skills. I confess that I am not a very social person, but when you have a smartphone it is possible that you are hardly compelled to interact much, only the basics. Sometimes a phone can become a barrier that distances us from other people. By increasing my social interactions, I was able to see myself as more secure, more socially skilled, and more confident. I felt a bit foolish for having ignored such simple things for so long. Before, the passing of time was torturous; the phone often presented itself as an escape route to speed certain things up and to escape from certain situations. However, after spending almost two weeks without my mobile, time yielded much more for me and I managed to organize myself better in certain activities. It had already been two weeks in which I slept better, woke up with more energy, more positive, exercised with more drive, and was even eating better. Being more cheerful and with more energy, my interest in sharing time with the people around me increased, both with acquaintances and with strangers. My creativity for taking photographs and admiring the beauty of the world increased. Things were going well, and even though my personal problems or the reasons for my distress had not disappeared, I was beginning to have a better face with which to confront them. The best came when my finances began to improve — not because of the fact of not having a smartphone, but because, no longer being subject to impulse purchases prompted by the information I received from the Internet, I concentrated on putting my personal economy in order, controlling my spending, and establishing better orders of priority. Even though I had made good investments when it came to large expenses, there were other financial decisions that did not turn out to be very intelligent or beneficial and that I considered I could have made in a better way. I even began to think that having a smartphone was not an entirely intelligent decision. Investing so much money in a device that consumes a large part of your energy and steals so much of your time, instead of using those resources to take a good trip, to buy myself a good camera to capture moments, or better boots for hiking, or to take classes to learn a martial art — that is, I could have invested my money in so many things that could have given me more personal growth, happiness, and quality social relationships than what I could have obtained with a phone. I then reflected on the negative side of social media. It represents a falsification of intimacy — corporations that devote themselves to using all your information to sell you goods or services that for the most part you do not need, or that point you toward articles or social-media figures that contribute nothing relevant. Social-media platforms tend to spread lies, insults, and superficialities. Applications that were designed like drugs to keep you addicted to the dopamine produced by interaction with other users — interactions that are, for the most part, without value or transcendence. It is said that we live in the era of social media, but social interaction between people is ever smaller and real dialogues are ever scarcer. I began to understand the matter of the trap of social media: it does not offer communities or interaction; it only offers to shut you in with people who think the same as you, who have the same interests or ideals. One frequently hears that our generation, the millennial one, has a greater capacity to adapt to different situations and to assimilate differences, but what social media is provoking is precisely the distancing of many elements of society, because they do not engage in dialogue with the opposing side; one only interacts and shares with those who agree with you. Followers and followed, counters of likes — all are built upon the basis of a model that seeks to spread your messages to those who think the same as you; rarely can we find on a social platform the button: “dislike.” When there is disagreement, it is enough simply to block the other. In the end I believe that people will not fully develop or grow, because evolution does not usually occur when you relate only to people who are similar to you in some way, but rather when you relate to different people. I believe that at some point the popularity of social-media use began to distort its virtues, configuring a tool whose sole objective is the propagation of advertising and the generation of addiction through its use. Perhaps what the people who conceived this new world were thinking was to offer a platform to communicate ideas, to share what is valuable, to convey the important messages that powerless people had to say, to circumvent the censorship of the traditional media, and to have one more space for denunciation and the call to justice — I believe in those virtues of social media. Perhaps there had never before existed a device as ever-present in our lives as the smartphone is now. With computers there tends to be a suitable place and a set time for their use. With television it is similar: there is a schedule, limits set by electricity consumption or by the programming. With phones, however, there are no limits; their presence and their surrender are total — it is only a matter of stretching out your hand, putting it in your pocket, and beginning to interact and inform yourself about everything, anywhere, at any time: in bed, in the bathroom, at the cinema, on the bus, in the classroom, at dinner, and if your battery runs out, then you can count on an external battery. After that whole experience, 20 days passed until I necessarily had to use another smartphone again. I now use it while being aware of the vices it can provoke and taking advantage of the clear benefits it offers for daily life. I admit that those 20 days made me aware that social media can become, when you least expect it, a trap. © Alejandro Guipe | All Rights Reserved.