The Trap of Social Media

Consuming social media kills productivity.

Not just because of the time it consumes. But because of how it trains you to think.

On social media, you’re constantly following the lives of others. Some people who would be more productive without it justify spending time there as being great for their “personal brand”. But it’s not. It’s a trap that leads to time wasted and distractions.

The issue starts with your feed. Your feed is composed of the most glamorous moments of people's days, and you signal your approval by liking and sharing their post.

This is dangerous because it gets you in the habit of comparing and trying to imitate the lives of others. Not their real lives, but the most glamorous moments of their day.

That’s not how important work gets done. Important work gets done by working tirelessly. By persevering when it gets hard. By adding value to other people’s lives.

Not by living a montage of picture perfect moments.

But if you constantly are seeing a feed of the inflated highlights of people's lives, you develop unreasonable expectations. Ones that will make you less able to persevere when things feel hard. You’ll feel frustrated because of how boring your life seems compared to how you think life really is for successful people.

Browsing social media is also problematic because it puts you in the routine of evaluating other peoples’ value by how well they appeal to the mainstream. Not by measuring how great their work is, or the impact they're making over time.

Worse yet, sharing your own life on social media creates a trap. It starts a vicious emotional cycle: leaving the present moment to document the highlights, posting, craving social approval and engagement, and repeating. This cycle that distracts you from doing the work that matters (by seeking validation for progress you've made instead of making more).

The most important, powerful, and impactful people have lives which would not at all appeal to the mainstream. They don’t optimize for looking good to others on the journey.

Instead, they do the unglamorous work of building assets. Brick by brick, they make progress without concern for what others think of them in the short term.

Then a much more strong version of the social admiration follows. It’s not that way in the beginning though.

At first, the lives of the most important people seem undesirable to most. Like they're enduring irrational amounts of pain with little reward. But the assets they build patiently over time (both internal and external) compound. Drip by drip.

Eventually, they lead to massive rewards and a fulfilling life.

That process takes time and patience. And the reality is not glamorous enough to share on social media. Sharing how that journey really looks would seem terribly boring.

So sharing at all is a bad idea. It’s playing a stupid game for a stupid prize.

Of course, there is one exception to this: actually using social media for business. Not for social approval, not for vague “personal branding”, but with a specific set of goals.

Maybe it’s building a massive consumer brand or using it to bring together your tribe of customers.

That can be good. But it can be a slippery slope before becoming a social consumer again: living fake lives vicariously and supplementing artificial connection.

That’s what it’s engineered for.

The real work is done by being extremely focused, studying the world, and building solutions to its biggest problems. Sometimes that involves using social media as a tool.

But usually, it’s best to just stay focused on doing the work that matters.