Doin' It For The Clicks...

...could be the death of you.

(Anti) social media sites are currently awash with unlimited amounts of mind numbing trash and content that has been created solely for clicks. They always were, but it seems to have gone into overdrive over the last few years.

To grab people's attention, to entertain people for a split second or two, to get them to subscribe to a certain channel, to follow a certain content creator, that might in turn lead to enough people following that person, that might lead to that person being able to make a living from the content that they create (good luck with that one), most of which is trash. So many things are staged for dramatic effect. So many things are set up to make people scream in horror, to make people roll their eyes with disgust, or to make people gasp and ask the question, "did he or she really do that?"

Most platforms that I see — and I'm trying to distance myself from as many platforms as I can —but most platforms that I see are not set up to engage people for long periods of time providing in-depth analysis on specific topics, deep, meaningful conversations, educational material, biographical material, historical material. That stuff is there, yes. But the shallow, candy floss tripe is suffocating it. It's a quick fix. A quick dopamine fix. A quick adrenaline fix. And then you swipe up, you swipe down, you swipe left, you swipe right, and repeat. And repeat. Ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

And I also believe (and these are just my own personal thoughts and opinions) this is resulting in people's attention span being shortened further and further. And most of what is consumed, the vast majority of what is consumed is trash, has no long term relevance whatsoever, and has no implications on our own personal lives whatsoever.

There are some stories that I have seen in the last week that are covered on the so-called news that I haven't looked into in any detail and I have no desire to look into in any detail, quite simply because by this time next week they will be forgotten about and will have been replaced by more sensationalist content.

I understand there was a collision, a mid-air collision this week in America, where a helicopter went into a plane, or a plane into a helicopter , the resulting collision resulting in many lives lost. Trump has come out and he is talking about what the causes may be. This is inflaming opinions online. People are spending hours and hours of their time reading about this, researching about this, theorizing about this. Was it real? Was it a set up? What is the deeper meaning behind it? Should he have said that? Should someone have done that? Round and round it goes. I shudder to think how many millions of hours of people's time have been squandered just this week alone with this one particular story that in the grand scheme of things means absolutely nothing and will be forgotten about by Monday morning.

But yet people argue, they research, they pride themselves on going down yet another rabbit hole (and catching no rabbits, simply emerging from said rabbit hole covered in dirt and having difficulty adjusting to daylight again, natural light, because they have spent so much time down a hole).

And for what? Another story that made the headlines this week is a man I believe was killed, murdered online while he was having a live stream. This man had previously burnt copies of the Quran. Brazenly in public, again on video of course for the world to see, building up a name for himself. And if someone wants to burn a book in a public place, that's their business, whatever that book may be. But when you are burning a book in a public place, to get people's attention on you, or allegedly to draw people's attention to a certain subject or group of people, you have to be prepared for what the outcome of that could be. And if the book that you are burning historically could have resulted in an attack on you or your person or your place of work?

Well if the clicks were that important then you should be prepared for what may follow after that. And I understand that the person was doing a live stream, (again I didn't see it, I haven't followed the story because it will also be forgotten about next week), but whoever that person is I believe was shot while they were performing a live stream as a result of their actions.

And strangely enough that will also have generated untold amount of clicks and likes and shares and follows but the problem is that the content creator is now dead and ironically the people picking up on the content and sharing it on their platforms are benefiting from his sacrifice. Is it worth it?

I read my first book, physical printed book in a long time recently. And it was great. I forgot what it was like to read a book. It has been so long. People have been buying me books for Christmas and birthdays for several years now and I haven't read any of them. But I got a book recently and I sat and read it over the space of about a week to ten days when I had some free time and I was going and sitting in a cafe.

I brought this book with me and instead of scrolling and consuming trash, worthless trash over and over again, I decided to read this book and I thoroughly enjoyed it. And it lifted me up and it inspired me and it encouraged me and it shed light on some of the things that I'm experiencing in my life and problems that I'm foreseeing coming down the line and I just enjoyed it.

And when I finished that book I was quite sad because I enjoyed it so much. How many people can say that they're sad when they come to the end of a doom scrolling session on social media? Maybe not everybody's doing it. Maybe some people are doing it to a greater degree than others. But again I'm just speaking from personal experience and I have been consuming too much of it. I have been going too far into it so I've pulled back my social media use massively.

I've stopped following the majority of the sensationalist stories that are being put out there and what has the result been? I feel no less informed. I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. I know I'm not missing out on anything and in fact I'm gaining from it.

The more I step away and detach, the more I gain in terms of improved mental health, wanting to go out into the real world to breathe air, to see the sunshine, to feel the wind in my face, to get physically fitter and consume books or content that increases my knowledge or gives me satisfaction. Genuine deep satisfaction on a personal level that when I stop consuming it I actually feel like I wish I could have some more of that. Not that I've just wasted my time.

So when you're looking at content, wherever that content may be, ask yourself is it being done for the clicks? Is someone being sensationalist just for the sake of it? Do they really care about this topic? Why are they bringing it up now? Is it something that's been done to death over the years? Have they run out of material so they're resurrecting it and repackaging it and presenting it in a different format. Is it lifting you up? Is it edifying you? Is it moving you forward as a consumer? If the answer is no then don't consume it.

Re-evaluate what's important. Re-evaluate what you enjoy and do more of it.

Rick.