I recently came across an article where Meta bragged that improvements in their AI recommendations led to a 24% increase in time spent on Instagram in the January – March quarter of this year.
…And we’re just at the tip of the AI Iceberg.
Imagine what continued updates, upgrades, and refinements will do to that number in the very near future…
It’s scary to think how that number may very well only go up.
Which is why, it’s more important than ever to build better habits when it comes to social media use.
If it’s true that soon our feeds are going to be so damn good at showing us content that it keeps us on the platforms 24%, 50%, 150%(?!) longer—we need to become damn better at not logging in at all.
It’s rarely ever that I close out a social media app after having unconsciously binged for way too long and don’t immediately regret opening it in the first place.
And on the flip side, it’s rarely ever that I don’t smile with pride when I see my average daily screen time numbers go down at the end of a week.
To be fair, there is certainly some good that may come from getting better content fed into our timelines. And if we’re mindful and deliberate, we may even be able to curate a feed that’s constructive for our lives.
My only fear is that we’ll become so addicted to them that we won’t be able to digest that content, formulate our own thoughts around it, or free ourselves from the impossible grips of its advanced tailored-specifically-for-you, highly stimulating, dopamine-triggering, never-ending, constantly-refreshing feed of content gold.
Proceed with caution.