I Didn’t Mind Facebook And Instagram Being Down

I wish they stayed down a little longer…

Facebook and Instagram were down for a few hours yesterday. The normally robust platforms fell prey to a shut down in the midst of whistleblower accusations that line up with the company’s history. Facebook prioritizing profits over the common good — what else is new?

I didn’t miss them. In fact, I was happy they were gone. Social media is addictive. We get a dopamine rush when we refresh our social media feeds and browse through other people’s content. This dopamine causes us to mindlessly scroll through our never ending feeds.

All of these platforms optimize their appearance, content recommendations, and hundreds of additional variables to grab our attention. They’re phenomenal at retaining our attention, but that’s not necessarily good for society.

Social media cripples many people’s self-worth. The executives know this but do very little to address the issue. In fact, they want to make their platforms accessible to younger audiences so they can damage people’s self-worths sooner. Zuckerberg was in the process of launching Instagram for Kids until the company got significant backlash. It’s another case of Facebook pursuing profits over the common good.