I decided to conduct a social experiment on myself: what happens if I turn my phone into a useless device, will I miss out in this utopia-espue social media life?
You have seen those videos on YouTube that people quit social media all together for 30 days by deleting the apps or they lock their phone somewhere and use a flip phone as an alternative to receive text messages. What if I can get the same functionality of a flip phone without ruining my phone?
Hence I have decided to get this small little device called Brick, what it does that you choose the apps that you want to block and you tap your phone to the brick to lock those apps on your phone. Now you might wonder why I would do this if locking apps on your phone can be done using the phone's software? Well the issue is that you can bypass it without any friction, with Brick I can lock it and throw the device at home while I go to work and enjoy my life without any distractions (well WhatsApp is unblocked for work and family purposes but rarely get messages there hence it is fine to unblock it)
Ironically enough that my screen time dropped to less than 2 hours and when I unlock my device at night that there is little to no updates on social media that requires my attention. The experiment was conducted on multiple days and with more restrictions each time reaching towards 22 hours of bricking the phone and making it useless yet there was nothing that I was missing out at all
P.S. if you send a message throughout the day on facebook messenger, iMessage, or instagram and I reply instantly/within reasonable times or if I send you a post or reel during the day, consider yourself of the chosen few that I want to keep in my life
What made me conduct this experiment is that I see people hunched on their phones scrolling for no reason at all even in risky situations like driving a car or motorcycle. It feels weird seeing people hooked up on social media to the point that they are not aware of it at all, ask anyone who was scrolling what did they see and 90% of those people don't even recall what was the last 3 posts they have seen along the fact that the time to transition back to normal takes double the time you have spent scrolling hence if you scroll for 1 hour then you need at least 2 hours to recover and get back to an optimal level which might affect lots of aspects in your life. This is called brain rot and it is affecting lots of people around where they get to lose sense of time and short circuit their brains with instant dopamine hits
In our modern times we are bombarded with an endless stream of content and notifications to remind us to stay hooked on these things, it goes around in a loop: notification to check the app, scroll for hours on that app, regret scrolling on the app and feeling bad about yourself for wasting your time, re-scroll on the app to watch something that makes you feel good or happy in the moment, repeat the cycle every single day
Before social media apps felt more connected because we were used to see the same feed as everyone on the app hence you would relate to your friends on what you see online and feel bonded with them on those things but the moment those apps switched to an algorithmically change-able feed that shows you things based on a curation of things that you enjoy, everyone is set astray on what they like and no longer about the relatability that multiple people get to see the same thing, you no longer see posts from your friends but see things that are tailored for you.
And because those apps no longer share the same thing and curates what you get to see online, you no longer get to know what is happening around you in the sense that the algorithm filters out the things around and keeps you in an eternal state of happiness, if you dare to disobey the algorithm by sharing those unwanted posts that it will shadow ban you (it is like being in a jail where nobody sees you and you can't interact anymore)
Algorithm: A war happening in Gaza and Sudan? Uhm no, here is a bunch of posts of people pranking each other on the streets, you like those things and I will keep on providing more of these things endlessly ☺️
I decided not to indulge more into those apps and live my life to the fullest where I get to do the things that matter to me the most. Sure that there are times where I have to use the apps to stay connected with certain people but I might consider shifting away from it, might reach to a position to accept messages through paper letters attached to a pigeon and will reply at my earliest convenience and even though I do work in the tech field as a computer programmer, I have a hammer to wack the printer if it makes a weird sound I am not familiar with because things are going out of control (including those devices that have AI in them)