What’s The Main Purpose of Social Media?

Ever asked yourself what’s the main purpose of social media? The ultimate grand goal of these online platforms?

Your first thought might be that it’s the ability to chat with others and to share links. The opportunity for people to provide daily updates about their wardrobe, meals, or whereabouts thinking that others care about this. Or, even, to provide a platform for elderly folks to showcase their knitting skills.

None of the above is actually true.

The ultimate purpose of social media, looking from their perspective, is to trade your attention for money.

On the surface, social media websites are these “innocent” platforms that save the world from boredom by enabling people to share stuff. Yes, they allow users to connect, share ideas, experiences, thoughts, and exchange information. But that’s not their grand goal.

Their end goal, by letting people generate content for them, is to create a network where advertisers can earn money from the people creating and consuming content.

It kind of works like this:

1. Social media provides the platform where you share what’s on your mind.
2. More people join because they are bored, not really sure what they what to do, feel that they are missing out if they are not participating in the online theater, or all of them together.
3. Eventually, the created network effect provides a thriving place where people who have money and something to sell can advertise to the people who aren’t particularly wealthy, but have nothing big to focus on in their lives.¹

Everybody wins – or at least that’s what we’re told.

1. You win by feeling good when other people like and comment under your posts. Plus, by being introduced to new shiny objects, distracting you from your problems.
2. Businesses win because they can advertise their products to a specific group of people that’s most likely to purchase what they have to offer.
3. Social media platforms win because they collect money from advertisers and data from you.

Yet, if you look closely. You can see that the people from group 1 are the biggest losers.

Here’s why:

• You spend time freely creating content that’s not ultimately yours. The social media platforms own the content and use it.
• The more time you spend creating and consuming content, the more ads you see. The more ads you see, the more stuff you’ll eventually want to consume. The more stuff you consume, the more you suffocate your life.

But if we are the biggest losers. Why the hell do we still keep participating?

How We Typically Use Social Media?

The most interesting thing about social media websites is how they make us waste our time on their platforms by covering it like they are doing us a favor.

Awfully insidious. But genius for sure.

How does it happen?

By making you think that you’re constantly winning by being a patient participant in the virtual world they have created.

You get small, consistent dopamine hits when you’re there.

Rewards we are all familiar with – likes, comments, hearts, etc. 

The more you engage with the platform, there more you are rewarded. Thus, the more you stay inside. 

The more you roam endlessly, the more this becomes a permanent habit. Exactly like smoking, drinking, and gambling – other highly addictive activities.

The creators of Facebook, Instagram, etc., are fully aware of our psychological flaws. They know that we, humans, can’t stand boredom.² That we want to express ourselves. That we want to engage with others. That we want to feel valued and part of a group. Using this knowledge, they adapt their platforms in a way to seduce us. Lure us deeper into the whirlpool of silly pet pictures and heated debates about politics.

You probably started using social media to stay in touch with your friends. But you keep using it to this day because you invested so much in the platform. You have memories. You are part of communities. You want to tell the world about your new trip and since everybody is doing it on Instagram, you do it, too.

Or in other words, we don’t use social media websites only to share information or only to chat with others. We return to these wretched places because we become emotionally attached to the platform. Social media sites become part of our real identities, like an extension of ourselves.

They offer a series of loops. All of them aiming towards our most basic emotions and desires.

Consider this for a moment, something we’ve all done: the moment you’re about to share something online. 

On the surface, it looks like you’re just transferring data from your phone to an online website. Yet, it’s not that simple. It’s a moment of hesitation and anticipation combined. You don’t only think: “Will people like what I’ve shared?” You’re mainly focused on: “Do people like me?”

And since our main drive is to be admired from friends and strangers alike, we alter our pictures in a way to increase the likelihood of others admiring them.

If what you’ve just posted receives the appreciation of the internet mob, we don’t feel good only about the actual picture. We feel valued as a person. We feel accepted and appreciated. The equivalent of this in the real world is that others are tapping your back and saying, “Good job!”

The more we share. And the more appreciation we get. The better we feel about ourselves. So, the more our connection with the platform strengthens.

Of course, you might say that you don’t post anything online. That you don’t feed the algorithm with bizarrely useless content. That you’re there just to consume. Just to laugh at the human stupidity regularly unfolding in the comments section. You use the platform to be informed and to occasionally chat with your friends.

You might even think that you’re gaming the platform and not letting it corrupt your mind.

Well, you’re most probably wrong.

Here’s why: the way the platform is designed.

As mentioned above, social media websites don’t care about you – individually. They have revenue targets, investors, employees, managers, managers of managers, etc. All of these folks need salaries. How are those salaries paid?

By advertising.

The more you spend time online, the more money they make out of you.

So, they want to maximize your time spent online.

This happens by design.

A simple example is when we’re onboarded on the platform.

If you are to create a social media account right now. The platform will introduce people for you to follow based on your interests. Friends and family members based on your contact list and emails. Plus – what works even better – celebrities. How do they know my interests since I’m just joining the platform? They know, don’t worry about this.

The logic behind following famous people is simple: we love to associate ourselves with important figures. By doing so, we feel significant ourselves.

Additionally, these people are usually active creators. Meaning that they regularly dump out content centered around their awesomeness. The more they share, the more stuff we’ll have for consumption. Therefore, the more you will stay inside the platform. The more you stay inside the platform, the more ads you will see and the more profit you will generate for the company.

Worst of all?

The most dangerous mechanic of social media is that we eventually start to see it as a fountain of never-ending fun.

The short snippets of text and the engaging videos are perfect for when we have a couple of minutes to spare.

Fully aware that humans can’t stand boredom, the people behind social media designed their platform as an island that offers escapism.

Every spare moment you have. Every time you feel like your life is not exceptionally amazing, you turn to your device for a dose of comforting and soothing elixir of laughter in a form of short text or a video.

The good news – for social media, not you – is that there is never an ending to the fountain of pleasure. There is always something to see and like thanks to the infinite scroll.

Why Social Media Is Negatively Affecting Us?

As a regular fragile human myself, here’s what I think is the main reason social media becomes not only difficult to escape but also destructive:

The main problem I found is that you stop living here – in real life – and you start living there – online.

Your body might appear present in the current scene, but you are not actively there. You’ve become hollow. Your arms are now simply tools that carry your portal to what you consider your real identity.

We associate the online world as this continuous competition for fame and power. A social scoreboard of how we’re doing in life. Even if we’re not actively pursuing more followers. We secretly celebrate when someone follows us or someone likes or posts.

As hinted above, we merge our real identities to our online identities to such an extent that we, at some point, feel something only when we get more likes and more followers. The reasoning behind this is simple: it’s countable and visible.

You can clearly see how many followers you have.

I think that this number is now a currency.

We see someone with X number of followers, and we immediately think that they are richer than us. Happier than us. Worthy of our attention and money. Conversely, when we see someone with fewer followers than us we feel sorry for them. Like they are half-human.

Of course, it’s not only the number of followers. It’s also the content we see. The image people present online.

A common characteristic of our behavior is to compare ourselves with other people.

From an evolutionary perspective, this is a needed feature.

We see someone better than us, and we want to mimic their behavior because, apparently, it helps them in their lives.

However, online, the gap between you and the famous and celebrated folks in the virtual world is usually huge. Thus, when you spend your days monitoring what others have, you start to feel depressed by your own few possessions. Furthermore, you feel emotionally dissatisfied by your mild state of joy compared to the dosses of satisfaction seemingly everyone seems to be having.

But is what portrayed online a suitable image to envy?

Well, no.

On average, people rarely go on trips all the time. They rarely drive a Lamborghini or own a yacht. And the most basic one is this: people are rarely happy all the time.

Seeing all these luxuries, the constant happiness, all of this makes you feel worthless. Not only because you don’t have what you’re constantly exposed to. But because you subconsciously realize that you will never ever have all of these things.

In response, to feel better, we become acutely focused on gaining something now to prove our worth. 

We start impatiently scrolling through the feed to find something, anything. A thing we can do (or purchase) so we can feel that we’re making progress in our stagnant lives. Something to convince us that we’re not worthless. That we too are valuable citizens in the online world of perfectionism, falsely created by the online role models with what seems like flawless lives.

The more greatness we see, the more we become observant of how much we don’t have. How much we haven’t experienced. 

This never-ending loop keeps us engaged in activities that are not only diverging us from our goals – or from having goals in the first place. But also keep us participating in this endless, destructive cycle of consuming and sharing what we have consumed to prove to people we don’t know that we are also having a good time. Also living a good life. That we are like the famous and rich, bathing in joy and luxury.

And while on the surface level it seems like our life is grand and that we are walking on an upwards spiral, deep down we are suffering. We can’t find peace because we’ve chained ourselves to a lifestyle of appearances. We want to appear as we are winning, but the only way to do this is to constantly win. But winning in the online world has different meanings.

Surely winning a degree, a championship, a business deal is something notable and worthy celebrating. But since these things require time and real effort, society has self-created other forms of winning. Short-form winning filled primarily by consumerism.

While studying has the potential of making your real life better, it doesn’t have a sharing potential. You can’t expect to gain followers by taking pictures of you while you read or study. Conversely, what you can do to grab the attention of the mob is by taking pictures of you visiting exotic places or walking around with new outfits.

All of this leads you to do all sorts of things that may look like they are sending you to virtual heaven, but actually start to take a toll on both your emotional and financial well-being.

With each new trip and each new item obtained, you feel a dose of joy and a rejuvenated feeling of pride. But these milestones quickly lose traction and send you back to the starting place.

The crowd that was cheering for you has now switched to the latest image and once again deemed you insignificant.

To rise again?

You need to repeat the process.

Go somewhere. Buy something. As if where you are and as if what you have is never enough.

The ultimate purpose of social media in that sense is to keep you live forever in desire. Forever wanting more – more to watch, more to acquire, more places to visit. And when desire for more is what powers us, we descend further to the pit of folly.

Never appreciating our current situation, but forever longing what else we might have.

Some Closing Thoughts

According to recent study, 7 in 10 people on Earth are now using mobile phones. If you ask me, the main purpose of social media giants is to ensure that in the near future, 10 in 10 people are using mobile phone and all of them have online accounts to participate in the global chit-chat.

And while the vision where everyone is online seems exciting, it’s only appealing to the creators of the platform and the people/businesses who advertise there.

Fostering human connection might be the statement on the front page of every social media platform. However, all of these sites are neatly covering the extra text stating that they are all about commodifying our attention and selling it to the highest bidder.

But no matter how much I stress on the downsides of social media, it’s rarely going to do you any good.

You are already hooked, already active participant in the world of awesomeness. You dig your roots deep into the online soil, and you have self-created a somehow reasonable response on why you waste your days there, “Oh, I use social media to keep in touch with my friends and family.” Ah, how cute and naive.

In reality, social media has woven itself into the fabric of our identities, creating an online world that often eclipses the richness of our real lives. It presents an endless scroll of curated perfection, leading us to compare, envy, and strive for an unattainable ideal.

In the next chapter of this series, we’ll explore further what’s the main reasons we can’t escape the online rat race. After that, we’ll shift towards what we can do to keep ourselves safe from the online monster trying to monopolize our days.

---

Footnotes:

1. Our tendency to want to get everything we see online is called the Shiny Object Syndrome. Instead of investing time and money in building one big project, we get distracted by the latest trends and we start new projects all the time.
2. As Blaise Pascal once said: “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”