Social media addiction can be compared to addictions to cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, and gambling. It sounds really weird because cocaine and social media are two very different things. Though they are different, the addictions that you've developed can be compared to quite an extent.
Social media addiction works in a way that when you see a notification on your phone, your brain expects a reward. When someone likes your photo or someone left a nice comment on your photo it makes you happy. Here, you get an instant reward. It's like your brain writing a diary entry "I am happy because of this thing I will do it again."
But slowly the excitement keeps decreasing. A mere 100 likes only 20 comments, 2 measly messages, and 10 friend requests. It's not enough you start wanting more and slowly you start falling into the pit. There are two main reasons for it the first is the Ease of Access, and the second is speedy rewards. How easily accessible are the events? And how soon do you get rewarded for doing it? These are the two risk factors to be addicted to something.
Now, let's look at these from the perspective of social media. Social media and your phone are very easy to access whether it is Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, you simply have to pick up your phone, unlock your phone with a swipe, and with one tap, the three apps can be opened. The second thing you get speedy rewards as well. The likes you get on your post, the comments on it, and the messages of so many people that's on Facebook and then the videos that you watch on Twitter, Instagram, or YouTube, the entertainment that you get out of it, if it's a comedy video, the resulting laughter, is a reward.
Compare it with other activities. Suppose you want to read a book it needs patience until you've read a few pages of the book, you won't be rewarded it takes a lot of time. If you want to play outside you will have to put on a t-shirt, a pair of shorts, and shoes, and then you'll have to walk outside. There will be physical exertion on your body It reduces the ease of access further. If you want to meet with your friends, you'll have to call them, make plans with them, you'll have to dress up, and then go out, and the ease of access decreases further.
All the social media companies have intentionally designed their app like this. They have conducted detailed studies to find out what attracts people more psychologically. Things that would encourage people to use their apps more. These professionals draw huge amounts in salaries, they conducted several high-level psychological analyses of people and surveys to find out these triggers. From the color scheme to the layout of the buttons in the app, they have paid attention to all of it.
Earlier, when you'd scroll on Facebook, eventually the newsfeed would end after you had read the posts of your friends. But now they have added infinite scrolling. Now, you can continue scrolling, and Facebook will keep on showing you something because their main motive here is to make you spend more and more time on Facebook.
The ease of access and speedy reward that you get from your phone is much more that's why it is so much easier to rely on that. This social media addiction, is dangerous for your life, for a host of reasons. The teenagers start feeling more and more anxious and may eventually get depressed especially when they get comparatively fewer likes. Your real-life friends become Facebook friends and you see their updates on Facebook and interact on Facebook, through comments and messages, and eventually, stop meeting people in real life.
I'm not saying that you should completely stop using social media but the question is, how do we stop the addiction? The answer to it is hidden in two factors, ease of access and speedy rewards. If you want to stop any addiction, then you'll have to reduce the ease of access. And you'll have to eliminate the speedy rewards. A simple solution is to delete all social media apps from your phone. I'm not asking you to delete your account, I'm asking you to delete the apps.
If you then wish to access social media, you can do so from your phone's browser or on a laptop. It will help by reducing the ease of access. If this seems too much for you, another thing that you can do is turn off the notifications. With this, your mind will not be expecting a reward every minute or every hour. You will open the apps only when you want to open them. If you think that you are very addicted to it, and you need to cut it out significantly, then use these apps only by private browsing. It means that whenever you log in to Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, you will have to enter your password every time. This would hinder the ease of access even more. The simple logic is, the more difficult the action would be for you the easier it would be to eliminate your addiction.