Is social media destroying us as humans...

Social Media is a very powerful tool, but for most it is an incredible burden that creates envy, ego and greed.

I should know, I have been right there with most Americans and people around the world. I lived on social media. Everything I did was just so I could post that pic, live that lie that we all pretend to live.

I was very fortunate though as I went all out on social media when I started my first business. I had 15 thousand followers who where all horny for attention and fame. Now I ran this whole business basically by myself, I had a partner but I was very controlling and had issues giving up control to other people. So I ran the social media and all of the business stuff as well. I checked social media at least 100 times a day, I really don't know honestly because my phone was constantly buzzing with likes, comments and messages.

Now social media is not like a normal job where you have normal hours of operation. Social media is 24/7. Not only that but social media is most active towards the times when most people are not working, Weekends, Nights, Lunch & Mornings. So I was most busy during those times.... every day of the week.

Now I kept this up for a long time and eventually the chickens come home to roost and I burned out. I shut down the business and actually basically completely stopped social media for my business and my personal life. I stopped hanging out with people I had been my whole life till this point. I realized a lot of things about myself that I was blind to or just ignoring up until this point.

When I finally snapped it felt like had completely destroyed my life up until that point.

We where living these fake lives, putting on these fake shows to try and make people think we where cooler than we actually are or something that we are not.

Social Media always gets the best pic, the best angle, the best lighting and the one that makes you look like the champ. Has social media made us these self centered egotistic human beings or is social media just taking advantage of the hardwiring we where born with or indoctrinated into.

Social media takes advantage of how we have been hardwired to survive. Little dopamine hits, paths to pleasure in the brain. Buzzz, Ooohhh someone like my profile pic, buzzz someone commented how great I look, Buzzz some dude who I never met just posted a pic with a bunch of girls, " Oh how I want to be like him".

Social Media was designed to take as much of your attention in a day as possible. Just think how they make their money, Ads and how can they show you ads if you are not online. Social Media is designed like a slot machine, that anticipation of a win, a like, a comment, a new follow or even just entertainment for the next 5 minutes.

I think it was inevitable that this would happen eventually but I guess you never really realize the problems it will cause until you are there.

Now I've done enough bashing of social media, maybe I can talk about the good it has caused as well.

People are very connected with each other and geography can no longer limit people to sharing there experiences with people all over the world or your buddy who moved to Chicago while you live in California.

I have mixed feelings about social media as they do have a lot of benefits.

I do think Social Media can become a very toxic habit. I don't like the word addiction because at its core all addictions are just habits (paths to pleasure).

If you can get away from the word addiction and just see that they are habits, you begin to realize that we have good habits and we have bad habits.

We are beings of habit and most of our day is controlled by the habits we have set up. A lot of us have set up a very toxic habit of checking our phone constantly, every buzz, every call, every time we are in a social situation that we are nervous in or to feel not awkward at a restaurant all alone waiting for someone.

It has now been almost 6 months where I almost never get on social media and I feel so much more alive.

All I'm saying is use these tools for what they are and don't let them control your life.

Learn to live in the real world :)