Are social media apps killing productivity?

[Josh (Josh Cohen)]

TikTok, YouTube Shorts, Instagram, Twitter/X, etc.

I saw two videos mention that guitar teachers are now saying that 100% of their students don’t practice outside of their lessons any more. It’s too easy for people to scroll on apps like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube Shorts. Rick Beato thinks that even interest in video games is going down because scrolling on social media is even easier than playing video games.

I’d be interested to hear what people think. Are social media apps like TikTok, Instagram, YouTube Shorts, and Twitter/X killing productivity?

I did a quick quick search online, and some websites say that the average TikTok user spends more than 1.5 hours per day on the app and opens it 19 times per day, and that doesn’t include Instagram, YouTube Shorts, and similar websites. That’s about 550 hours per year that could be spent reading books or doing something more productive.

Related: Digital Minimalism: “Why We’ll Look Back at Our Smartphones Like Cigarettes”

What do you think?

I Know You're Angry, So Am I...

Guitar teacher Responds to Rick Beato

[Hari-P (Hari)]

Like “artificial intelligence” who is not actually intelligent, “social media” is not in fact social.

It’s a marketing tool designed to be as addictive as possible (that’s why they went to casinos and studied how gamblers behave) with the aim to make you spend as much time as possible looking at their content. No matter what they tell you, their aim is not to educate or to help you connect with others in a meaningful way.

Can you use it to learn/teach new things or build communities? Absolutely but it requires a lot of effort, because that’s not what the tool is designed for!

And I say that as somebody who has found a ton of quality content of youtube and learnt a lot, connected with people on forums and then met them IRL, etc. But if you don’t actually apply the things you find/read/watch in real life, there is no point, isn’t it?

What worries me is when people (especially children and young people) do not realise that they are rewriting their brain connexions to prime themselves for addictions. I don’t care that somebody hasn’t learnt tons of knowledge, play the guitar or speak mandarin by age 20. You can always do that later. But I do worry when people stop meeting others in real life and miss out on practicing social and emotional skills, connecting with other people and building social networks. Of all the skills we need they are the most important. And like anything we need to learn, it’s going to require efforts and time and messing up and perseverance to do it again when we fail. No learning can be passive. It definitely can (and probably should) be enjoyable, but you have to put efforts into it.

I wish there was a classification of TV shows / websites with a rating of addictive potential rather than the content (violence/sex). Because if your kid is addicted to a video game with kittens and flowers it’s going to damage his brain and mess up his social relationships just as much.

And the sad thing is, with an addiction we don’t actually enjoy the thing while we’re chasing the next high. When people only listen to 30 seconds of a song before passing to the next they’re not listen the music for the pleasure of it. Everything becomes boring. (And that’s “only” the listening of music, the effort and practice you’d need to play music yourself would be something else).

And the thing is, I didn’t grow up with that (thankfully), but I still way too often find myself stuck in it. I’ve listened to tons of super interesting podcasts, but how many times have I taken action on it? I now I draw and play music much less than I used to. I really have to pay attention to my screen time, not because I’m consuming bad content, but precisely because there is always this trend of only consuming if I’m not careful.

[beau2am]

Well, I’m not a fan of “social media.”

For a while I was.

I mean, I had a MySpace.
( I miss you Tom)

Personally, I do a lot more creating when I keep fun things off my phone.

I even deleted my chess app.

[Cloud]

It depends on the person but I would say overall yes it’s very distracting.

I’m in my 20s and I usually get targeted by motivational tiktoks/reels, martial arts videos, etc that actually does help me get excited about my workouts/studies/life. But if the algorithm reaching you is mostly comedy/memes then that would be the opposite side of the spectrum , but now and then you gotta enjoy some funny clips.

[Hari-P (Hari)]

Oh how nice it would be if I managed to stop after ONE funny clip (or one set of kanji reviews, or one chapter of a book)…

But I just want to check the weather for tomorrow, and the next thing I know two hours have passed before I notice that I haven’t even checked the weather which was the thing I wanted to do when I grabbed my phone.

No matter if the content I look at is good or not I’m still losing sleep (and my self control is worse in the evening precisely when I’m tired and do need the sleep).

I mean the problem is the same with a physical book, I’ll also lose sleep because I don’t stop until I finish it. But at least the book doesn’t show me other books, invite me to play cards or show me the photo album of my friends on holidays.

[Ganxel]

I’m not so sure about productivity because it’s a somewhat loaded and subjective term.
But more generally than social media apps, I think the movement towards an even higher “input:output” ratio in recent years has hampered creativity (and probably, yes, productivity).

Before the hyperconnected age of having the internet in our pockets, it seemed like the day was MUCH longer (although this could be at least partly explained by mental chronometry slowing down with age).

Certainly more of my time in the 1990s was probably spent tinkering around and figuring out things myself. I learned Basic programming from my C64 user’s manual, an old Usborne book and the GFA Basic documentation, but the vast majority of my time back then was spent figuring things out via trial and error.
Now I can’t stop myself from looking up endless books and videos on how to do things – the so-called tutorial hell. As a result I don’t create nearly as much as I should, given decades of experience.

So maybe it’s helpful to get away from technology for at least some periods of the day so you can be bored, figure things out and create without constant input and exposure to other people’s opinions.

That said, I probably practice music much more now than 15-20 years ago, although that’s probably due to being more self-motivated now.

[LynneKelly]

@Hari-P

Everything becomes boring.

That’s an interesting comment. I was with a six-year-old who kept saying “I’m bored” after a few minutes of any activity. Her parents jumped every time she said it. When I went out walking and to a playground with her, she had one go on each bit of equipment and then it was “I’m bored”.

She’s never said it with me before. I have no idea if this is just a stage, or just one child. I was surprised and concerned because on previous visits - all before she was texting me often and so had access to her mother’s phone - she would play with dolls and picnics and entertain herself. But one anecdote is not evidence!

Would love to hear if others are seeing that effect and if they think that it relates to online activity.

Lynne

[metivier (Anthony Metivier)]

I second @Ganxel that productivity is a loaded term. Word on the street is that there’s a looming energy crisis because we’re all so “productively” using AI now and the like to generate goop.

Here’s an alternative take on the issue I don’t hear discussed much:

The Internet has made public “secrets” that used to be managed with all kinds of ranks and levels and hierarchies. Whether one agrees or disagrees with things like the Moose club, Masons, on and on, many of these clubs had ways of helping people deal with existential dread. Even if the secrets were painfully dull at the 33rd degree and the 100th meridian, at least you had the meaning that came from having to earn them.

Now, we have a popular term: “doom scrolling.” Just about everyone is more switched on to the Lovecraftian side of things than ever before. And the only solace many have is more of the same, aided by deep procedural memory training in reaching for the source of your misery. It’s a doom loop for many in this regard. Some people have even said that we’re in a “meaning crisis” because of it.

If one uses this term “meaning crisis,” I would say it’s coming from an abundance of too much meaning, rather than a lack of it. There’s decision anxiety all over the place, and no matter what club you want to join, you don’t have to do a thing to learn the secrets. Just search and they’ll show up, often in pilfered versions that induce P.K.D. levels of paranoia… Recall that Lovecraft says that the real horror of Cthulhu is not the beasts from outer space. It’s that they “brought their symbols too…”

I imagine @LynneKelly knows enough of legerdemain to have appreciated the power of earning a skill or outcome. Playing with toys is like magic in that way too. Add a bit of imagination to dirt and even the ground becomes an oasis of entertainment.

All of which reminds me of the hours my brother and I used to spend digging tunnels in the background, nothing but shovels and Chuck Norris movies in our minds to guide us as we raced against the evening dark.

I’ll have to make a Memory Palace of that backyard tout de suite and memorize something from the endless, amazing, wonderful, labyrinthine and vertiginous stacks of books with which Mnemonsyne endlessly blesses ye olde MMM HQ.

As for Rick Beato, I think he’s not listening to Bandcamp enough. I can’t even start to count all the amaze-ball and razzmatazz music I find over there. I read an art and music critic the other day who was saying that the goods are piling up so fast he’s just going to stop dealing with music altogether. There’s too much to cover and too much to say about it.

(That said, unless you’re into concepts like limited hexaphonic transpositions and maximum angularity… you probably won’t agree with my sound palette… some of the stuff I love listening to makes Cthulhu sound like a kitten.)

[Zipho_Lunika]

The question feels rhetorical. Personally, for me, social media has taken up a lot of my time. Time I could have used to grow and improve. Sometimes, when I’m doing something useful, I get an intrusive thought about something interesting. My knee-jerk reaction is to look it up on YouTube. Next thing you know, I’m trapped in that rabbit hole.

At other times, when I’m overwhelmed by stress, the temptation to look up meaningless things on the internet is that much higher.

When my mind is calm and relaxed, my desire to goof around online is significantly diminished.

I have looked up the most popular websites on the internet, and unsurprisingly, YouTube and Facebook occupy the 2nd and 3rd spots, respectively, with google search occupying the 1st position.

Reference: List of most-visited websites - Wikipedia

From my personal experience, I think social media use is associated with a kind of inner restlessness. In fact, I remember deleting my Facebook account many years ago, and I somehow found myself experiencing a greater deal of inner rest and peace.

There is actually a lot I can say about this. I noticed that 15 minute videos or 30 minute videos subjectively seem to be “too long.” It’s like my attention span has dwindled to some extent.

I also noticed that at around the 3 minute mark, I usually start losing patience when viewing a video and just want to move on.

This tendency gets better with abstinence, though.

There is a lot I could say about this and some of the things I’ve looked up over the years. From neurotransmitters (dopamine depletion, etc.), screen time leading to a loss of brain volume, etc.

My wild opinion on the future of the world if these trends continue:

Suffice it to say, I’m anticipating a steady decline in global mental health, and I’m convinced that it will be linked to social media use. I have already viewed statistics in which people are getting less average sleep and levels of anxiety and depression are steadily increasing.

I think the coming world, will “select” for people who have higher PFC (prefrontal cortex) volume and PFC metabolism, lower amygdala volume, and lower baseline gluccorticoid levels.

[metivier (Anthony Metivier)]

@Zipho_Lunika

I think the coming world, will “select” for people who have higher PFC (prefrontal cortex) volume and PFC metabolism, lower amygdala volume, and lower baseline gluccorticoid levels.

Brad Zupp and I recorded something along these lines several years ago, albeit not quite so brain-chemistry oriented.

The only thing that has changed in my thinking is that it’s looking more like techno-serfdom, which will not necessarily allow the same competitive flow that leads for the development of any optimal brain states from which to select.

[intranetmouse (Chris D)]

This article could have been called “Are social media apps addictive?”. The answer is yes. (And sorry this reply has turned into a long rant.)

The big sites create and feed addictions. Like drugs and food and other industries, the internet relies on addictive experiences to feed their profits. They train or groom people in certain behaviors that often impact other areas of their lives, and not in a good way. They use your time that could be spent on more worthwhile things. They generate controversy and outrage and dissatisfaction with the world. They do so for their benefit, not for yours. Do not fool yourself into believing they have your best interests at heart.

For the internet, hosting a web site is not free. There is expense. The larger the web site, the larger the expense. They have to pay for all those servers and all those system admins and all those developers and all those marketing people, etc. They make revenue off of advertisement (and the resulting profit ends up hidden from taxes by shell companies based in the Caribbean). They have an “inventory” they can sell to advertisers. That inventory is related to the amount of content on the site, how many people they can draw to the site, and how long those people stay on the site. To the advertisers, they talk about page views and eyeballs and ad impressions and click-throughs. All of these terms are derived from and are effectively euphamisms for the user - us! As you see, we are the real product.

They often get us to create user-generated content so they don’t have to pay for that. All the content is the bait to get us hooked on the site so we can generate views and impressions so the web site owner gets paid. This is often referred to as “engagement”. We become their zombie army (or like sheep or cattle) so we are a constant source of revenue. If the content is controversial, that will increase views and impressions, so the web site owner is happy and the users are probably less happy but cannot stop reading. The users are engaged, that’s what’s important, right?

Web sites use what I call “infiniscroll” or “foreverscroll” to keep you reading and engaged and addicted. For sites with articles, they add additional articles you didn’t request at the end of the article you wanted to read to keep you reading. On the landing page, the headlines are often worded with missing context or finding controversy to lure you into going to the article to see what it is about, even if it is not something you would really be interested in. They call it “click bait” for a reason.

Perhaps the first step is to try to realize that every time you are using one of these big sites, you have been manipulated in behaving in a certain way. You are not deciding how to spend your time; big corporate marketers and interaction specialists are doing that for you. You are giving up your ability to make decisions about what you want to do with your life. By not deciding yourself, you are letting someone else decide for you.

Another thing to do is turn off all non-critical notifications. Don’t let apps decide when you should interact with them. You should decide.

Another step is to decide what you really want to be doing with your life. What could you better spend your time on? Decide who and what you want to be, and plan out how you can get there. Does that involve education? Creating? Researching something in particular? Spending meaningful time with loved ones? Raise your standards for using these systems. This quote is a lofty ambition, but worth considering: “Each time you touch a computer, do something of lasting value. However small.” - Chris Coyier. Another quote: “The business of life is the acquisition of memories. In the end that’s all there is.” - Carson in Downton Abbey

How does Facebook/TickTok/Instagram/YouTube fit into that? Probably not a lot. There is generally no real lasting value created; it is mostly throw-away wasted time .

I know breaking an addiction is hard and I am over-simplifying. But two major steps stand out to me: decide you want to change it, and substitute something worthwhile for your addiction.

[Noan]

I worked with people on the factory floor that check their phones 19 times an hour. No one is supposed to even have their phone, let alone be on it during production, but it’s exceptionally common. And it’s not just Millenials and younger, you see people near retirement age doing the same (but much, much less frequently.)

These sites don’t just want to keep your attention for profit. They are all in on social engineering, in the short term manipulating people for their own agenda, or that dictated by their government. In the long term they seek to be your government.

[Josh (Josh Cohen)]

@Noan

I worked with people on the factory floor that check their phones 19 times an hour.

Related reading about how addicted people are in general:

Americans Check Their Phones an Alarming Number of Times Per Day

[Noan]

Nice to see people are using the phone less while driving by a very significant amount, although it’s a survey so we need to take it with a grain of salt.

From the article, “If the battery level dips below 20%, a sense of panic or anxiety sets in for 47%.”
Have you ever seen the reaction someone gets if they post a screenshot from their phone with <10% battery life left? If they haven’t yet, I bet they will coin a new phobia for dead or nearly dead phones.

[beau2am]

I love it when my phone dies. I call it “breaking the spell”

[Compiler1997 (Antoine Price)]

I am addicted to youtube, I have to limit my self to from watching videos beacuse If I dont have nothing to do I just watch. The only thing is for me is that I do not watch Youtube shorts or tic tok I find the videos to be too short wich I dislike.

But I am over comming my Youtube addiction of watching videos and just doing more memory training.

How Social Media Kills Our Time, Creativity & Productivity

[Ganxel]

Me too Antoine. I’ve started experimenting with a simple tactic: no “input heavy” activities after 6pm, so I can still go nuts with Youtube before that, but then switch to creating stuff or other more deliberate activities after 6. It feels good although sometimes hard to resist the tube.

[Snakes (Ivan)]

I think social media can be a problem if you can’t control your “phone-time”, I ran into this problem about a year ago, I solved it by limiting my screen time through an app. Every time I reach 30 minutes on a social network it gets blocked. With this I can spend my time on more productive things. It may seem difficult at first, but then you get used to these restrictions.

[HardikDewra (Hardik)]

Yeah, I’ve definitely lost a chunk of my day just scrolling through reels without even realizing it. I used to pick up my guitar in the evenings, but now I often catch myself saying “just five minutes” and then look up like 45 minutes later. It’s weird how that short-form content just hijacks your focus before you know it. I’ve been trying to get better by keeping my phone in a different room or using app blockers, but it’s an ongoing thing.

One thing that helped was shifting my screen time toward more controlled tasks like converting and editing my music files. I’ve been messing with some recordings lately and needed to change a few from OGG format, so I’ve been using this OGG converter online, it’s quick and doesn’t clutter me with extra distractions. You can see it on Convert OGG Files Online for Free – Movavi