How Social Media and Your Brain Became a Codependent Couple - Part 2
Part 2 of 2
Then It Got Dark.
This is where the story got dark.
Somewhere around 2012, politicians and interest groups got into the game and started to post, advertise, see who clicked and fed them more. And post by post, we began to divide into tribes.
Here's why it worked. At its core, politicians pitch themselves this way: construct a credible story of a monster, make you believe I'm the best monster killer and convince you that you need me for protection. The more you come to believe that the monster is going to take something of value to you, the more dangerous the monster becomes.
And since it's going to take the same thing from a group that thinks like you, you band together to sound the alarm, rally the crowd and support the monster killer.
It doesn't matter what your political stripes are. The game is the same.
How the Brain Turns Fear into Cortisol.
Here's how it messes with our brain. Job One for the brain is to keep us alive by alerting us to threats and mobilizing the systems of the body to fight it, hide from it or run. Until there's an all-clear, we biologically resist turning away from the siren.
Ever notice how when there is a hurricane threatening a distant coast that the news covers it nonstop and how hard it is to ignore it? It's biology: the brain detected a potential threat and won't stand down until it's sure the threat is over. So we hear about that storm forming off of South Africa's cape and pay more attention as the news covers it ominously as it develops over the Lesser Antilles (we pretend to know where that is). You can be in Kansas, and you care about the latest projected path. Threat detection doesn't have to be something in your front yard to engage your brain.
Politicians and interest groups make us fear the other side, posting and running ads to keep us engaged and afraid. The brain reacts with the hormone more powerful than dopamine: cortisol. Just as addictive, but stickier — because you're not choosing whether to go after a reward, you're choosing to survive. So we keep clicking and converging as a means of survival from the monster we're warned about, and end up in tribes to protect ourselves.
What's the algorithm's job? Feed us more of what we want. And the advertisers noticed that fear sells far better than reward. Biology at work.
So was it a conspiracy from the start? I think it's more like the Orient Express — they all did it. The brain, the dopamine, cortisol, algorithm, advertisers, cause-driven messaging — all with different purposes, but the same result.
Why This Matters More Than You Think.
We've ended up more deeply divided and far more stressed. And here's why you should care.
- Our bodies weren't built to thrive in a constant state of fear. Chronic low level stress dulls you now and makes you sick later. More on that in another blog.
- Healthy authentic social connection is foundational to long term happiness, health and longevity.
Let's talk about #2.
BYU published a meta analysis (summary of results of multiple overlapping studies) about the quality of life benefit of social connections. They took 150 studies covering 300,000 people and landed on why you should care about where we are today. Social connections deliver a 50% increase in survival vs. weak connections.
More empirical proof: Harvard ran an 80 year study watching a group of men. And after considering all of the chapters, stories, lifestyles, habits of these guys, they found the single strongest predictor of health and happiness was the quality of their relationships. Flip side is that low/no connection is as bad for us as smoking 15 cigarettes — that's from a University of Chicago study, look it up.
Social Media Isn't Real Connection.
You get the point. Social connection good. Know what social media isn't? Authentic connection. Know what social media has become? Socially divisive.
The men in the Harvard study lived lives unlike ours today. They spent time just shooting the shit. Talking about the new movie that came out. Or some band's latest album. Playing cards. Day trips and Sunday dinners. Their days didn't involve a 24 hour news cycle and their sports and products they bought weren't intertwined with politics. They connected not out of fear, but out of community.
At my dad's funeral, I was really struck by the range and depth of relationships he had. People from his youth, his career on the fire department, brothers from the Shriners, his neighbors over the years, golfing buddies, the woman that cut his hair. He never knew a stranger. He didn't align with a tribe. He naturally built a healthy social community.
Not many of us connect like that anymore.
We let social media reinforce how we think versus challenge us to think more broadly. We're addicted to the mind candy it gives us. Instead of learning in everyday conversations of things we should check out, we let Spotify tell us what music we might like, Yelp steer us to a restaurant, Netflix suggest a movie or series. Remember before streaming when you had to wait a week for the next episode? Remember talking the next day about a cliffhanger? Random connections. That was replaced with just binge watching a series over a weekend.
So what's my point? Anti-tech screed? No. Nostalgia for when things were different? What would be the point? I might as well yell at the waves. Nor am I naming tech the latest monster to fear. But I do think our biology has led us to become more addicted than we should be. Cheap dopamine is isolating us too much and its easy access is making us too sedentary. But there's a place for it, somewhere between never and always.
I believe that each of us is here to live our unique purpose and it seems to me that if we're going to achieve that, we each need to continually rebalance time spent in the real and digital world. Missions take time, so longevity matters. And if social connection is the single biggest driver to that, instead of being like that family of four in the restaurant each immersed in the blue glow of their phone, we have to peel our eyes off screens long enough to connect with the actual people in front of us. And knowing how the brain works for both threats and rewards, I think a lot about how to use tech as a tool versus the most dominant voice in the room.
How I Try to Navigate It.
If you've read this far and are expecting a fix to it all, I'm going to disappoint you. We're all running our own race and have to figure out what works for us. But I will share what I try to do with mixed success: I legit try to carve out part of my day to disconnect from tech.
Dinner? No screen. Here's why: digestion suffers if you scroll while you eat due to less chewing, faster eating — and if you're reading something that gets you agitated, your body's trying to digest while also preparing to fight a monster. You worked hard to earn that fuel, so enjoy it without distraction.
Workouts? No screen. First, it annoys the hell out of me when I see someone scrolling between sets when I'm waiting for equipment. Second, my life isn't so important that I can't take an hour to just work out. Last, it's biomechanically a better workout. Mind/muscle connection is a real thing. If your mind is focused on the workout, your form, the muscle being activated, you get better fiber recruitment and hypertrophy.
Sauna. Big fan of the health benefits of 20 minutes of sauna — really amazing chemistry happens in there — longevity-boosting, earned dopamine, genuine mental reset. Check out heat shock proteins if you're curious. It's also a good time to give my mind a break from the cheap dopamine of a screen. Phone stays in the locker.
No walking and texting or scrolling. If I ever get named earth king, scrolling and walking will be my second law — right after banning dog strollers for healthy dogs. My world won't stop if I take time to get to the car before checking my texts.
Intentional news check in versus constant news drip. To be honest, this one is a challenge. My survivor brain wants to know what's up. The evolved part of me says, this isn't a football game where the play-by-play matters. Each monster out there is intended to slowly be replaced with the next one. It's an endless wrestling match of discipline vs biological wiring. I don't always win, but I don't give up.
Strive for a balanced perspective vs just reinforce my own. There's a website series that places two opposing perspectives on the same topic side by side. RealClear is the name — they have a bunch of versions. RealClearPolitics, RealClearPolicy, RealClearScience, religion, sports.... I can read through different perspectives and form my own opinion.
Watch out for click bait. When a post or article catches my attention but seems too hard to believe, I've started using AI as a tool. Copy/paste and ask: tell me more about this topic, what's stated and give me two perspectives. Critical thinking defuses survival mode. Brain calms down, stress chemistry reduced.
Stay mindful of the algorithm's job, know that I'm the product, that fear-based advertisers are playing me.
Limit scrolling time. Get this — the guy who developed the endless scroll later realized he'd created a slot machine. Notice how when you pull down the screen to refresh that there's a spinner at the top. Slot machine aspect to build anticipation, deliver payoff, bump dopamine, repeat. A 60 second red light feels like 5 minutes but I can scroll for 30 without realizing it. That's the reward loop dulling the part of the brain responsible for executive function that helps us keep track of time. I get sucked in as much as anyone, but I try to keep in my head — I'm trading my time for mind candy. And I'm being manipulated to do it.
My brain doesn't turn off easily. I'm always thinking and analyzing, a trait that led me to write this blog. I started out believing — social media set out to divide us into groups and sell group access to advertisers. But as I wrote I realized — it really is a toxic codependent relationship between an algorithm and the brain that are just doing what they were built to do. Engage us, connect us, protect us.
We just have to choose how often we'll accept being the product. We can't control what's happening, but we can choose how to react to it. Autopilot is the enemy. Mindful engagement. That's the path. Hold center.
Thrive on.
Brian, Founder — Balanced Vibe