Everyone uses social media, but it’s important to be aware of the various challenges and traps that await the young mind. Any news story, comment, image or idea can awaken a wide range of emotions in you.

Social media is a rather insidious medium that actively manipulates the mind. Sometimes consciously, sometimes not so much. Sometimes in someone’s interests, and sometimes it just happens. But we cannot do without them they have become an integral part of life. On average, we now use social media more often than we eat, drink or socialize. Teenagers devote as much as nine hours a day to online interaction. That’s more than they spend sleeping and spending time with their parents. Young people between the ages of 18 and 24 check their phones an average of 82 times a day.

And all that time, the invisible people behind their screens write algorithms that collect every possible detail of users’ lives and activities. Quiet, invisible programs are busy digitizing humanity. The secret dossiers they compile and sell to marketers can be so detailed that one cannot help but believe in the matrix. Most people still don’t know that the primary product in the social media world is the user. Think of social media as a vast army of digital Trojan horses.

What does this mean for you? For example, the fact that now, or in the near future, your actions on social media will affect whether you get credit. HR managers and property owners may not have to ask leading questions at an interview thanks to social media, they’ll have all the information before your meeting.

The loss of privacy, behind-the-scenes sharing and selling of social media users’ data are becoming a cause of public concern.

For minimal protection these days, you should use long and complex passwords of ten to twenty-five letters, symbols and numbers. Do not use common words or phrases. Use different passwords for multiple accounts and activate two-step authentication whenever possible. Avoid using public Wi-Fi and be careful with USB drives, as they are common carriers of malware.

Many “free” apps exist primarily to spy on and sell data; you should uninstall the ones you don’t need. Update your software to get new security features, and never fill out surveys online. Most are only available to get your data and sell it. Think about who you connect with on social media. And don’t forget that you can’t say or write everything.

The reason for the problem is that the growth of social media has been so rapid that we haven’t really had a chance to adapt. We are all trapped. On the other hand, it is impossible to give up on social media. You just have to learn how to navigate the flow of primitive methods correctly. And to do that, you have to understand how you are being fooled. It all looks extremely primitive, but it is effective.

Simple exposure

There’s nothing easier than losing your own opinion on the Internet. It is enough to surf social networking news in the morning while drinking coffee to feel sorrow for an artist or singer who has been painted and hitherto unknown to you. Or, for example, to start praising the activities of some legendary dead showman. We have nothing against it and the activity causes a lot of controversy, but during his lifetime he had more critics. And they were not ashamed to criticize the deceased.

But as soon as a couple of famous people wrote a very correct and very beautiful words, a wave of “But it’s true, a genius man” immediately rose. You can see some good in this, but by and large it breeds a horde of gutless hamsters, devoid of their own opinion. This is called the illusion of truth. Now any properly framed post with enough likes can ruin a person’s ratings.

The worst thing in life is being born a zombie and not knowing it

Ignorance of our own ignorance is a huge problem on social media, where pseudo-specialists, liars and fools abound. In fact, our circle of knowledge is severely limited. The Dunning-Kruger effect comes into play the moment you give your shitty expert opinion based only on what little you know. It’s common for someone to effortlessly go into arrogance mode and start handing out their opinions about things they don’t know. Unfortunately, less competent people in general have a higher opinion of their own abilities than is typical of competent people, who, moreover, tend to assume that those around them rate their abilities as low as they do. This is the essence of the effect.

But what to do with dump critics who know everything about politics, culture, road building, and the treatment of ectopic pregnancies, neither Dunning nor Krueger gave an answer.

Group Opinion

It’s always easier together. You can rock the boat, win an argument, insult people, and defend a point of view, no matter how wrong it may be. We have nothing against socialization without it we would not exist. It was the ability to band together that saved our hairy unwashed ancestors. In groups, together, they shared knowledge and worked toward common goals. But on the Internet, this is very dangerous. Here, as in the first point, it is very easy to succumb to the seductive opinion of the majority and recognize some shit as something good.

Authorities

Don’t falter on social media with your head held high and your eyes on authority figures. We are very vulnerable to the opinion of an individual perceived as an authority. The problem is that there are too many of them now, and that’s what makes experts different – you can count them on your fingers. But all it takes is a fancy name and an authoritative persona, and people are willing to believe that this candidate is worth a vote, that the casino at the beginning of the commercial will actually help you get rich, and that the grand opening of the slide and a couple of bad phrases about your neighbours show that things are getting better in the country.

The anchoring effect

Be extremely careful when anchoring in the ocean of social media. The human mind craves information, and it doesn’t care if it’s related to the task at hand or not. If good information is missing then the brain will absorb garbage.

For example, you can go to Twitter for a short time, for 10 minutes. Come across a comprehensive post about bad roads, glance at the comments and make sure … you don’t need a car. And an article about starving children in Africa will motivate you to postpone buying a snowboard: Look how hard life has become, so the money will be useful for a rainy day.

Blind spot

It is very important to remember that during social media your subconscious is trying to evoke a sense of safety and comfort. You don’t see the catch, you don’t see the deception. Everything is fine. The music is playing, the messages are being written, but how and through whom they go is a different story.