New cigarettes
News sites and social media are the new form of cigarettes
Cigarette causes fast release of dopamine, leads to addiction, after few hours we want to smoke the next one.
New information/news results in release of dopamine, we immediately want to see the next one. A lot of times we can catch ourselves on scrolling the news/posts/pics for a half an hour.
We might say that after tobacco you are slightly poisoned, and after news more informed. OK, so now ask yourself - how many pictures, posts that you saw for the last week do remember right now? None or a just a few? Then why did you do it and how much time have you wasted? Was this time wasted in order to get a new dopamine rush?
Tobacco back in the days was significant in social situations. Smoker was regarded as a person with many worries and responsibilities, so he has to relax with smoke - so he was respected. If you have a lots of work to do, then maybe you are rich.
If you have pics from hot countries on your Facebook, then you might be rich. If you have a lot of pictures with lot of people on parties, events then probably you are respected by lots of people. If you have any doubt about being liked it's going to be proven by the amount of likes under your picture, next your name.
Smoke break at work was an important part of the job, you could kill some time and have a chat with colleagues.
Scrolling social media is also a good way of killing time in workplace, also you can exchange few messages with friends, the only downside is that we don't have an excuse to go outside.
Cigarettes cause early death, so they steal your life, time and health.
Social media also are stealing, but immediately. You scroll the posts and can't believe that 30 minutes passed so quickly. Then you feel guilty that you have wasted so much time for a nonsense, you feel bad. What is the best way of feeling better? New dopamine rush, seeing the next post.
Cigarettes cause emotional instability. They apply nicotine into the bloodstream which leads to stimulation. After few hours person becomes irritated, he needs to get soothed with the same poison that stimulated him few hours ago.
New are engineered in the way that reader will feel strong emotions of injustice, fear and anxiety. It causes the flawed perception of the world thanks to gathering all the heavy and negative news and omitting positive ones. Once again welcome to the emotional instability.
Cigarettes were the main source for making the biggest profit for tobacco companies, one the most powerful ones on the market.
Today who is the biggest company on the market? Many but one of them are firms behind Facebook and Google. What are those companies? They are salesmen providing advertisements to you. They make money when someone is hearing or seeing the advertisement. How to make you to see the advert? With dopamine! With next news, post, message, picture of your favorite singer from exotic country.
Tobacco companies have slave-wage people to pick up tobacco and they need to pay for the labour. But in case of social media is the general public who makes the content, who somebody else is watching, and the money from seeing the content (seeing the advertisement) goes to the corporations pocket. Genius!
I think this is the essence of this world. Wise and cunning people get the advantage over the other ones and use them to achieve their goals. I am not sure whatever it is morally wrong or not, but on the other hand the society is supporting this virtual machine by means of creating content. None is forcing anybody, it's just the little temptation inside the head that maybe someone will accept and respect us when we publish our opinion or picture.
What is the solution for that? I think education, work, family, friends. Family and friends who see us, respect us, give us warmth and love - so we don't have look for it anywhere else. Work takes time, so we don't have much time left for stupid things. Education leads to the awareness of the dangers of technology.
I heard that truth is always the same and the lies always change. Maybe in next 100 years we will have big boxes with warning "Social media cause depression, waste of time, make you feel lonely" but by this time there will be already another form of cigarettes, and after that the next, and next...