What Happens If Social Media Disappears Tomorrow?

What would happen if Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, and YouTube disappeared overnight? In this episode of II Dope Chics, we discuss social media addiction, mental health, social media burnout, digital detox, influencer culture, AI, online validation, and whether life would actually be better without social media.

Transcript

The No Social Media Thought Experiment

SPEAKER_03 0:00

What would society do without social media? I mean, no likes, no algorithms, no followers.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Yeah, that's deep. That's easy. I'm trying to say.

SPEAKER_03 0:15

And we don't do that. Man,

Withdrawal And Mental Health Debate

SPEAKER_03 0:41

no social media. So let's just say hypothetically, we wake up tomorrow morning and every single platform has been completely wiped.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Okay, so off the face of the D. So number one, people would go through withdrawals. They would go through withdrawals. I think that there would be uh fewer mental health issues because wait, wait, wait.

SPEAKER_03 1:04

So they would go through withdrawals.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

They would go through withdrawals because, you know, a lot of people turn over and boom, they go into Instagram, Snap, TikTok, Facebook. Uh, but to your larger question is if there was not any social media, period, I think that there would be fewer cases of mental health issues.

SPEAKER_03 1:26

Well, I beg to differ.

Age Groups And Social Skills Reset

SPEAKER_03 1:28

And I and I'm gonna say this. I beg to differ because in my mind, I break it down by age groups. So I think let's just say age five to five, the baby. Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

There, they're the babies on Instagram?

SPEAKER_03 1:46

They're on social media. They watch videos, some of their parents entertain them through YouTube. Now, when I'm talking about social media, I'm talking about Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook. I'm talking about all social media.

SPEAKER_02 2:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 2:01

I think there would be some mental breakdown. Our age group, not so much, because we lived through a time once upon a time that we didn't have social media. Yeah. Now it's been a long time since we've had to deal with that. But think about the babies that were born into this world. I think about, I would say, from what, those 2000 babies? They wouldn't know what to do. They wouldn't know what to do. And it would cause some withdrawal because these are some of the kids that always talk about, and we hear this even in our household. My social battery is getting low. My social battery is getting low because their social battery has never had the boost that ours had because we were made to socialize. Oh, yeah. We were made to go out and verbally communicate with people. Tell people. When they have to do that, it does bring their social battery down. So there's going to be a lot of withdrawals with those 2,000 babies. And we're talking about people that are probably now, I would say, from ages and their 20-somethings. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

They're in their 20 something.

SPEAKER_03 3:11

But they would 20-somethings on back.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

They would be forced to learn much better communication skills. Oh, absolutely. You know, is I will always say I remember growing up of learning how that was the first time you learned social interaction of to ask people, good afternoon, how are you today? And be genuinely, you know, waiting on their response. Right. To engage them of how their day was. Right. That's what we learned, you know, through interaction with fans. But we didn't have tablets, we didn't have iPads, we didn't have YouTube to go to and entertain ourselves. You had that TV table and you had the prices. And no, it wasn't the prices.

SPEAKER_03 3:56

I got a pager uh around about 19th grade. I had a pager. And then at some point I remember we learned how to talk or text via the pager. You had to turn that pager upside down to make out what the word could possibly be based on the numbers, how they look when you flipped it upside down. But I was like, 19th grade, we're talking about never mind. I'm not even gonna give it a year because I got somebody out there right now with the calculator. Calculate, wait a minute. I know it. I know it. Uh-oh. No. But I think eventually society would become healthier, but it would definitely uh be a transition period.

SPEAKER_00 4:41

Yeah, definitely an uptick on mental health counselors, therapy of uh people dealing with anxiety and things like that. Because when you have leaned on technology that much, yeah, and now you actually have to open your mouth instead of, you know, uh DMing or something like that to communicate what you want and how you feel and things like that, is that can be stressful. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:04

And I mean, even now, I'm thinking about we're thinking it's bad now, saying, you know, social media is taking over, you know, people don't communicate like they used to, people don't visit each other like they used to.

AI Convenience And Lost Basics

SPEAKER_03 5:15

We're thinking about all these things, just thinking about AI moving in. Um, writing skills are gonna go out the door because now people are using Chat GPT, Claude, Gemini Manage. You don't have to know. All the different AI things. You don't even know. Like, we had to learn stuff and we had to learn it from beginning to the end. I remember sitting in class in high school, learning Excel, learning PowerPoint, learning all these Microsoft programs. Now, look, you have AI that you could just put in some information and be like, hey, turn this into a PowerPoint for me. I need at least blank blank slides. Oh, yeah. Think about what we know and what now, do we love it now? Because it's faster, it's quicker, it's better. But I'm just saying the times just continue to evolve, and some of that stuff is just gonna be lost. Yeah. So now we're sitting in an age where we're on the verge of going into all of this AI stuff, but social media has been our life for the past what, 15, 20 years?

SPEAKER_00 6:23

We would have to go back to doing things the hard way. I mean, I think about marketing, where you know, a lot of marketing now comes off of social. It's a huge part. But I remember like literally the yellow book. I mean, stuff like that. I don't even know if it still even exists anymore.

SPEAKER_03 6:39

But I remember when I first met you. Oh, you remember how we used to be careful. Um, get what? You said be careful. Be careful. We used to mail everything out to people. Like physically, we used to sit there and write their full addresses on envelopes and put flyers and all that stuff in there to I remember.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

I remember when we met and during them early years of I was trying to impress you, is I would subscribe to Group On and all those little activities that you thought were so brilliant that it was actually the coupon of the week. Yeah. So, like you remember when we did the hot air balloons, it was a sunrise hot air balloon. Wow. I thought I was doing something, and you got up there and threw up.

SPEAKER_03 7:23

So to bring us back to where we were, because this is not about me throwing up and being on a hot air balloon. To bring us back to where we were, um, I mean, social media, if you think about that now, people literally sit and look at stuff like that. And for some people, it makes them feel bad. For some people, it makes them feel happy. Social media has really created a culture of what I call the comparison.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

It's dangerous.

SPEAKER_03 7:57

It's very dangerous. People, and we were talking about society becoming healthier. Um, I'm thinking about where society is right now. Some people aren't healthy because of social media. Because think about it.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

Because they're taking it too literally, is they think that when people put it on social media, it must be true. Gotta be true. There's so many manufactured, I'm about to contradict myself, manufactured reality. Manufactured reality of people that are just literally going on there creating false reality. And then, you know, other people literally reacting to it like they're missing out on something, but it's false reality. Well, that was a good one. Manufactured reality.

SPEAKER_03 8:45

On I want to ask you this. Uh, would we realize that social media is kind of like holding our society together if it were to go away? Would we then say, but man, now that it's gone, it was really holding together modern modern society.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

Holding together relationships. Oh. Um, and what I mean by relationships is you know, you have friends that you haven't seen or family you haven't seen in 20 years. That's true. And that's your Facebook friend admit makes you feel as if you're right there in your hometown with them.

SPEAKER_03 9:20

Uh some people date on online. Some people met their soulmates in the DM. Oh, yeah. Because it goes down. In a DM. In the DM.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

And Christian, what is it? Christians mingle is a real thing. Don't know nothing about it.

SPEAKER_03 9:37

But I'm talking about a world with no DMs, no influencers, no likes, no viral clips.

SPEAKER_00 9:46

To me, it would be like even keel of more of people being treated for who they are as opposed to how many likes they have, if they're viewed as an influencer, you know, um, if this person has a blue check mark or not. Well, everybody could get a blue check mark now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:07

But I mean, it's crazy because I see people now walk around here. It used to be a time where people walked around, you know, with a certain aura about themselves because, you know, they were a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer. That's what you chose to do. Now people walk around here, uh, influencer, like, huh, baby. I have 5.5 million followers. Who are you? I have 3.3 million followers across all platforms. Who are you? So it makes now the doctors, the lawyers, the I know a parent told me this. This has been probably about three years ago. She sent her daughter to your alma mater, to University of Florida. Sent her daughter, because you all have the best uh dentistry program in the state. Her daughter literally was making like all kinds of stuff for the dentistry program. Went to dentistry school, came out, her daughter decided I want to be an influencer. Because now being an influencer versus being a dentist, more clout. More clout being an influencer. Who wants to be a dentist? Who wants and nothing against influencers, nothing against, you know, the way the world is moving or evolving. It's just that you live in it and you see the the change, you see the full transition. And wow, what a tool that is so powerful that can literally change society upside down. Even Annie agrees. Right, even Annie agrees, so what? Annie is upset about it. But I mean, isn't that isn't that crazy?

SPEAKER_00 11:59

It is.

SPEAKER_03 12:00

I mean, so I think also, too, when we were talking about people getting together in the DMs, I think there would be more real relationships. And not saying that any relationship that transpired or started in the DMs or it takes more on social media. I'm saying that it takes, yeah, it would definitely take more work. Now, I'm not talking about the people that initially met in the DMs and then they started, you know, meeting face to face and dating and all that kind of stuff. I'm talking about people who now to this day that still only maintains a healthy relationship just on social media. Some of these people, they've never met their person.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

There's some shows about that.

SPEAKER_03 12:45

Face to face. Yes, we used to watch uh catfishing. What was it?

SPEAKER_00 12:49

That's real. Catfish. Was it catfishing?

SPEAKER_03 12:51

Catfish on MTV. Yeah, that stuff is real. It's very real. I mean,

Porch Culture And The Popcorn Generation

SPEAKER_03 12:57

people would literally have to call each other. People would have to visit each other. I'm from the country. So back in the day, um, growing up, I remember we used to sit on, we called it the sit on the front porch. And you would sit on the front porch and neighbors would come by and people would laugh and talk. We didn't have cell phones. I mean, people would just sit on their front porch, and that's how you got a chance to interact with other people. You would see people walking up and down the street, and they would just stop and talk. And you look up and it's like, wow, we started talking. It was light outside. Now the street lights are on. We still out here having conversations for hours just about whatever was going on. Now people don't have to do that. They can literally sit on their phone. Oh, this is going on in the world. Oh, this happened. And everything is immediate. Yeah, everything is fast. Everything is like this just happened five minutes ago. It's already on social media. So now people don't want to watch the news. They don't have a reason to read the newspapers anymore. I don't even know if people still receive do people still receive newspapers?

SPEAKER_00 14:08

Yeah, I mean, there's a digital format, but I get the digital format.

SPEAKER_03 14:11

Yeah, see, I didn't even know people still even read the newspaper. Because now everything is on social media. And so now it makes the generation that we're dealing with, everything has to be in. Now, now, now, right now, do it now. I need immediate success. I want immediate success. I want, no. Yeah. I call them the popcorn generation. Throw it in the microwave, and it's ready in three minutes. For us, it took, you know, time. Time, a little bit more work, some grind. And so when I think about social media, I try to think about it, the pros as well as the cons. But that is one of the things that I think about is that it has definitely made um this generation very Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

I would like, you know, right now, right now, right now. I would like to see people going back to forming their own opinions on things. Oh, yeah, and not be influenced by so-and-so who said this or said that is. But that's what influences do. That's what influencers do. Yeah. Because I think, you know, it it it's it works your brain, and when you're forming an opinion, you have to do research. You know, you have to weigh both sides. Um, you have to dig around before saying, okay, this is where I stand. And now, you know, is you could just there's so many people who are just, you know, blindfully accepting the opinion of, you know, this particular influencer, and that's super dangerous.

SPEAKER_03 15:44

Yeah, because I mean, who certify who certifies them or gives them the the knowledge or whatever it is you need besides this is just somebody you like, they look good, and now they've become your role model, but it's giving you a false narrative, a false expectation, false everything. All because this is who all because they have five million followers. Yeah. And what does that mean? Right. What does that mean? Yeah, it's it's crazy.

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SPEAKER_00 16:17

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SPEAKER_03 16:32

When was

Nature Time And Kids Not Playing

SPEAKER_03 16:33

the last time you sat outside on the porch or the driveway or whatever, and just talked to neighbors or told friends to come by and you all sat outside and talked outside. You didn't talk on social media, you weren't hitting them up on WhatsApp. You you know, you weren't in a DM. What happened?

SPEAKER_00 17:04

Yeah, I mean, I think the last time we like literally deliberately were outside and just parlayed outside. Mother's Day. Sunday, Mother's Day. We were we literally just sat out back and talked and laughed and you know, ate and just no phones. Yeah, it was just it was a nice time. No phones. It was it was a throwback to like 88. But uh, but it was it was just a nice time. And I think that that's there's something said for that. You know, I will always preach that nature is the best therapy, you know. Yeah, so good for you, you know.

SPEAKER_03 17:49

And that's why now social media, I think the one of the cons of social media, speaking of sunlight, kids aren't playing outside as much. Yeah, they're inside, they're on childhood obesity issues. Yeah, you're dealing with all of that. Type 2 diabetes, and you're dealing with just anxiety, depression, the mental health is bad because social media is making these kids, young adults as well as adults, sit online for hours. For hours, they bully each other online. They literally uh they're looking at what this person got and they're upset about that. So now that brings them into this depression. It's they spiral out of control. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:36

For all the the good that comes from it, there's definitely uh many drawbacks and absolutely, you know, it's hurting our youth. Uh, but it's hurting adults too.

SPEAKER_03 18:47

Yeah, because I hear adults sit on there and they they compare lifestyles, they compare relationships, they compare vacations, they compare, oh, look at her body. Her stomach is flat. Let me go and, you know, see if I need to do a tummy tug because I want my stomach to look like hers. Oh, look, you know, it's all of that going on. It's a comparison of everything. As I have to mimic what I see this person doing online.

The Pros For Business And Voices

SPEAKER_03 19:18

Now, with all the cons, you know, that we just discussed and talked about as far as social media, we know that there are some pros. I do know that businesses thrive because of social media.

SPEAKER_00 19:30

It's a cheaper way to market and a cheaper way to market and to reach more people much quicker. Yes. So um that's that's a pro.

SPEAKER_03 19:40

Yes. I mean, I even think about Facebook Marketplace.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

Um sell some furniture.

SPEAKER_03 19:47

I mean, we sold furniture on Facebook Marketplace, cell phones, yes. And we couldn't do that without the help of social media.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

You have to be putting up a sign in the yard.

SPEAKER_03 19:59

Yeah, I mean, you advertise uh, well, we advertise for all of our businesses on social media, which has made life cheaper with the ads. Not only has it made it cheaper, but we have seen the benefits of social media with ads and all that type of stuff. You reach so many more people. Yeah, yeah. Your exposure is endless and it's quick. So, you know, I get it. Um, I do also feel that without social media, a lot of voices would disappear. For all the people that are probably on social media that we feel like, uh, we want to listen to them, we want to listen to that person. There are so many, though, that I would. There are so many podcasts that I've um, you know, been introduced to because of social media. There are so many influencers that I now listen to um because of social media. And I feel like those voices, how how without social media?

SPEAKER_00 21:02

Uh by by the CD or DVD, that's how, you know, hey, you remember We don't even have the DVD player anymore. Listen, you can get it. Yes, you remember back in the day, like literally, I remember 1995, I graduated from high school.

SPEAKER_03 21:17

And you're telling your age, and I'm not giving years.

SPEAKER_00 21:20

And right after graduation, we came back to the house, ate some strain beans, fried chicken, you know, greens, gravy, and rice, that type of stuff. And while we were eating is we popped in, it was I think a was it a VHS or a DVD? It was the Tyler Perry. One of the Tyler Tyler Perry plays. And you know, it was entertaining and it was fun, but you know, that's what we did.

SPEAKER_03 21:48

Yeah. What did you do, Annie? What did you do before social media? You don't know? So when I think about also um With, you know, social media, I wonder, um, even in the sports world, I've heard that some young men and some women were discovered their talent. Was discovered on social media. Um, so when I think of stuff like that, my heart goes out because there were probably young, young boys, young girls somewhere in this world thinking like nobody would ever notice me, nobody would ever see me. I don't have these different scouts, you know, driving or flying in from wherever to my little small city to see me play because I live in this little small town with one or two red lights, but social media helped them. It made it happen. So I even think about, you know, think about it on the sport side.

Celebrities Then And Now

SPEAKER_03 22:49

Um, but now I'm wondering, would celebrities matter as much if we didn't have social media? Would some would celebrities matter less?

SPEAKER_00 23:00

I think that they would matter, but it would not be. I think social media created a uh place where it becomes amplified. Everything is amplified. Yeah. You know, everything, any incident, any movies, any music, entertainment, all of it is amplified there. So being able to literally peer into the lives of celebrities on social uh just further amplified.

SPEAKER_03 23:25

Michael Jackson was uh highly, you know, very famous. And he didn't have social media. Prince didn't have social media. Uh, who else? I mean, we can go.

SPEAKER_00 23:37

Yeah, MJ passed away, what, in like 07, 08? Somewhere in there. Yeah, somewhere in there. 07, 08, 09, somewhere in there.

SPEAKER_03 23:45

But I mean, back in the what, 80s when he first came out and became famous. Like, I just think about now, like, how how did these people like really just reach us?

SPEAKER_00 23:54

It's the old-fashioned way. The old-fashioned way radio of which is, you know, arguably becoming a AM FM becoming a thing of the past, of kind of, you know, in the antiquated way for how we get music. Because now you have Spotify, you have Apple Music, you have YouTube, you know, you have Eric Sirius, you know, you have all of these different platforms that are getting uh where you can get music and things like that, and you can get it ad-free without, you know, without um um um ads. So that's true. Yeah.

Dope Or Nope Social Media Habits

SPEAKER_03 24:31

Well, you know what time it is. Dope note. Doperno. So doper note deleting social media for 30 days.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

Dope.

SPEAKER_03 24:43

Yeah, I would say it was dope. It would be dope.

SPEAKER_00 24:45

Because it could, it could bring, it could, it could do some things to you, it could skew your back your view of reality. Yeah, so yeah, you need to take a moment and step back from that.

SPEAKER_03 24:56

I agree. Doper note, parents banning social media until their children are somewhere between the ages of 16 to 18.

SPEAKER_00 25:08

You know, that's a tough one because I think for that particular set of kids, um social media is so pervasive. And this is what, you know, this is what they grew up with, yeah. That it may um it may really put that child behind or subject them to other issues if they're not on it. Yeah. You know, so you know, it's just one of those things that now it just kind of comes with the territory.

SPEAKER_03 25:39

I agree. I I just think at this point, um, even if you try to ban it, they will find a way. It's, I mean, it's in school, so yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

I mean, you know, schools are using all different platforms in order to learn and and things like that. So I think that's a little unrealistic.

SPEAKER_03 25:55

Yeah. Dope or nope, making likes invisible.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

I think they did they try that at some point? I I think that there is something to that, and and and I like it. I like it, I like it.

SPEAKER_03 26:08

I like it because you know, you're able to- But when I'm saying making likes invisible, I'm guessing not only to other people who could see it, because I know they did that, but I'm saying even to you, like you put something out there and you don't even know how well I did, how well it did. I know for businesses it probably wouldn't be the best thing.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

But then also for you know, peace of mind and mental health, yeah, you know, is I've seen people literally they post, and every 10 seconds they're picking up the phone, trying to see who liked it.

SPEAKER_03 26:42

But if it doesn't do as well as they thought it was gonna do, it brings them Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

So yeah, there may be some blessing of that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:50

Um, dope or nope, dating someone without social media.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

So one of my first questions would be Why aren't you on it? Why aren't you on it? I knew it. What had happened? I knew it. You know, when I asked the question, what had happened? I knew it. Is 99.9% of the time there's a whole long story coming behind it. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, yeah. Yeah. That would raise a red flag.

SPEAKER_03 27:24

Yeah, that would be red flag, red flag, red flag. Yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_00 27:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:28

But also there was a time where we could date someone without social media. I mean, it was word of mouth. We would ask, you know, other people, hey, you know this person? What about this person? Um, people did their own like little investigative.

SPEAKER_00 27:44

Yeah, I'm literally thinking that person is a fugitive, wanted, wanted international crimes.

SPEAKER_03 27:50

Dope or nope, checking your phone before getting out of bed.

SPEAKER_00 27:55

Ooh.

SPEAKER_03 27:57

You know, I mean, I literally know that people turn over, and the first thing they grab is their phone and they start checking social media. And, you know, I was always taught the last thing that you do before you, you know, you go to bed. Ain't that right, Poodah? You go to bed, you you pray. Yes, baby.

SPEAKER_00 28:22

You talk to close your eyes and when you get up first thing.

SPEAKER_03 28:25

When you get up first, first thing. CK first, the kingdom of what? Heaven and all. So

The Final Question To Sit With

SPEAKER_03 28:32

if social media was to disappear tonight, would your life get better, worse, or would it stay the same? Just think about this. Don't answer right now. Don't don't try to give me an answer too fast. Think about it. Because your answer might reveal whether your social media is using you, or if you're really using social media, stay dope.