by NotoriousBIC
Humans are social animals. We have evolved over thousands of years to come together for mutual benefit and protection amongst other positive benefits that come from belonging to a “tribe”.
That being said, we have also evolved to deeply care, as if our very survival depended on it, about what our fellow tribesmen think of us. Being liked, or not, can literally mean life or death.
This is powerful stuff. And it’s exactly what makes social media so addictive and destructive. Every time that phone beeps with a new message or Facebook update, your brain gets a powerful dopamine hit.
And this is, at a normal level, how it’s supposed to be. But the human brain has not evolved, obviously, with the pace of computers or the people who write the code these systems run on.
We are simply not designed to have a 6 billion member tribe, where we are privy to every thought, good or bad, people have about us or our tribe.
The hyper polarization is obvious. The cognitive dissonance is too.
The world is just not the same place since the rise of the “social” media phenomenon.
Disclaimer: This is a guest post and it doesn’t necessarily represent the views of IWB.