Instagram is a bit Too Good at Dopamine Hits
You may have noticed an absence from this personal, hidden away blog.
Part of that is of course doing more things in real life, with my friends and loved ones. At one point I was brought along on a roadtrip to New York to see my friend playing football against a rival team. Fun, even despite our team losing in the end. At least the weather was cool, and the Catskill mountains were beautiful.
But the other part is moreso about getting sucked into Instagram again. There is a novelty in seeing familiar faces from work in a less professional setting, and to hear about local news on social media, from individuals working outside of traditional news-reporting groups. Individuals who live in the same conditions as you do, trying to hold local politicians more accountable for their actions or lack thereof.
What can I say, it's fun to hear about most everyone in my city hating on datacenters, sharing the datacenter hate video on my story, and getting silent 2nd hand approval from my peers in the form of likes.
I like posting stupid nothings about the rare nightmare I have, backed by odd songs picked out from the Backrooms movie.
See here:
But then reels come into play, and that's just... Tiktok again.
Unfortunately, it's ridiculously easy for me to get into the habit of scrolling and scrolling and scrolling - and the next thing I know, it's already 11pm and I haven't made anything for dinner. I kicked the Tiktok addiction around the time that the scare was made about the app being shut down in the US. Shortly after the app went down for maybe an hour? Half a day? They come back with their bootlicker statement thanking Trump's administration for not shutting down service in the US. As though we should be thankful that the administration wants to play in everyone's faces all of the time.
It was an embarrassing display, and I decided this was likely for the best anyway. Clearly, Tiktok was an addictive time-sink, and it was being used to try and claw for more approval for Trump and his cronies. Who really wants to deal with that?
Sadly, the addiction loop used by Tiktok is also utilized by Instagram - albeit the algorithm is arguably more rudimentary, imo. And surely Instagram is just as bad as Tiktok in other ways that I'm less familiar with.
But the difference is now being more connected to people you know in-person. And so videos get shared in the form of shared interests and inside jokes. In the form of "Have a good day, you work so hard" type messaging - which is an incredibly kind sentiment that I do love sharing with the people I care about! But it does sadly, easily lock you in to a feedback loop.
You're scrolling less because you yourself are entertained, but you're looking out for things that remind you of people, that you want to share with them. There's something more mentally exhausting about this, I find...
So, I've been gone, because I got hooked onto a different, faster paced social media.
Not exactly a good thing, maybe not the worst thing...? But definitely not a net-positive. I can only hope to bruteforce some moderation into my life again. Maybe watching a show like Interview With The Vampire fully through might do some good resetting my attention span again.
We'll just have to see.