Behavior Tracked:
I often find myself either subconsciously or consciously craving a little jolt of social media, both resulting in me pulling out my phone without thought like muscle memory. For this assignment I wanted to track when I found myself taking a look at that sweet nectar of social media, and in what context I was doing it, in hopes of ultimately reducing this desire.
Methods:
I used google sheets market with a time interval of 15 minutes to mark down whenever I took a look. I like this approach since often the habit is quite unconscious, but I always realize it after the fact. This allows me to go back in every so often and mark down where and when I was. I kept track of the type of social media and the context it was in.
Data:
Models:
Findings:
A few interesting things arose when looking at the models and data. First, there were more balancing feedback loops than I would have thought. For instance, using social media means I complete less tasks, which when completed leads to needing a reward and thus using social media. Therefore more social media would lead to less frequency of use. Another balancing loop would be if I have free time, I get bored, which causes me to use social media, which leads to less free time.
On the other hand, there are some powerful reinforcing loops that came up. If I am tired I stop working and go to bed, which causes me to want a reward, use social media, which then makes me more tired (since I’m not going to sleep). In my opinion this is the loop I really need to focus on. Creating the habit of looking at social media right before bed creates a strong relationship between bed and rewards. If I continually look at my phone right before bed, I not only increase social media use, but also increase blue light which makes it harder for me to sleep. This is a bad habit that will be tough to break out of.
The data itself highlighted one interesting context in which I consistently look at social media – right after parking my car before I leave to go somewhere. I knew I did this, but not to the extent at which it was occurring. I think this occurs because I plug my phone in for car music, and when I park, the easy access begs me to peek before I have to go somewhere. I’m not sure exactly how to prevent this other than being aware and forcing myself not to do it.
Finally, in doing this project, I started to better understand the craving of social media itself. I only use two platforms (pinterest and snapchat). When I have a craving, I usually go to pinterest first because I want to see something cool that really sparks my interests. It’s less about what others are doing, and more about the randomized content itself (like looking at a personalized mood board for my interests). If I don’t see something cool, I then tend to go to snapchat reels. I believe this is because reels are another form of randomized content that could be interesting. Thus, the main craving isn’t really social media but rather content media that is closer to, say, netflix (news, stories, movies, etc — content that isn’t based on friends). That makes me feel better about my usage, however, still gets in the way of being productive or enjoying life around me.
Future:
In the future, I would track duration of social media at each use to better understand the actual flow of my actions. This might help me have more quantitative metrics behind the physiological actions. I would also experiment with removing some apps and tracking how often I crave which social media jolt. This might uncover preferences to specific apps.
