I have already casually touched upon the question of harm of social networks in other articles, but now decided to consider this topic in a separate article. Here I will talk about how a fascination with social networks like Contact, Facebook, Classmates, Twitter can negatively affect a person’s mental health. I will give some tips on how to use social networks for the benefit, not harm. I also compiled a ranking of social networks, which you can find at the end of the article.
Social networks have identified trends in the development of the Internet towards integration, combining capabilities in a single, multi-user web platforms. These platforms provided an opportunity for the user to communicate with friends, read news, watch movies, listen to music, share it with other participants, take part in discussions, unite by interests, create communities and all these opportunities are concentrated on one site!
Undoubtedly, social networks are a great technological achievement that offers many possibilities. But along with these opportunities come misfortunes ... It’s impossible to say that social networks are one continuous harm, just like you can’t say the same thing, for example, about a computer game. With the right, disciplined approach to this miracle of Internet technologies, you can get some benefit and make your life easier. But there is always the risk that working with social networks will have harmful consequences on our psyche.
What could be the consequences? What is danger of social networks? This will be discussed below.
Dependence on social networks
Social networks have a large addictive potential, that is, a significant risk of addiction. There are several reasons for this. The first reason is that working in social networks annoys the pleasure centers in our brain. We have pleasant emotions, every time we read a friendly comment under our photo, we get a “like”, when someone leaves a positive review, etc.
The desire to re-receive these emotions brings us back to the open spaces of social networks, forcing us to spend more and more time there.
The second reason lies in the features of the assimilation of information when working in multi-user web platforms. A person who sits, for example, in contact, receives a lot of heterogeneous information in small portions over a small period of time: he read a short comment, answered, immediately opened the news, looked at an interesting post in the community about science, began reading, simultaneously turning on the audio recording, misread , because the attention was distracted by a message from a friend, answered and went to the page of this friend to see what's new there.
The brain gets used to this mode of operation as quickly as the hand and mouth get used to the “clicking” of the seeds. It's not just about the pleasure itself and the features of learning information, but also about the convenience, speed and availability of social networks!
To get pleasure from the opinion of another person about your photo, you don’t have to suffer much: logged in (at least from the phone) and with one click looked at how many people “liked” your photo on the beach! To occupy your attention with something not straining and enthralling, you do not need to look for an interesting article in the search: you opened a contact and started reading news and watching updates from friends. Everything is fast and convenient.
The speed and availability, in my opinion, are important prerequisites for the formation of any dependence. Man instinctively searches for the easiest ways to achieve pleasure, even if these ways are ineffective and lead to harmful consequences. Take the habit of smoking. Quick and affordable.
Dependence on spending time in social networks leads to the following problems.
Reduced attention span
Above, I wrote about how a user can acquire information in social networks: quickly, spontaneously and in small portions. As I have already said, the brain becomes accustomed to such work with information and gradually loses the ability to hold attention to something for a long time. Developed attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. This is a side effect generated by the philosophy of information integration: when working with a single web interface begins to combine many functions such as communication, listening to music, discussing meetings, etc., the user is tempted to break everything at once and perform several processes in parallel.
It badly affects the abilities of our thinking. It becomes difficult to keep attention for a long time, for example, on reading a book. Our mind, following the acquired habit, begins to jump from one object to another. Therefore, there are difficulties in order to consistently reflect, to think about one problem: attention constantly “floats away”.
Especially this problem is acute in the context of the younger generation. Children's thinking is much more plastic than the adult one and therefore it is easier to adopt the harmful standards of thinking that form, including the social network.
Informational dependence
Social networks can turn into a sort of cud for the brain. We get used to constantly receive some information and if this does not happen, we begin to experience an informational break. It is expressed in the fact that it becomes difficult for us to relax in those situations when there is little data in the brain, for example, when we go to the subway or are in the country. After all, our brain is always concerned with not ceasing to chew this gum and requires new pieces of information, as it used to get it every day from social networks.
Fatigue, stress
Working in a continuous flow of information and alternating emotional impressions, the brain is very tired, the body is under stress. In addition, while working in social platforms, you look at the monitor, and an overabundance of such activity in itself leads to fatigue, no matter what you read.
Alienation, reduced intelligence
When you sit in social networks for a long time, your brain is busy with senseless and aimless activity, which cannot be called a full intellectual work. You simply occupy him with something that he was busy all the time, not thinking about the quality of the incoming information. Instead, you could think about something, come to solving life problems, make plans for the future, come up with some useful idea, read a good book, etc. But this is all impossible until your mind is puzzled by chewing on Internet gum, turning you into a thoughtless and alienated zombie.
Due to the fact that information comes in quickly and continuously, you do not even have time to digest it, think it over. Emotions do not receive development in response to incoming impressions, since this requires time and rest, which are not available in conditions of convulsive learning. As if you are throwing in your mouth and not chewing, swallow dumplings, salad, cucumbers, borscht, sweets ... Combining the sweet with the salty, the cold with the hot in one culinary combination.
You cannot even say what you liked the most, as you rushed to swallow everything as quickly as possible and there was no time to form an assessment, a certain emotional response. In addition, indigestion awaits you ahead ...
Compassion, empathy, interest and enthusiasm disappear, not having time to really take shape in your psyche, as one information abruptly replaces the other.
I should note that the above-mentioned consequences of harm may appear not only because of dependence on social networks. These symptoms can be the results of excessive hobby for computer games and the Internet in general, as well as the result of many manifestations of modern life: intensive work, the rapid pace of life, inordinate consumption of information, boredom ...
Is it possible to use social networks without harm?
Despite the terrible things that I described above, I am sure that the social network is not an absolute evil, you just need to use them wisely and in everything know the measure, as in many other things. I do not see anything wrong with being able to meet people by interests, find old acquaintances and rehabilitate past connections, have a convenient and accessible interface to communicate with my friends, listen to music (and find it) and watch movies. Social networks have a number of useful functions that make life and work on the Internet very easy.
This is a great technological and cultural breakthrough in the development of the Internet. But, as with many breakthrough technologies, in working with social platforms, you need to be careful not to harm them. I will give advice on the "hygiene" of spending time in the social. networks.
Tip: Limit the time spent in social networks
No need to go and check for updates on VKontakte every hour, during every free minute at work or at home. Limit the number of visits to social networking pages, say, twice a day. If you are accustomed to attend social networks at work in free minutes, then conduct such an experiment. Instead, as soon as you are free from work, frantically open the browser and enter classmates / contact, go for a walk or just sit for 10 minutes calmly on a chair with the monitor turned off. Give your brain a break from the information! At the end of the day you will feel much less tired, I assure you!
If you have a lot of free time at work, then it is better to spend it on something more valuable and necessary than social networks. Read informative articles, learn new things, because the modern Internet provides so many excellent opportunities to get any information! The Internet is not only social networks!
If you follow this advice and sit in contact less, for example, no more than half an hour a day, then you simply have no time for any stupid activity, like the one that is to comment on every photo, like any video, be aware of all the updates of friends. Use the social network only for its intended purpose, that is, as an interface that allows you to communicate, exchange views, learn about events. But do not abuse these opportunities, avoid unnecessary and senseless "idle talk".
When you sit in social networks, you kill your time, which you could spend on something more valuable that would benefit you in the future! The brain, busy chewing the Internet-chewing gum, is not able to generate any ideas, no thoughts, he is engaged exclusively in stupid activity, working in idle. A person who spends all his time on the Internet or TV is the embodiment of social zombies from anti-utopian novels about the future. He does not think about anything, is devoid of imagination, his thinking is constantly busy with likes, clicks and digestion of media slops.
Social networks = control over the Internet?
Maybe social networks are a means of global control over the Internet. After all, many users spend most of their time on the web in social platforms. For them, the Internet is limited to the space of these platforms. Social networks themselves only stimulate this trend, striving for greater integration, capturing more and more new functions (watching movies, music, games), for which we go online.
A single global site is much easier to control than many local, disparate domains. Especially if there is moderation and the requirement for de-anonymization on such a site (registration is strictly under your own full name). It is likely that the idea of a controlled Internet gets its development in reality through a massive passion for social media.
Of course, this does not mean that the social networks were invented precisely for this. But, it remains a fact that despite the fact that the social platforms want to claim full coverage of the opportunities that people want to get from the Internet, the information there is very limited, both in quantitative terms, and the ability to get this information using the capabilities of the engine. In short, most social networks are not focused on the fact that a person learns something and receives the information he needs in full.
These sites can not be a full replacement for the entire Internet, no matter how striving for this. This is the main conclusion of the thoughts that I have outlined above. I do not want to create in you some kind of paranoia on the basis of the idea of total control and surveillance of you via the Internet. I myself belong to all paranoid theories and people who are obsessed with them with a touch of irony. Just do not abuse social networks and remember that there are a lot of other useful sites, for example, Wikipedia, sites with popular science information, websites about self-development, specialized blogs ... The Internet is not limited to social media.
My personal social network rating
In order to brighten up the gloomy tones that this article began to acquire at the end, let me tell you about my favorite social networks, it turns out that some sites can be very useful.
Useful social networks
last.fm is my favorite social network. (And this is not an advertisement) It is designed to search for music and there it is implemented very conveniently, at least, I really like it. I love music, I listen to different styles from electronic directions to jazz and rock. This site provides an excellent opportunity to find performers to your liking, relying on your own musical tastes. The site learns about your tastes by connecting to a home media player (winamp, foobar) or ipod and getting information about the songs played from there.
To search for new performers, you can use the recommendations of the system, you can search for similar musicians yourself for those you like, you can search for styles or find out what your friends are listening to. The system informs the user about events in his city that may be of interest to him. For example, if your listening library has a performer, Orbital, then the system in the “events” tab will inform you about the arrival of these musicians in your city. A very useful feature.
In short, there are many possibilities. But, like with any social network, you can “hang on” on last.fm: wandering aimlessly through the pages of friends, leaving stupid comments, switching from a link to a link and wasting time in the empty. Here, too, you need to know the measure and use the site for its intended purpose. Then he can become very useful.
imdb.com with this site, the choice of film to watch in the evening has ceased to be a long and laborious task for me. I no longer need to read the bulky reviews of homegrown film critics to find a movie that fits my taste. There are many ways to search for movies on this site: find your favorite movie and the system displays a list of pictures that people liked who love your movie. Actually, this is a very good algorithm. So I discovered a lot of great motion pictures.
You can search by director, by actor, by soundtrack author. You can set your own ratings of viewed films and the system itself will give you recommendations. The imdb rating has long become an authoritative standard for evaluating films that guide millions of movie lovers around the world when choosing films.
StumbleUpon - Recently discovered this excellent social network. The idea is as follows: when registering, you indicate your interests, for example, self-development, physics, pets and press the magic button “Stumble”. The program of the site is looking for a page on the Internet for you that matches your interests, for example, “10 most exciting physical experiments”, if you have marked “physics” in your interests. The page is shown directly in the interface window, that is, you don’t have to leave your profile page, you look at other sites as if through the StumbleUpon window.
In this case, you have access to all the functions that are on the site, which shows you this social network. You can leave comments, make purchases, etc.
The system shows you only those pages that other users liked. A great alternative to ranking a site in search engines. This system is indispensable in the situation when you want to spend time on the Internet, but do not know where to start. StumbeUpon itself will offer you pages that meet your interests.
True, the system seems to have only the English interface and search on English-language sites (seemingly). I was looking for a web service that would facilitate my search. I didn’t spend much time on it, as I discovered it recently, but at first glance, the site is good and the interface is user-friendly. You can find literature for every taste, read the ratings of readers, biographies of authors, etc.
This site is a vivid example of the fact that a social network is not only a thousand virtual friends, meaningless comments and likes. This is an example, in all respects, of a useful site promoting the personal development of the user.
Less useful social networks
vk.com хороший сайт, с точки зрения движка, возможностей и технологии (я хоть и не большой знаток веб-технологий, но, на мой взгляд, они весьма и весьма продвинутые в случае VK). Правда, при неумелом использовании возможны побочные эффекты, вроде зависимости и бессмысленной траты времени и все то, о чем я писал выше. Но, тем не менее, во многих отношениях сайт удобен.
Можно слушать практически любое музыкальное произведение, смотреть фильмы, и все это бесплатно. Существует возможность найти старых знакомых, по школе, по работе, по пионер-лагерю и т.д. Для меня контакт представляет удобство тем, что можно легко просматривать картинки по любой тематике: из путешествий, по живописи, старые фото и т.д. Все это представлено в соответствующих группах и находится очень легко.
Также вконтакте предоставляет удобный интерфейс для общения с другими пользователями.
facebook.com намного меньше нравится чем в контакте. Фильмы смотреть нельзя, также как слушать музыку. Движок не такой интуитивно понятный как у ВК. Вконтакте, первоначально был клоном FB, но сейчас, на мой взгляд, контакт превзошел facebook. Я даже чувствую какую-то приятную гордость за российских разработчиков и программистов.
Бесполезные платформы
twitter.com этот сайт является просто кастрированной версией facebook'a, урезанной до возможности писать короткие статусы, транслируя их в общий тред и получать на них ответы. Тем не менее, твиттер стал очень популярным. Конечно, на этом сайте можно прочитать хорошие цитаты, узнать о последних новостях, но в целом, я не вижу большого толка в этой соц сети. Хотя у меня есть там аккаунт (ссылка справа вверху страницы) =).
сайт повторяет многие возможности VK и FB, но их намного меньше. Многие полезные функции VK там не представлены. Весь интерфейс одноклассников как будто «заточен» под деятельность, выражающуюся в комментировании фотографий и выставлении оценок. Чтобы поставить высокую оценку, нужно заплатить. Сайт ориентирован на получение дивидендов и паразитирует на самых низших виртуальных потребностях пользователей. На мой взгляд, это пример плохой социальной сети, практически, полностью бестолковый.
Заключение
Существует еще множество социальных сетей, как в рунете, так и в международном сегменте, так и, исключительно, в англоязычном интернете. Но больше ни о каких платформах я не могу ничего рассказать, так как работал только с вышеперечисленными примерами.
Социальные сети могут принести много пользы: помочь вам найти старого друга, узнать о новой книге или музыкальном альбоме, организовать встречу и мероприятие. Но злоупотребление общественными сетями(интернетом, работой, компьютерными играми) может привести к зависимости, потери внимания, трате времени, отчуждению и отупению. Социальные сети это не великое зло, как многие считают. Это и хорошо и плохо. В ваших силах брать от них только хорошее и отсеивать плохое.
Удачи!
