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I deleted Instagram off my phone a few weeks ago. I do this from time to time and I always feel better when I do, which makes me wonder:
Why do I keep re-downloading it?
Logically, if I’m happier, more focused, and just a better human without it, which I believe I am, then WTF is this addict-like behavior about?
It’s like an alcoholic that thinks beer is the problem, not whiskey. I say, Instagram is the problem, but oh, YouTube, that’s cool.
I’ll just use that one.
The Marginal Benefit Analysis
I was an Economics major in college. And after I graduated, I spent a year studying the ins-and-outs of a field called Behavioral Economics — which essentially fuses our understanding of psychology with economics. It is, in many senses, the true study of decision making and human behavior in a modern world.
One of the key ideas presented in Microeconomics 101 is the idea of making decisions “on the margin” which essentially just means — making this decision, right now, based on this set of circumstances.
Does this decision provide a benefit right now?
When we talk, however, about a marginal benefit in a general context — it’s as if to say — something gives us a tiny bit of fortitude, joy, money, or whatever else we are after.
Social media is both a manifestation and reinforcement of the marginal benefit model. It feeds the “instant gratification” we seek and compounds our issues with self-control.
It is because it does cede a marginal benefit and that it’s a problem.
If I can get a small dopamine shot to the brain now, why would I put this off in hopes of a larger, more difficult to attain shot later? Why would I play a video game that’s hard to beat? Why not just scroll through Facebook?
Social media itself, it would seem, is something that provides a very small marginal benefit to my life on a day-to-day basis. That is, scrolling through Instagram, giving away hearts, and making comments here and there, doesn’t give me all that much joy. In fact, it…
