In this article I will focus on the impact of Social Media apps (or scrolling portals) as we dive into the reasons why their free-to-use quality could explain their harmfulness. We have recently been witnessing how some countries are banning this platforms to users under 16, and it is becoming more common to hear researchers and social justice advocates to warn us about the problems and controversies of this industry. I am not saying this platforms are inherently bad, but there is definitely something that has to be changed in them.

As I mentioned before, the reason behind these platforms being free can be associated with many of the negative consequences they are having on us. These apps have to make revenue somehow, and it is by making the experience entertaining, novel, and engrossing, or in other words, they have to be addictive. Social media portals are designed in a way that can drag our attention for hours without us realising it. Is like we lose agency over our decisions once these apps are opened

Particularly, social media works with algorithms, a function these platforms have to constantly measure the way we use them and what retains our attention for longer. The result is an endless input of images and information that makes us stare at a screen for hours. 

Having this in mind, I am now going to highlight the negative impact the excessive usage of our smartphones can have on us if addictive platforms are taking most of our attention.

Using our Phones for Social Media has Negative Consequences

Valuable Time Vanishes: I would say this could be one of the most worrying consequences. Times does not go back and the time we spend on these apps leave us with no relevant or meaningful experiences, everything stays in a virtual world. Since what we engage with is an overload of  brief content, our brains cannot retain the disproportional amount of information is receiving, not only for the quantity but also the lack of emotional value it has. As a result, a significant portion of our days vanishes as if nothing memorable happened, making us feel even more that "time goes too fast now".

Capacity to Pay Attention Reduces: To pay attention our brains actually need a lot of energy, and this energy is limited. The areas of our brain dedicated to make our attentional skills work become exhausted after being exposed to so many different images, videos, and text. Each time you scroll, different areas of our brain have to be activated for us to make sense of what we see. Once our attentional resources are depleted, engaging in a demanding or important tasks like studying, socialising, or reading, becomes daunting. We do not have more energy, it needs time to be replenished. 

Increase of Negative Feelings: You probably have noticed that in certain occasion after using a social media app for some time you could be left experiencing negative emotions, or even have participated in a text rage within a comments section. In fact, the algorithm of this platforms are designed to keep us the longer possible, and turns out that humans feel very drawn to information that is controversial, fatalistic, divisive, or pessimistic. It is easier for us to form negative feelings and react to them than developing positive feelings (like trust, happiness, comfort, acceptance). As a result, our tendency to promptly react to what makes us feel anger, disappointment, disapproval, or fear, is interpreted by the algorithm as the kind of content you want to interact with, even some content creators use this tendency for their benefit as "click bait" and "rage bait". As a result, what was meant to be a time to relax became a trigger for anxiety, low mood, or irritability. 

Discomfort with our own lives: Finally, spending time scrolling exposes us to a disproportionate amount of comparisons with other peoples' lives and opinions that can inevitably make us question if the way we are living and the way we look is "normal" or acceptable. Content in these platforms become a conglomerate of millions of worldviews and lifestyles, but when these are combined with the need to gain visibility, exaggerations and partial glimpses of others' realities inadvertently become points of comparison which are often unrealistic and harmful to us. 

Despites the negative impact these platforms are having on us, I cannot deny that it is true that social media has also improved some aspects of our lives. We can have access to so much information and reach others to grow social circles, businesses, and social causes. However, it seems like the cost to pay for scrolling can be very high if we are not careful, it is paid in our attention, our mood, and our time.

Not having any kind of restriction or awareness over the way we use social media can deteriorate the meaningfulness and satisfaction that we are trying to build around our lives. It is important that you observe and reflect on the ways you use your social media accounts, actively trying to find ways to regain control over what you consume and how you consume it.