Social Media Addition

Social media addiction is a behavioral addiction characterized by an uncontrollable and compulsive urge to use social media platforms, often leading to negative consequences in daily life. While not yet officially a clinical diagnosis in manuals like the DSM-V, it is widely recognized by mental health professionals as Problematic Social Media Use (PSMU) due to its impact on the brain's reward system and overall well-being.

• Compulsion & Salience
• Mood Modification
• Tolerance
• Withdrawal
• Relapse

#realtalk #sipandconverse #positivemindset #personalgrowth

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:16

What's good, what's good? Welcome back to another episode of Simpl and Converse. What's up, my people? What's going on, DJ? Hey man, another day in the neighborhood. Another day in the neighborhood. And before we get started, make sure you like, share, subscribe, tell a friend, tell a friend. Tell somebody. Your favorite podcast is back on, and you're tuning in. So, Cri, what's been going on, my brother? Hey, man. We just uh man. We almost through two months of the new year. Two months of the new year, about midway of of 2026. Well, you know, that's the that's the college part, man. We're not midway. We almost done with the first quarter. The math ain't not the math for a map. Math for a map. We almost done with the first quarter. We almost done with the first quarter.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

So, man, how y'all been out there? I'm glad we're back ready for this episode here. I think that's gonna be an exciting topic. Um, so Craig, what's our topic today, my guy?

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Before we get there, man, you know, the uh our last topic. Um we didn't get the response that we wanted, but we got the response that we got some response, and that was uh, what's your hot button? Oh yeah. Oh man, oh man. We had some folks to chine in, like, oh yeah, oh yeah. Yeah, them hot buttons.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

I know some of that hot button. Hey, that creepy cream, baby.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

But hey, we ain't gonna dwell on that long because we want to steal uh from the topic for the day. And the topic for the day is uh social media addiction.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Are you addicted to social media? Is it an addiction? What is it? What is it? What what's the deal with social media these days? Or what is an addiction? We got to break that word down first. You know, that addiction be like, don't tell nobody, but no, addiction, that addiction. Yeah, is it something addition to your life that's not necessary, or is it something that you can't do without in your life? It's a little bit of both, in my in my opinion. What you let me ask you this though, Krill. Yeah, we're talking about addiction. We're gonna stick with addiction. Okay. You know, you're not addicted to social media, or are you addicted to not being seen?

unknown 2:30

Woohoo!

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Well, you done you done dipped back to the previous episode and put a hot button. We jump it right in.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

We jumping right in. We jumping right in. So is is it an addiction for you know what social media does, or are you addicted to not being seen?

SPEAKER_01 2:51

Well, you know, we're in a we're in a uh era now that um you can be seen within seconds based on what you have, based on um when we were brought up as kids. You could uh you ask uh was it don't be seen or heard, or uh I done messed that all up. Oh, you're talking you're talking about the country saying, yeah. Uh be seen and not heard. Be seen and not heard. So it's out of grown folk being. Yeah, if they weren't ready for you to be seen, you be somewhere and be quiet.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

You get somewhere and sit down.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

But now folks like I want you to see me.

SPEAKER_00 3:33

And nobody asked to see you yet. Yeah, yeah. And I will bet even right now with this episode that we're recording here. Yeah, I guarantee you, listeners, how many of you done looked at your phone already and checked your social media since you started listening to this? Is that is that that addiction we talking about? Yeah. But you got a definition of addict? What's the definition of addict to you or or being addicted?

SPEAKER_01 3:57

Well, you touched on it when we first started. Addiction can be something that you have to have so so bad that you can't live without it. And then also that um addition is something that um that you just sometimes you don't really need it, but you just you you you want it anyway.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

Yeah. Uh is that uh uh what's the word I'm looking for? The double mean hit?

SPEAKER_01 4:20

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

That you know, we in society now that even with how fast we move and how fast we want to get our hands on the information or be in the know. Yeah, you know that people have taken that statement in the social media world of the T. I want the T. And they always want to know what somebody else is doing, I think, to compare themselves.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

So even with, for example, using a microwave, you can't even run your microwave for 30 seconds without pulling your phone out to scroll and check social media.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

Man, who are you telling?

SPEAKER_00 4:55

How many of us have uh me, I've been guilty of it, post something on social media and check back within the next minute to see if you got one like, one share, or a like we're talking about on this podcast? Subscribe. Let another plug subscribe to but we we're looking for that could be a validation, yeah, yeah. Because how do you move? What is it about being validated that we look for in social media?

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Well, what what what I see a lot on social media is, and um, and I could be wrong, uh-huh, but um, you know, because I live been living a little for a while now, a little longer. A lot of it is because I think people haven't been getting the attention that they think they should have, you know, throughout their lifetime. And so they do some things to their stream just so they can get some attention. Yeah, I can see that. I can see that to garner that attention faster. Yeah. And um, and and and when the addiction part comes in, like you just pointed out earlier, is that uh as soon as I post this, I'm gonna see how many likes I'm gonna get within the next minute, how many likes I'm gonna get within the next hour, how many likes I'm gonna get within the next two hours, and they're constantly doing that. And what's so sad is by the time I go to bed, how many likes I have? And by and when I wake up in the morning, they're checking their phones to see how many other likes I have. Most people not, if they're saying they're um they're um, you know, part of God's life, God's part of their life, is they're not even thanking God, not even grateful for anything they have. They're worrying about their social media stats.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

Crip, I've seen people uh post something and because it didn't get the reaction they were looking for, they delete the post. Really? And come back and repost it again to try to increase those likes. Because I think it's it's part of, in my opinion, I think part of the social media situation is being the addiction part, that people are afraid of being invisible. Because, like you stated, in their everyday life, they haven't gotten the attention that they thought they should have. Yeah. Or they feel like or may feel like they've been invisible to their loved ones or those around them.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

So you factor in what people put on on their platforms, their life is great, they're living like this. And if I don't put something on my platform, nobody knows me. Nobody knows me.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

Right, because they either got to match that person with up one.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

Oh, oh yeah, it's always one up. It's always one up. You know, I remember uh my family gonna get mad at me on telling anyway. I remember we had a family reunion one time, uh-huh. And old folks sitting around and they were talking. So this was the, you know, of course, old folks ain't on social media like that. This this group of family members were not. But they were doing in person what people do on social media. Uh-huh. So they were comparing and one upping each other's hospital stores. At the family union? At the family union. So it was like one uncle was like, Yeah, you know, I just got out of the hospital, you know, I was in there for two days. The other uncle was like, Man, that ain't nothing. I just got out, I was in there for three days, and I had to be on the, I mean, so I'm sitting around listening to these uh wellness competitions of who in the hospital the longest. It's not like war stories to me. It were war stories about who's been in the hospital, who had the most doctor's appointments. So if, you know, that was the in-person version of what you see on social media where you were just describing people see a post, okay. DJ doing this, I gotta one up him. Because if not, I'm invisible.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

Instead of uh congratulating someone, what they're doing when they post something, you got to one up someone. Oh, yeah, yeah. Um, I I'll give you this example. Um, um, our executive producer here that's on the set, uh Rick and I, we know we know a lady that's um, we've been knowing her for a couple of decades now. And she's uh a senior director doing Marvel movies and just great things that she's doing now, and she just won uh NCAA Image Awards as an editor. Oh, okay. And and you know, and we all recognize her. Some people in our group who we who we rode with recognize her, just congratulating her. But I'm sure there's some people around here that got on there or probably didn't get on there and have something negative to say about.

SPEAKER_00 9:30

Yeah. Jealousy. Yep. Jealousy, and too, when you also you gotta think about too with social media, the addiction of always having to do something. Yeah, it's a current beef that's going on between uh two well-known artists right now. Yeah, and one of them has the ability to put their Twitter thumbs to work a lot faster than I don't think he's using his uh thumb.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

I think he's using uh the microphone on his phone.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

One of them using the microphone in the booth, and one of them is using the social media outlet with the Twitter thumbs. So it's it's you know, it's their way of staying relevant, but at the same time, I've seen where Twitter thumbs have caused people to miss out on jobs and other opportunities and increase air quotes drama in their life unnecessarily.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Absolutely. Absolutely. Um, that goes back again. Um, a couple about two or three weeks ago, Rick and I was in a meeting with another business social, and you know who this person is. Um the the conversation that we had is that people that look like you and I, we never want to uh uplift someone, especially again, it goes back to social media. Um what we should be doing is sharing if it's something positive and we know it's legit, we should be posting it or forwarding the shares of what our people are doing instead of up warning them or have something negative to say or talking offline like, you do you see what I just saw? What such and such is doing? I can't believe they posted this. I we can do better than that, but we're not doing that.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

No, because you know, well, that's society in general, negative sales. Yeah. Uh negative get more views. Yeah. So, like you stated, instead of using social media to post positive things, people rather do the negative things. Because, you know, now if you as society moves forward, you got to think about there's a thing called digital credit.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

And that's your rep digital reputation.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

And what if, you know, what I think what some people don't think about because I've had to go through and clear up my Facebook from what I posted on Facebook when I first got my Facebook to where I'm at now in life. And what if some 2001, 2011 post of what you posted on social media comes back to haunt you?

SPEAKER_01 12:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

Because that's your digital credit score.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

And also that digital credit enhances your addiction. Because you know the more you post, the more people follow you, it's gonna, it's gonna um entice you to be on social media more.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

It's gonna entice you to be, and then to rather whatever you post, the views may entice you to try to one up your original post, positive or negative.

SPEAKER_01 12:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

And oftentimes it's more the negative side, because people get the reaction of oh, such and such just went off on a on a Facebook post, or I'm going to keep it real.

SPEAKER_01 12:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

And your keep it real post got more views and likes and shares. So now you gotta come with another wow factor, yeah, which can get you going down that negative, that negative road to crazy social media.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

I have a two-part question for you.

SPEAKER_00 13:15

Uh I might have a two-part answer.

SPEAKER_01 13:18

While I was uh working on this research, um, two things that I discover. The well, yeah, a rhetorical question was asked. Uh-huh. How many hours is considered um a uh social media addiction? And then what I also discovered was 95% of the kids between four ages of 14 and 18 years old is spending way too much time on social media. Yeah, I can see that. And it's causing bullying, it's causing, as we see in um social media news, uh uh more so on regular television, that kids are committing more, more kids are committing suicide because they spend more time on social media. More kids are being abducted because of false people are being luring them then to some places where they're being uh child trafficking and all these other things. So uh let me stop there and start stacking my questions. Uh, what are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_00 14:25

I I agree that uh, you know, when you look at analytics and you look at uh the way some of the apps work now, as a parent out there who got kids that do have social media accounts. Uh my daughter doesn't have a social media account. Okay. She's not gonna get one until later on down the line. Gotcha. Because I think you miss out on the opportunity to cultivate real relationships. Um, it's easier for people to communicate behind the screen than it is for them to have that conversation face to face. So I think part of social media and text messaging is decreasing the ability to have proper conversations. Yeah. Um, as far as the the amount of time spent, you know, with my phone, and my I can see how much time my daughter has spent on her devices. And I think parents these days with younger kids use those devices and social media to be like, here, entertain my child so that I can do what I want to do. You're so spot on. And it's easy, that's the easy way out to just hand the device over because you know they're gonna go do whatever. But if you're not following up or checking on your kids' account, you never know what's going on. And parents should know their kids' behaviors. If I know uh if I gave my daughter an account and my daughter prior to the account was happy go lucky, now all of a sudden she's in the phone. I need to look, why? Yeah, why are you in this phone? Because I don't hear you on the phone calls, so it's not phone related. You're telling me school is good, something else is going on. So get those accounts. You know, I think too many parents try to be best friends with their kids.

SPEAKER_01 16:13

Yeah. Um, you touched, you hit right home right there about the parents spending time with their kids. And I hear so many people now and knowing this day and time, like, I have so much going on, my work. I'm taking care of these kids, uh, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, all these things was done before long before you came along. Um, my mom was an educator. She coached sports throughout her whole round the year with the school she was teaching at. And she helped her parents run their store. Uh, my dad worked uh crazy hours as a correction officer. But you know what myself, my cousins that our parents and uncles and all always did. They took time out to play games with us. Uh, we did uh outdoor, indoor activities. They never pawned us off to just always be by ourselves to entertain ourselves, even though we did sometimes, but they did things with us where we could build a relationship with them.

SPEAKER_00 17:10

I I I even give you one, Korea. Not the one up you. When you stated the part about parents ponding the their time, I'm too busy to do this. I guarantee you, if you check their social media, part of their time is gone on social media as well.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 17:26

Because they're on their phone checking their Twitter accounts, they're checking their Facebook account, they're checking their Instagram account, and it can it's so easy to scroll. Yeah, it's easy to get in that scrolling method of just burning time because it's that I don't work hard, I need a break. You know, I should have a guilty pleasure, and that guilty pleasure results to social media.

SPEAKER_01 17:53

Yeah. Um, I I think um, in my opinion, you should allocate some time for that when it's not involving your your family time. And I use exactly for myself. Um, I rarely stroll social media during productive time during the day for me, unless it's something specific that's gonna uh reflect in what I whatever I'm doing. Most of the time, 90, 95% of the time, if I'm strolling social media for just for entertainment for me, it's when I've already completed and I shut my office down for the day or whatever I'm doing for the day, or right before I lay down, and that's probably 15, maybe 20 minutes, it's never during the day when I supposed to be productive. In the middle of the day. It's never during the middle of the day. Uh, even though people send me things, if I'm productive doing something, I'm not even looking at those things then because it's distracting me from what I'm trying to accomplish for my goals for that day. And and uh and most people don't they don't get that and they wonder why they fall short of the things they're supposed to do. Uh I was just sharing my wife the other day, and I didn't let her know this is uh something we're gonna be talking about on our episode today, but we were talking about some um, she brought us something about um social media, and I said, yes, people are not aware of their own personal safety. Because I was letting her know um certain gas stations, I was reminding her that you need to be at, where most gas, certain gas stations might not have the proper security cameras there, so you need to be be aware of your awareness. And I said, What I see so many times is people have to have social media all the time. And so when they at these gas stations, they strolling their phones, they're not even looking around with their environment. So that mess can wait till you get back in your vehicle, lock your doors. If the if it's that serious, check it in. I'm not I'm not looking at my phones while I'm pumping gas.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

It's Kirby, you're hitting on something too that uh what a lot of people fail to realize and may not have thought about. I won't say they fail to realize, they may not have thought about companies, like businesses. Yeah. Um you're looking for jobs, and and you don't realize not only are the companies using AI tools now to check resumes, they're using AI tools to scrape internet uh posts and social media posts for high-level positions. Okay. So what you want to go for this high-level position, but it's scraping the internet to see what type of post you've been putting out there. Okay. What uh, you know, you got a little feisty in a political discussion on your social media. Okay. Uh you may have some interesting pictures on your social media, but companies are using that nowadays to determine their next person to fill their position.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

Wasn't aware of that.

SPEAKER_00 20:50

So that's the that's the digital representation. Let me tell you a little short story. It was a guy that was uh in his mid-30s trying to apply for a job. This a higher role. Not not you know, not your entry-level job, but it's more so of an executive role. Okay. Met all the qualifications, had his MBA certified, got certif uh certifications and everything. Met the job description to the T resume banging, got the right connections he done made using LinkedIn and stuff to make those connections. But he applied for a job, and lo and behold, he realized he doesn't get it. They don't tell him why. He assumed that he didn't get the job because they found another candidate. Unbeknownst to him, that company used AI tools to scrape and do a background check. Because now you could we're bringing you in to hold a position with our company, so I need to know what your reputation is and what we're getting into. Because you're gonna bring you gonna brand our company. You bring you you're representing our company. Absolutely. But what they found on his social media pages, uh, that's the reason they made me bring up the political piece. He Was having a whatever party it was, he got into a political discussion that got heated. On it's my account, my Twitter, I should be able to say what I want to. Okay, that came back to haunt him. They went through and saw some old college photos that he had put on his YouTube page, uh not his YouTube page, but his Facebook page. Him and his buddies thinking it's innocent. But now you're removed from that world, but they were interesting photos.

SPEAKER_01 22:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

Boom. That was the thing against him. Um, they went to his IG, bunch of turn-up. Everybody wants to turn up all the time. And and recorded it. So unfortunately, he didn't get the role, and he thought maybe it was because of somebody else who was more qualified. No, your social credit score, like we were talking about, yeah, yeah, was in the twos. So therefore, they were like, nah, we can't have you associated with this role that you're gonna take. And and this is what's out here about you. Because if we can find it, somebody else can find it. Absolutely. Oh, they're gonna find it. Oh, yeah. And he was, like I said, he was confident that he just knew he had a job.

SPEAKER_01 23:14

And that goes to share, share you, uh, people. Um, as you if you watched and or listened to this episode, some things that you do, everybody don't have to know about it. Bruh. That's what my daughter, that's what my daughter would say. Bruh. Everybody don't have to know what you're doing. Some things that you do, it's just for you or whoever you're doing it with. It's your own personal thing.

SPEAKER_00 23:39

And and and be in that moment. Be in that moment. I see people out every time you go somewhere. We was my wife and I was on a cruise.

SPEAKER_01 23:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

And we we on the balcony, and I'm looking over to the left, and this young lady can't even enjoy her balcony because she had there do her screenshots for her social media.

SPEAKER_02 23:55

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 23:56

Almost dropped the phone off the ship, but she was trying to get had the ring light, done brought a ring light on the cruise with her. But like you said, sometimes you gotta enjoy life on your own. Yeah. Be in that moment. Don't worry about taking pictures of it. Yeah. And just enjoy yourself. Just enjoy yourself. Any last, any last part and statements for for the people with social media, crew.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

Um as we uh you know wrap this up, just want to recommend some things that hopefully it helped me and hopefully it can be a blessing to you is how to cut back from some social media things. And these are some things I learned over the years is that at this point of uh era in our life, we have plenty of apps on our phone that ding and let us know. A new media alert, a new news alert, a new WhatsApp alert, new email alert, new Google alert. Ding, ding, ding, ding, all day long. Subscribe. Uh uh sip and converse, just drop the new. Right. Ding. Don't turn now, don't turn that one off. Leave that one off. Look, uh, if you is if if if our ding is gonna cause you not to be productive during the day, turn it off, but go check it out later on because I want you to be productive, I want you to have a productive day. Leave it on. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 25:14

Don't listen to DJ. Leave that one on. See, you can't have all of them turned on. So if your plan is to cut off some of the notifications, leave the simple conversion notification on.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

But look, some of them things you don't have to have a ding on all day long because you're not gonna never get anything done. Trust me, never. So, some of those apps, turn the alert notification off. Yeah, turn them off. Yep. Only leave on what's very important for you. If you have kids and then your child is associated with that notification, leave that on. If it's something's dealing with your job that is that you really have to be associated with, leave that on. But all those alerts, I know some people probably have about 20 plus alerts. Oh, yeah. That's way too many. Yeah. I I didn't have close to that many. I probably had like six or uh seven at the most. I had to narrow it down to three because it was just way too much.

SPEAKER_00 26:11

And and what I want to do, you know, with the my final statement, I want you to think about this rhetorical question. It's a question you got to answer yourself. If your grandkids Google you in the upcoming years, uh-oh, will you be proud of what they find about you on your social media platforms? Don't answer that. No, don't answer it. Put it in the chat though. Put it in the chat. Think about it. In the upcoming years, when your grandkids Google you, will you be a proud grandparent of what they found about you on your social media app?

SPEAKER_01 26:47

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

So with that, you know, shake this addiction. Shake it. Not the Harlem shape, but the ATL shape. We got a new shape coming up. But with that, guys, yes, thank you for coming. Thank you for joining. Thank you for being part of us in this great discussion. Absolutely. Follow us on all our social media platforms. Please do. Although we just talked about social media, follow us anyway.

SPEAKER_01 27:12

Drop drop comments. We want to hear what you have to say so we can respond by it to you. Like us and uh when you watch us too as well. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

So with that being said, before we get out, like, share, subscribe, subscribe, tell a friend to tell a friend that your favorite podcast, sip and converse. Got another episode out there, and see you until then, see you next time.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

Yes. Peace. Peace. Let's talk about it.