Hacking social media

Social media is ruining your life:

Making you anxious.
Making you dumber.
Given you depression.
Feeding you soft porn.
Bringing in health problems.
Making you more distracted.
Reducing your attention span.
Decreasing your concentration.

Oftentimes all of that in combination.

Once in a while, we used to get anxious because a tiger was hunting us up in the savannah; the same level of anxiety can be experienced nowadays on TikTok on a daily basis, when you get to see the crime that was the biggest crime, or that accident that was the super accident, and you see all the angles of a crime scene, or the big explosion of two cars crashing in slow motion with scary music playing in the background.

Not being able to give your attention for prolonged periods of time, and switching context every 2 minutes, makes you dumber.

Watching “soft porn” almost oftentimes leads into watching “real porn” on top of the fact that it makes you more prone to lust.

We evolved to be outside moving around in nature, which improves your mood, your cognition, and your overall well-being. Moving less often does the exact opposite.

So why are these apps still around? Why this masochism?

There is nothing out there that will survive if all they had to offer was negative—nothing, period. There must be at least one positive thing they are offering to the world so their existence is justified.

Leaving addiction aside for a moment, are there any good reasons that explain why people come back to the use of these platforms over and over?

Indeed, you can find everyday useful scenarios for different people in their daily routine that make the use of these apps almost mandatory and necessary in their life.

Anyone who has ever come back from work after a very stressful day and wants to enjoy good music and lets the app play music continuously.

Anyone who, after months of being unemployed, finally finds a job after setting up his social media profile correctly.

Any housewife mom who is tired of doing a lot of housework and finally wants to rest and wants some “peace” and has to give out her device to the kid to finally enjoy some moments of silence.

One of the biggest benefits of all, and the main contribution to the world that has come from one of these platforms—mainly thanks to YouTube—was the democratization of education, thank God. Something that governments, politicians, leaders, and millions of well-intended human beings for ages across the world dreamt about.

Anyone with a network connection can now sit down and watch a lecture from Harvard or listen to a lecture from an MIT professor as he is having his lunch, or as he is listening to a long-form podcast where two guys are having interesting, deep, and insightful conversations.

Kids now can watch a very fun math teacher explaining mathematics in such an easy and entertaining manner that the kid realizes that math was not as boring as it was thought at school, and it begins to develop in the child some interest for maths and science.

YouTube is indeed one app that stands out among the rest. If you want to extend and improve your YouTube experience, either get to the point, summarize it, and ask questions as though you are interacting with the video. Remember, the more you engage, the more questions you ask, the more you write, the more you think. I developed an AI extension for this as well. Check it out.

So can we keep the good and fun and get rid of the ugly and harmful?

I think so 🙂 Let’s unpack this.

One of the main problems with most of these networks was the introduction of algorithms.

Twitter and Facebook did not have algorithms back at the beginning of their journey; posts from people you follow would be sorted out chronologically.

But just like most businesses seeking to increase profits with their platform, they found out that the best way to do this was to put all their effort into attention grabbing—so that they can hook users up for as long as possible, regardless of the problems it may bring into their overall well-being. That strategy was so successful that other social media sites replicated this effectively.
Algorithm optimizations are almost always there with the intention of grabbing your attention and hooking you up for as long as possible.

The benefits of taking control over algorithms are as good as taking control over your environment. If your environment is set up in a way that makes it easier to eat the right food or do your workout, then you’ll be more prone to do them—to the point that it becomes a routine and a normal thing to do. If the algorithms are feeding you with soft porn, war news, and conspiracy, then your version of reality and your levels of anxiety may be high and a normal state to be in.

So getting control over these algorithms seems to be the real business.

There are a couple of ways to hack into this easily. Installing useful extensions is one of them. Ublock and Unhook (extensions you can get for free) improve your YouTube experience tenfold, taking out that addictive right-sidebar video recommendation. And the homepage feed has to be the first thing to go. Similar with X—you can run “Control Panel for Twitter” and Ublock and you already improve your experience on X, I’ll say by more than 80% (following the 80/20 rule). If you’ve never done this, you’ll thank me later. Try it. Always try to find ways to block any attention grabbing from these platforms, especially when you come back from “the trance” after you wasted an hour of your time and begin to blame yourself. A better approach is to go back and think how this time wasting started—what things online did you do that dragged you to where you are now?

You have more control over the use of social media with an online browser on your desktop computer than with the app version on your phone. Browser extensions allow you to change the website layout or block attention-grabbing elements on any social media website.

Attention-grabbing elements can easily be taken away from your desktop computer with browser extensions like:

“Click to Remove Element”

Or any JS and CSS injector that allows you to change the layout of a site so that you can take away using basic coding with the help of ChatGPT and remove attention-grabbing elements on that site or remove anything that you don’t like. (Not all attention grabbing is bad, however—we’ll talk about this later on.)

Seeing that person having fun and looking good on Instagram makes you want this thing too, and the fact that you cannot have it raises your anxiety. Leaving you in a constant state of stress, waiting for that notification to show up. Haven’t you noticed that pleasure you get with every notification you get, especially from that little yet powerful red bell or counter? The higher the number, the better—which is another addictive thing to take out or hide with “Click to Remove Element” or with a custom “CSS”.

Another way to get fewer distractions from these platforms, on top of using Ublock, is by using a good browser that already comes with an ad blocker by default. “Brave” browser is at the top of my list.

Social media apps on your phone, on the other hand, on top of collecting more information about you—their layout is embedded. You can’t change it. You can’t do any tweaks or modifications to any of these apps, which will most likely make you fall into a rabbit hole of madness. And getting out of that trance may take 1, 2, or 3 hours. Only God knows how long. I heard a guy saying that he just opens TikTok and automatically 3 hours are gone. I’m sure some people can relate to this.

Since you can’t edit the social media layout or eliminate attention-grabbing elements from your phone, there are still tools or concrete things you can do when dealing with this problem. The best thing is always going to be uninstalling those addictive apps from your phone in the first place (no surprises there). However, not everyone can do this cold turkey, and some people are afraid to do it because of FOMO.

How do I get informed on the latest news?
What is my favorite influencer saying right now?
What if my friend sends me a message on Facebook?
How do I get entertainment when I’m too exhausted from work?

People want all or most of this available and at their disposal in their pockets all the time—no strings attached. Which is one of the reasons that justifies the levels of anxiety and stress in today’s world.

Youth who used social media >3 hours per day were about 2× as likely to develop symptoms of anxiety or depression compared to those using ≤30 minutes/day.
– Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

iOS, for instance, tries to help its users by making this process easier, building innate tools into their software, and with Android you can get pretty much the same deal by installing apps:

• Screen Time
• Focus Mode
• Notification Management
• Grayscale Mode
• App Removal & Restrictions

And so on. Do they work though? That is the real question we have to ask.

The system relies on user willpower, which is a problem. You can always press “Ignore Limit” or “Unblock Instagram” or toggle off Focus whenever you want, and over time you may begin to ignore this feature more and more.

Making it hard to engage in wrong behavior does help, however. You can also use website blockers and social media app blockers like “Deep Focus” for desktop or phone to block them for a certain amount of time or indefinitely lock them up with a password, etc., just making the process more difficult. You can also make use of the innate phone settings mentioned before. Making wrong behavior that is not in your best interest much harder.

The good thing, however, about the use of these apps or tools that aim to protect your time is that you become aware. Yes, these apps are a problem. Yes, social media is taking time away from my family. Yes, I should not be spending too much time on these apps; your time could’ve been better spent on something more “productive” or “non-productive” (hobbies, family, friends, beach, walking, etc.). Becoming aware of your problems is the first step to fix them (just like the alcoholic recognizing he has a problem with alcohol).

Someone may say:

“You are better off without them.” or “Don’t use social media at all,” another fanatic may shout from his safe corner.

I’ll agree that you are better off avoiding many of them, especially those you don’t need much or where the value they offer is so little and the harm is so big.

So sorry to say this, but no, I still want to watch a lecture from the comfort of my couch. I still want to learn how to cook an egg to perfection on YouTube. I want to build a kick-ass resume on LinkedIn so I can get a job, or make statements on Twitter like a president or public thinker would do, to at least feel that I’m making a contribution to the world that my thoughts and opinions matter (as pointless as it may be for some). I want to use social media to promote my content and my business online.

As I’m doing now, make sure to subscribe to this newsletter if you like this content.

How can someone who is just starting an online business promote it? What does he do? Print advertising? Yellow Pages? TV advertising?

At the bare minimum, critics have to admit that it is extremely hard to make this work out without the use of social media. Even for people who already “have a name online” this is hard—imagine someone who is just a beginner or who is trying to make a name for him/herself. This process is obviously much harder. How easy is it for people to know about your content, product, or service without the use of these platforms?

This is what critics fail to admit, or they minimize the importance these tools play in today’s society and how they help you bring food to the table or increase your sales or get your voice out there.

They’ll say go to the fields and go to the mountains and work in solitude for 6 months or a year and work on your craft, and no doubt that well-done and meaningful work will come after that amount of time and dedication—but they forget to mention that every day you have to pay for your food or your rent, you have to make a living. And this gets even harder if you are a father or have other responsibilities. You need to get noticed if you want other people to see the work you are doing, to run that special deal of the day, to promote your business, to sell your online service, to make yourself visible—and everyone is doing this.

Your favorite public thinker, your favorite politician, your favorite entrepreneur—not all, but MOST of them—are using these platforms for the sole purpose of getting their voice out there, letting people know what they are up to, what they are working on. Their followers can see another side of the human being or a behind-the-scenes in some of their social media updates. Or for the company, the brand, or any person who may be facing public scrutiny or may be the subject of controversy and who now more than ever needs to make a public statement—she needs people to know also her version of the story. What better way to do this than using one of these platforms for free? In the “old days” you needed TV or radio time, whose owner may not want to see your face or even hear from you, or you had to spend tons of money to get your voice out there.

Hence, these tools have utility in the world. They provide value. They serve as ways to communicate your thoughts, to connect with others. They serve as high-quality sources of education that everyone now can get for free.

I cannot emphasize this enough: you need to be in charge and in control and use these platforms as tools—not the other way around. The moment you feel you are the tool, you are getting dumber, or you are getting more addicted, the moment you are wasting your time, then by all means take them out of your life, get rid of them, uninstall them. But even better than that—which is my approach—ask yourself: What tools do I need? How can I get the best out of this platform? Is there anything I can do to tweak it or adapt it so I can get the best from this? You have to make an autopsy on your relationship with these networks and be strategic about how to make the best use of them.

Sitting down in front of your desktop computer may not be the best place to watch a lecture or a movie.

Scheduling your social media posts or getting an assistant to do the postings for you are better ways to run an online business.

Podcasts don’t necessarily have to be listened to from YouTube—there are other apps that make this process less distracting.

If you need to watch something urgent on one particular platform, you can install the app and then uninstall it with the same ease. (Remove that thought—oh, I may need to keep this app installed because I may want to use it later—you are wasting more time by keeping that app in your phone.)

If you want to use social media for promotion, for talking to people, for listing your products for free on the marketplace—you can remove all the distracting elements from that platform and have something non-addictive and clean ready to use for promotion.

If someone shares an interesting video from a highly addictive app, it is better to bookmark it and watch it later on your distraction-free browser or use the browser on your phone and watch it from there with blockers activated.

Do your own autopsy on your use of these platforms and decide which ones to take out, those apps that get taken out easily from my phone are those that are there mainly to provide entertainment, so almost nothing of value other than that. Which, in today’s stressful world, makes sense why so many people are using them, why they are growing so fast. Almost anyone who has had a stressful day at work—as soon as break is on, they want to release all that stress, and the best way to do that is picking up TikTok and watching something funny or something shocking, some form of entertainment—attention grabbing of a kind. People just want to see something happening. And indeed, watching funny videos over and over releases stress, but this is also coming up with a wide range of consequences that have a negative impact in your life. Getting dumber at the top of the list. Most of these social media apps’ attention grabbing goal is for you to stay longer, and the kind of content that does this effectively tends to be sex-related, conspiracy, clickbait, sensationalism, war news—making these apps look more and more like Infowars with every algorithm update.

“Once the TikTok algorithm determines that a teen user is interested in gambling, drugs, or weight loss, the algorithm will consistently show them excessive amounts of that content.”
Source: Wall Street Journal.

It is not difficult to imagine the formation of values an active consumer of this content will develop over time—let alone people who are still forming a version of the world. God forbid those who are still in early development. Forbidding social media for kids, to me, is a no-brainer. And as an adult: limit, restrict, uninstall, or set them up in such a way that you have control and use them for your own needs (promotion, education, etc.). You need to be a bit techie. I’ll be writing about this in more detail in future newsletters.

We’ve been talking about attention grabbing as a negative so far, but not all attention grabbing is bad. As a reader, I sometimes find books or articles that caught my attention or my curiosity, and then the next thing one wants to do is to dig in more into that topic. There are topics or interests out there that are worth dedicating your time to.

There are also good movies or documentaries worth watching that grab your attention and one feels happy after watching them. When was the last time you went out with your partner to a movie theater and had your phone off and just sat and enjoyed a good movie together?

This task is not as easy as it used to be, and Zuckerberg is trying to make this even harder with “another new innovation” known as “movie mate,” “a chatbot you can talk to—typically from Instagram—that provides real-time trivia, behind-the-scenes facts, and exclusive content while the film is playing, to have a ‘movie partner’, whose goal is to create a ‘second-screen’ experience that augments the traditional moviegoing event.”

At this rate, I wouldn’t be surprised if I ever read or heard of “bathroom mate,” “a chatbot you can talk to—typically from Instagram—that provides real-time exclusive content while you are in business, a chatbot that augments the traditional bathroom experience.”

There is no stopping the fight for your attention. Every new update, every new feature is designed for you to stay longer and longer and even to follow you to what used to be the most private places in your house. Haven’t you noticed that waiting times for the bathroom have been longer and longer in recent years?

You have to be prepared for what is coming. All these little experiments are testing grounds for the ultimate test of your attention, which we may witness within this decade—when people decide to stay there for hours, days, months, and maybe even for life, trapped in virtual reality. Trapped in a perfect world—a place indistinguishable from reality. Which seems to be the ultimate goal of these platforms: to get all your attention, all day, forever and ever.

You have to protect your time—one of your most valuable assets in today’s world. Everyone and everything out there is trying to get your time and attention. You have to be jealous with it. You want that thing you are paying attention to, to be relevant with the kind of life you want to live or that is in your best interest. So do an autopsy on your life and see what are those things, people, ideas that you want to give your attention to. You’ll notice that in those times you spent with that person, book, pet, movie, hobby, etc., you are not switching context every 2 minutes to something new or shocking. Which, if you still have the temptation of doing it, realize that this bug is comming from social media, and that it may take time to heal your body from this disease. But what better way to practice it than by doing prolonged concentration?

So go ahead—get lost in a book for hours on end. Let your kid play with his friends for prolonged periods of time. Cook that delicious food you wanted to eat. Have distraction-free time at the table with your family or with your friends. Go to the beach and enjoy the sun and the water. Go for long walks to find the solution to that problem. Watch a great movie.

Doing any of this without constant distractions is indeed quite a big challenge in today’s world.