Social media is ruining our attention:

Writing is hard. It’s like trying to cook a complicated cake, only the ingredients don’t really make sense. You’re constantly questioning yourself like ‘does this make sense? Will people know what I’m saying? How are people going to judge me?’

But what’s great about writing is it gives you clarity of thought. Our brains are in overdrive with all the constant flow of information, particularly with the last 4 years in trying to keep up with what Trump tweeted this time. Giving yourself time to think clearly in today’s environment is tough. We’re trying to balance our family lives, maintain relationships with friends and figuring out if people can hear us on Zoom. So it’s hard to find time to write.

But I believe everyone has the time, and everyone has a story. The great thing about writing is you don’t need to show it to people. You could choose to if you wanted to, but you’re under no obligation. You can talk about your inner-most darkest thoughts and ideas and no one will know.

But everyone has a story. Humans of New York showed me that more than anything. Humans of New York is the popular page started by Brandon Stanton more than a decade ago. All he did was walk around New York City and talk to strangers just to learn more about their stories. After a decade of traveling the world, producing several books and raising millions of dollars for great causes, the thing I always come back to is everyone has a story. Everyone deals with struggle. No matter if it’s the person on the street or the billionaire sitting in his private jet. The human experience is not different. Everyone is trying to figure out how to survive and do what is right for them and their families. That exists across cultures, languages and generations.

It feels like in today’s world we’ve become so decisive. I know a lot of that is fed by the media and how they cover conflict, but I still believe most people are good at heart. They want to help their neighbour and care about the people around them. Social media has given us this illusion that we’re closer than ever but it does feel like we’re farther away. I’m particularly nervous for the younger generation. They can’t even have a conversation anymore if technology isn’t involved.

Young people are sitting around making Tik Tok dance videos, aimlessly scrolling through Instagram or trying to figure out which Snapchat filter to add on their face to send to their friends. Even when they’re sitting in the same room, they’re still communicating through their phone. It’s scary. We’ve become so attached to these devices that are not what’s in front of us. Sure they can transport us to a world we’ve never seen before, but what about the world in front of you? Doesn’t that matter just as much?

Don’t get me wrong, social media has its benefits. It employs people as influencers, has created everlasting changes in countries by inspiring people to overthrow governments and allows us to keep in contact people that are halfway around the world.

But it’s ruining us. It’s making us become zombies. It’s increasing our generation to have levels of depression and anxiety never seen before. Correlation does not equal causation, I understand that, but you can’t tell me social media as a whole has been net positive for people’s mental health. Most people don’t understand they’re being brainwashed every day. These apps are specifically designed to keep you on them. The colour scheme, way to scroll, likes, explore pages, etc. have all been created to keep you on the app. That’s their business model. So they can sell you more advertisements.

Companies create this illusion that they’re giving you an ability to keep you connected with your friends for FREE, but what is FREE? They’re constantly monetizing your attention and have no plans of stopping.

What’s become scary with them is how powerful they’ve become. I don’t think Zuckerberg thought he could control entire democracies and information flows in countries when he was rating people in his Harvard dorm room. I don’t think anyone at Facebook in the early days thought it was possible to have this level of control. But they do.

They’re more powerful than any single government and they need to be regulated. What Jack did, and every major technology company, in completely banning Trump from speaking is terrifying. We can argue over whether or not what Trump did or said was right (it was not), but to completely ban him from technology is a dangerous precedent.

Governments have now realized how powerful these guys have become. You saw widespread condemnation from politicians on both sides of the political spectrum across the world. Because they’re essentially banning free speech. Hate speech and inciting violence is one thing. Trump has been doing it for years and the fact they hadn’t banned him up till now is gross. It’s sad it took a storming of a capital building (mind you with cops letting people come in) for them to realize how destructive his rhetoric was, but to completely ban him from speaking is insane.

Those on the left will argue it’s what had to be done but a permanent ban is crazy. Temporary, sure. But to blankly say you’re done forever is nuts. Most people can agree inciting violence is the wrong thing, but speech is supposed to be free so you can hear both sides of an argument and make your own conclusions. The issue with this is it sets a dangerous precedent for governments to follow what these social media sites have done and ban opposition leaders in their own country. You don’t think MBS, Duarte, and Putin would love for their opponents to never be heard? It creates a dictatorship. Just because your on one side now does not mean that your side will always be right.

We need diversity of thought in order to progress. You can’t have people all on one side being able to control the message. It’s terrifying. It’s what happened in Germany in the 30s. At that time, it was easier to control because there were very few ways to spread information. It was primarily done by newspapers and radio. If you controlled all those information flows, you could get your people to believe anything.

Social media has definitely made society more decisive because it’s created identity politics. Just because I agree with something Trump says does not make me a Trump supporter. But online, it’s become a cesspool of misinformation where if you lean one way or the other, you’re ridiculed for it.

This is also what social media severely lacks is nuance. Everything is grey. There really is no black and white. The issue with posting or liking a specific thing is it reduces your identity to that thing. People are way more complicated than that. They have many different interests and identities.