During the boom years the drug of choice among the middle classes was cocaine. It is highly addictive, readily available and best of all for those using it…Very cheap. You could get a massive high for next to nothing. Remind you of anything we are all hooked on today?
You are addicted
The comparison may be stark but just think about it for a second. Could you give up social media right now? Could you go back to using a phone that just made calls and sent texts? Could you watch TV without a laptop on your knees? Stand in a queue without checking Twitter? Could you wait for the normal news bulletin at six o’clock every evening? It courses through your veins and your brain is always looking for the next hit.
Omnipresence
It’s everywhere we go. You can’t use the internet itself today without engaging with social media. The internet is no longer static pages with info but instead it’s a massive living stream of constantly changing information that we just can’t get enough of. The peer pressure is inescapable. The band you love are using it, your friends are all tagging you online right now and getting a job would be hard without it. You can run but you can’t hide.
Cheap as chips
The barriers to entry are lower for social media than cocaine. Install Tweetdeck, costs nothing. Facebook account, diddly squat. Apps for your iPhone, mostly free. It is totally legal and all you”ll have to do is have a few ads appear on your screen but you know how to filter those out subconsciously anyway.
So it is cheap, highly addictive and permeates every single part of our daily lives. The concequences on your health are not as severe as cocaine but like with every high there has to be a down that follows. There is no getting away from it . Are you addicted?
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It’s so true, it’s completely addictive and as you said so readily available. You just can’t escape it wherever you go now. I find myself looking forward to my first fix of Twitter in the morning! I wonder will we be seeing SM anonymous support groups popping up around the country?
Debbie
So new technology like social media is addictive because people use it? Eh, no. Social Media is useful because people have a use for it. That doesn’t make it addictive.