Social media has become an integral part of the lives of many people, with sites like Facebook and Twitter and also social media relationship killer quotes accounting for many hours spent on the internet each day. It can be hard to resist checking your Facebook feed every few minutes or tweeting that funny video you just saw. It’s a lovely feeling to have a large number of likes on your latest Instagram picture, or when you get retweeted by someone famous. But are marketers fueling this addiction? Let’s find out.
1. The Like
The Like is without a doubt the most basic way that marketers are making you addicted to social media. While some may argue that this is not necessarily a bad thing, it is becoming clear that many internet users are getting progressively more and more hooked on collecting likes. This can have an impact on people’s self-esteem, especially when they post something they deem to be particularly magnificent or beautiful. If something doesn’t get many likes, the person may conclude that it was a bad post and wonder what the problem is, such as not describing the picture well enough. This leads to people posting increasingly more pictures and writing more updates in an attempt to achieve that perfect amount of likes.
2. Timelines
While timelines can be a great way of keeping track of your friends’ daily activities, they can be dangerous as they encourage you to check your feed every few minutes. A person who uses Facebook and Twitter but ignores their email will see new posts within seconds, while someone who checks their email but ignores social media will have to wait many hours or even days before seeing new posts. Seeing as our busy lives are becoming increasingly more hectic, it seems that the tendency to constantly check our feeds is getting stronger, and there doesn’t seem to be any end in sight.
3. Sharing
Sharing things you see on your feed with friends, or posting things that you might find interesting on social media and then inviting your friends over for a “party” around those posts, is a great way for a person to see what other people are up to and get inspired by their thoughts and ideas. Although this method can be very useful in boosting friendships and stimulating creativity on the internet, there’s always the risk that someone might become overly obsessed with sharing every single post they come across. This is especially a problem for those users who are in charge of multiple social media accounts.
4. Reposting
Reposting something someone else has already posted is an increasingly popular way of making a person check their feed every few minutes. When there are so many posts on your feed, it’s difficult to not see the “relevant” ones. The risk with this method is that you may repost something only to find that the post gets less likes than you originally hoped for, or that the post itself was self-referential and therefore gets less attention than other posts that are more general in nature. This can lead to a person having to repost the same post several times until it gets enough attention.
5. Tweeting
The social media world is full of tweets every day, and studies have shown that people who frequently tweet tend to feel respected on the internet, which can encourage them to keep tweeting more and more. This is an unfortunate fact of life within the social media world as Twitter has become increasingly popular among younger users. People who are addicted to social media may see themselves as the go-to people for answers or advice when something needs to be said about certain things.
6. Facebook
The latest research has shown that Facebook has become a serious addiction for young people, more than television (which is said to be the biggest addiction for younger users in the UK). Studies have also found that two-thirds of people who use Facebook regularly admit feeling lonely if they’re not on it. A further study found that most users feel that the site makes them more attractive and confident to others, which can encourage them to keep using it more and more.
7. Instagram
Instagram became popular over a year ago, and it’s clear from its popularity graph that this is a growing problem for social media users as time goes by. The most effective way of avoiding overuse on Instagram is to set specific times for using it, and for those who don’t know the time limit that one can use the site, it’s recommended to leave it closed until that time. This way, you’ll be sure not to go over any time limits or be caught up in a habit of checking your feed every few minutes.
8. Snapchat
Snapchat is a particularly addictive form of social media messaging, because while everyone knows that the message disappears after 1-10 seconds (depending on how long you review it), this doesn’t happen if you save the message to your camera roll.
Summary:
Social media can be a great thing, and in the hands of the right people, it can make the world a better place; but in the wrong hands, it can be a very dangerous tool to use and abuse on a daily basis, causing social media addiction to become an increasingly serious problem as time goes by. This is not necessarily a bad thing for marketers as long as they make their products targeted to social media users with specific interests .
