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One metaphor everyone needs to hear...

MJ DeMarco

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From the Fastlane newsletter being sent out today...
Highly relevant to this thread about shutting down social media.

-------

My stepson never cared about financial freedom or wealth until he started getting up at 6AM and working Monday through Friday. Now all of a sudden, he's interested in his step-dad's advice.

After several conversations and strategy pow-wows, he's devised a Fastlane plan. This is a great start.

However, there's one big problem, a problem that will likely prevent him from succeeding: He's addicted to social media. He wastes countless hours scrolling content on YouTube and Instagram.

He fails to see this as an issue, making the problem worse. He fails to recognize his addiction. He fails to recognize what this is doing to his brain, his motivation, and his goals. And when you add up his full-time job, his commitment to the gym, and his social media addiction, there's no time left for his Fastlane plans.

If nothing changes, he will remain hog-tied to a job he hates, clutching on the ubiquitous excuse of "I don't have time!"

Actually, as I remind him, he does have time. But social media is more important. Whenever I see him lost in a social media binge, I tell him, "That's not going to make you rich," and he realizes just how much time he's wasted.

As I've been saying for years, your actions express your priorities.

You might say, "I want to get rich," but your actions say, "I want to be comfortably entertained, outraged, or humored." You might say you want to lose weight, but that tub of ice cream in your freezer says otherwise.

Priorities get your time.

If mindless social media scrolling is your priority, you will never succeed. Let me repeat: You will never succeed.

A highly-discussed thread at the forum, "Young fastlaners: Shut-Down All Social Media," advocates abandoning social media.

I totally agree, but only from a consumer perspective.

Social media is a tool. For your business, it is incredibly powerful in reaching an audience. For your life, it is addictively destructive, purposely designed to steal your attention, hack your dopamine system, and keep you enslaved to the platform. You are being manipulated.

Katherine Boyle, a tech executive at Andreessen Horowitz, said it best:

We are in a full-contact, all-out war with forces competing for control of our minds. Not just attention but control... this may seem like a consensus opinion, but in practice, eradicating these forces from one's life is a daily battle that requires contrarian actions, not just belief.1

Whenever I visit Twitter to post content, I notice I get stuck in the scroll loop for a few minutes and leave with higher anxiety, anger, and stress. Countless studies show that social media influences anti-success in the form of anxiety, depression, and intense feelings of FOMO. Some studies even suggest that it fosters suicidal feelings. And this negative baggage doesn't even account for lost time!

This brings me to the metaphor everyone-- including you-- needs to hear regarding social media...

A drug kingpin who sells heroin to his addicts doesn't snort his product. He is the producer and lives in a mansion with a Rolls Royce parked on the driveway. You are the consumer and live in a trailer with a Honda parked on the gravel.

The social media kingpins are engineering their product for addiction, stickiness, and agenda. You are the product.

In the last 20 years, I've met many successful people. And you know what? I don't know any of them who are rolling through Instagram and TikTok 3 hours a day. They only use these platforms to serve their business purposes, not their entertainment vices. In other words, the guy with 2 million YouTube subscribers isn't spending hours swiping through social media; they're spending hours creating content for the swipers.

I'll leave you with another metaphor.

Social media is a hammer. You can use it to build a great business that will set you free, or you can use it to bludgeon your brain into mediocrity and submission.

The choice is yours.

Sources:
1. Modern Meditations: Katherine Boyle | The Generalist
2. Fardouly, J., Diedrichs, P. C., Vartanian, L. R., & Halliwell, E. (2015). Social comparisons on social media: the impact of Facebook on young women's body image concerns and mood. Body Image, 13, 38-45.Link: Redirecting
2. Primack, B. A., Shensa, A., Escobar-Viera, C. G., Barrett, E. L., Sidani, J. E., Colditz, J. B., & James, A. E. (2017). Use of multiple social media platforms and symptoms of depression and anxiety: A nationally-representative study among U.S. young adults. Computers in Human Behavior, 69, 1-9.Link: Redirecting
3. Twenge, J. M., Joiner, T. E., Rogers, M. L., & Martin, G. N. (2018). Increases in depressive symptoms, suicide-related outcomes, and suicide rates among U.S. adolescents after 2010 and links to increased new media screen time. Clinical Psychological Science, 6(1), 3-17.Link: https://doi.org/10.1177/2167702617723376
4. Woods, H. C., & Scott, H. (2016). #Sleepyteens: Social media use in adolescence is associated with poor sleep quality, anxiety, depression and low self-esteem. Journal of Adolescence, 51, 41-49. Link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2016.05.008
5. Kross, E., Verduyn, P., Demiralp, E., Park, J., Lee, D. S., Lin, N., Shablack, H., Jonides, J., & Ybarra, O. (2013). Facebook use predicts declines in subjective well-being in young adults. PloS One, 8(8), e69841. Link: Facebook Use Predicts Declines in Subjective Well-Being in Young Adults
 
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heavy_industry

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Thank you for referencing my thread @MJ DeMarco



Beginner fastlaners:

Being unscripted doesn't just mean more money.
I means using your BRAIN to decide your own destiny. It means FREEDOM from what society deems as normal.

Just remember that in the year 1940, smoking was considered to be a healthy habit, and was actively encouraged by the society. It was only when people started to drop dead, when the general public finally woke up. But that took 30 years.

You're free to make your own choices.

Just remember that everything that you do and not do, has a price tag attached to it.

And you will be the one to receive the invoice, 10 years from now.
 

NeoDialectic

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From the Fastlane newsletter being sent out today...
Highly relevant to this thread about shutting down social media.

-------

My stepson never cared about financial freedom or wealth until he started getting up at 6AM and working Monday through Friday. Now all of a sudden, he's interested in his step-dad's advice.

After several conversations and strategy pow-wows, he's devised a Fastlane plan. This is a great start.

However, there's one big problem, a problem that will likely prevent him from succeeding: He's addicted to social media. He wastes countless hours scrolling content on YouTube and Instagram.

He fails to see this as an issue, making the problem worse. He fails to recognize his addiction. He fails to recognize what this is doing to his brain, his motivation, and his goals. And when you add up his full-time job, his commitment to the gym, and his social media addiction, there's no time left for his Fastlane plans.

If nothing changes, he will remain hog-tied to a job he hates, clutching on the ubiquitous excuse of "I don't have time!"

Actually, as I remind him, he does have time. But social media is more important. Whenever I see him lost in a social media binge, I tell him, "That's not going to make you rich," and he realizes just how much time he's wasted.

As I've been saying for years, your actions express your priorities.

You might say, "I want to get rich," but your actions say, "I want to be comfortably entertained, outraged, or humored." You might say you want to lose weight, but that tub of ice cream in your freezer says otherwise.

Priorities get your time.

If mindless social media scrolling is your priority, you will never succeed. Let me repeat: You will never succeed.

A highly-discussed thread at the forum, "Young fastlaners: Shut-Down All Social Media," advocates abandoning social media.

I totally agree, but only from a consumer perspective.

Social media is a tool. For your business, it is incredibly powerful in reaching an audience. For your life, it is addictively destructive, purposely designed to steal your attention, hack your dopamine system, and keep you enslaved to the platform. You are being manipulated.

Katherine Boyle, a tech executive at Andreessen Horowitz, said it best:

We are in a full-contact, all-out war with forces competing for control of our minds. Not just attention but control... this may seem like a consensus opinion, but in practice, eradicating these forces from one's life is a daily battle that requires contrarian actions, not just belief.1

Whenever I visit Twitter to post content, I notice I get stuck in the scroll loop for a few minutes and leave with higher anxiety, anger, and stress. Countless studies show that social media influences anti-success in the form of anxiety, depression, and intense feelings of FOMO. Some studies even suggest that it fosters suicidal feelings. And this negative baggage doesn't even account for lost time!

This brings me to the metaphor everyone-- including you-- needs to hear regarding social media...

A drug kingpin who sells heroin to his addicts doesn't snort his product. He is the producer and lives in a mansion with a Rolls Royce parked on the driveway. You are the consumer and live in a trailer with a Honda parked on the gravel.

The social media kingpins are engineering their product for addiction, stickiness, and agenda. You are the product.

In the last 20 years, I've met many successful people. And you know what? I don't know any of them who are rolling through Instagram and TikTok 3 hours a day. They only use these platforms to serve their business purposes, not their entertainment vices. In other words, the guy with 2 million YouTube subscribers isn't spending hours swiping through social media; they're spending hours creating content for the swipers.

I'll leave you with another metaphor.

Social media is a hammer. You can use it to build a great business that will set you free, or you can use it to bludgeon your brain into mediocrity and submission.

The choice is yours.

Sources:
1. Modern Meditations: Katherine Boyle | The Generalist
2. Fardouly, J., Diedrichs, P. C., Vartanian, L. R., & Halliwell, E. (2015). Social comparisons on social media: the impact of Facebook on young women's body image concerns and mood. Body Image, 13, 38-45.Link: Redirecting
2. Primack, B. A., Shensa, A., Escobar-Viera, C. G., Barrett, E. L., Sidani, J. E., Colditz, J. B., & James, A. E. (2017). Use of multiple social media platforms and symptoms of depression and anxiety: A nationally-representative study among U.S. young adults. Computers in Human Behavior, 69, 1-9.Link: Redirecting
3. Twenge, J. M., Joiner, T. E., Rogers, M. L., & Martin, G. N. (2018). Increases in depressive symptoms, suicide-related outcomes, and suicide rates among U.S. adolescents after 2010 and links to increased new media screen time. Clinical Psychological Science, 6(1), 3-17.Link: https://doi.org/10.1177/2167702617723376
4. Woods, H. C., & Scott, H. (2016). #Sleepyteens: Social media use in adolescence is associated with poor sleep quality, anxiety, depression and low self-esteem. Journal of Adolescence, 51, 41-49. Link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2016.05.008
5. Kross, E., Verduyn, P., Demiralp, E., Park, J., Lee, D. S., Lin, N., Shablack, H., Jonides, J., & Ybarra, O. (2013). Facebook use predicts declines in subjective well-being in young adults. PloS One, 8(8), e69841. Link: Facebook Use Predicts Declines in Subjective Well-Being in Young Adults
I think the big problem with convincing others to prioritize getting things done over "wasting time" is the same problem the famous Fisherman story revolves around.

You are trying to convince them to do something they clearly enjoy less (work) over something they clearly enjoy more (social media), so that one day they could finally do what they clearly enjoy more? You can spin it any way you want, but at the end of the day their unplanned actions show what is more valuable to them minute to minute, and social media is apparently it.

The reframing will involve instilling the updated version of the Fisherman story that you wrote. They have to:
  1. Believe that their current actions and resulting satisfaction is unsustainable and are leading them to a worse quality of life.
  2. Get them to be willing to sacrifice today for a theoretically better tomorrow. To be clear, until the habit is broken...it IS a sacrifice.
I think #1 is relatively easy and most people recognize how detrimental their own habits could be.

The marshmallow studies don't paint a pretty picture for people's predisposition to #2. Even worse, in that test, they basically knew with certainty what the reward is. Now imagine having to sacrifice more than just a marshmallow just for a hope of a better tomorrow.

The other problem is that things like "fulfillment" being separate from "enjoyment" aren't successful arguments to most younger people. They just haven't lived long enough to see the delineation.

It's probably why the motivation has to be internally driven and takes a FTE moment.

Let me know if you crack the code on how to positively influence your kid in that direction if he's not already predisposed to that type of thinking or hasn't had his own FTE! I think we are all stuck on "doing the best we can" haha
 
Last edited:

Andy Black

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I don't have time = I chose to do something else
 
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Lyzmin

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Social media is a hammer. You can use it to build a great business that will set you free, or you can use it to bludgeon your brain into mediocrity and submission.

Awesome metaphor! Will share this with my circle! :D

A big one for me years ago:
“What if someone took out your wallet, got €100 from it and set it on fire?

Hopefully you will stop this person!

Whenever you go down the rabbit hole you do this to yourself.”

The ongoing thought of taking money out of my own pocket every time I was a consumer of social media and set it on fire was the moment I set out to quit. Deleted Facebook, never opened a Instagram, LinkedIn only on my macbook when I’m working. Now my only place where I consume and try to produce is here. Youtube is focused on just in time learning video’s set on my calendar.

Hope this idea helps others as well :)!
 

Panos Daras

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What process has worked for you guys to eliminate social media? I have removed Instagram, Facebook, and Youtube from my phone and this has made it easier to abstain while on the phone. My problem is that F*cking YouTube keeps creeping on me (it is my fault of course), and I end up spending way too much time on it. It is the only one that I use actually. I also tried apps like Cold Turkey but I just cannot abstain from opening the tab while on the computer. I spend around 1 - 3 hours a day on YouTube. What has worked for you? Do you have any actionable advice? (Please abstain from advice in the context of finding your why, working harder, don't be a pussy).
 

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Addiction to social media, gaming, alcohol will lead to the success!

...


Success as defined by these highly "successful" characters living the dream:

FvOPcg3WIAQFiuE.jpeg
 
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Artiom O

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Addiction to social media, gaming, alcohol will lead to the success!

...


Success as defined by these highly "successful" characters living the dream:

View attachment 48613
It is said that geniuses leave their table unorganized, so that the creativity wakes up.
 

Antifragile

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It is said that geniuses leave their table unorganized, so that the creativity wakes up.

Yes, bang on, these guys are the next living Albert Einsteins.

Billionaire fastlane makers.

All men want to be them, all women want to be with them.

If you could live your life on a loop for eternality, you'd want to do it like these guys.

Books will be written, plays will be made, movies will be generated by the AI to showcase the genius behind their "unorganized table."

:rolleyes:
 

CaptainAmerica

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What process has worked for you guys to eliminate social media? I have removed Instagram, Facebook, and Youtube from my phone and this has made it easier to abstain while on the phone. My problem is that F*cking YouTube keeps creeping on me (it is my fault of course), and I end up spending way too much time on it. It is the only one that I use actually. I also tried apps like Cold Turkey but I just cannot abstain from opening the tab while on the computer. I spend around 1 - 3 hours a day on YouTube. What has worked for you? Do you have any actionable advice? (Please abstain from advice in the context of finding your why, working harder, don't be a pussy).
I use a Mac, and there's a terrific little plugin called Self Control that blocks what I tell it to, for as long as I tell it to, and there's no workaround unless I use a different computer. Add that tool to time blocking a series of 90-minute work sprints, and you're good to go.
 
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Spenny

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My problem is that F*cking YouTube keeps creeping on me.

First thing to ask is what type of content do you want to consume & thinks help you. I find military history very interesting to me, so I only will listen, not watch YouTube when I'm doing something else. That's the only type of content I use.

Here's some stuff that's helped me. 1,2,3 & 4 are inspired by Atomic Habits.

1. Make it not obvious - Flashy app symbols, search history, notifications. No, no, no, no. Get rid of it. These apps will be craving for you to switch on notification again. Snapchat & YouTube does this to me, when I get that I know I'm doing something right. Out of sight, out of mind.

2. Make it ugly
- You know that sinking feeling you get from an hour of YouTube Shorts? Knowing you've wasted half the day doing F*ck all? Internalise it. That hurts knowing I'm not following the path that I want to take.
I know you said not to suggest this, but a strong purpose does really help. I'm trying to beat my super-villain (the best Spenny to ever exist, that does everything I know I'm not doing) & I feel like shit knowing he's done double the amount of work because I spent hours on YouTube.

3. Make it hard to do
- Block all instances, or better yet, uninstall. In industrial safety, the first protocol is to engineer out any instances that maybe unsafe, so that there is less overall chance for danger. Do the same here. You may be able to go around it, but it adds a layer of annoying obstacles.
- I would pick up my phone and start scrolling as soon as I would wake up. I bought a boring alarm clock, I don't have my phone in my room. Problem solved.

4. Make it dissatisfying
- Live with the repercussions of your actions. If I end up destroying my day because of social media, I will not go to a social event. This kills me. Find your equivalent.
- Replace it with something else.
I did this with video games & swapped it out with chess. Haven't played a video game in five months (wow I didn't even realise) because I don't want to go back. The joy of it is that I can only play so much until I hang my queen.
I'm now doing this with social media --> Fastlane Forum.

5. Tell someone who will string you up on this crap.
Accountability is a crazy thing, I've overcome a lot this year because of it. Whenever I get temptations, I remember people will be checking in with me & I will be embarrassed if I break my word.

Message me & tell me what you're going to do, that goes for anyone else reading this.

I'll be waiting.
 

heavy_industry

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Do you have any actionable advice?

The only way to conquer any addiction is to make your life so wonderful, that the addiction is no longer the better alternative.

Create a life that you no longer want to escape from.

Edit:
You've said that you don't want "find your why" type of advice, but it doesn't matter what kind of advice you want.
Until you will create a vision of the person you truly want to be, you will keep getting stuck in all sorts of dopamine traps.

Meaning and purpose are the beacon of light that dispels all darkness.



For me, watching stupid videos on youtube causes me physical pain. I find it unbearable.

I only watch youtube when doing research, or when eating. And when I do, I watch very interesting stuff that actually improves my life. As soon as the meal is over, the video is being closed and work is being resumed.
 
Last edited:

AceVentures

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The synchronicities of the Universe are beautiful. Yesterday I drafted a new thread to post here on a similar topic, but thought it was out of place as it's own thread. Once I read through your post I felt compelled to share as I feel it relates equally with the point you're making.

In addition to your attention fleeting you, there is also an explosion in the noise to signal ratio of what you're associating with. This process is effectively bending your reality.

--------------

Several key technological advances are coming together in the form of a wrecking ball.

The internet, wireless transmission, pocket-sized supercomputers, and AI have come together to create what is quickly unfolding as a singularity type of experience for our otherwise unaware and linearly-conditioned minds.

So what's the big deal?

In a more rapidly connected grid, with increasing storage and faster bandwidth in compute, AI is unlocking more and more capabilities. With it, the volume of information that is being chewed up and spit back out in new variations increases exponentially. With the monetization of human attention and the optimization of attention-flywheel aggregation algorithms across our devices, the signal to noise ratio is shrinking very quickly.

Why is this observation important today and going into the future?

Let's look at a recent case study to observe a consequence of the decreasing signal to noise ratio:

Recently, Anheuser-Busch, the parent company of famous beer brand Bud Light has made a colossal mistake in their brand strategy by employing trans activist Dylan Mulvaney in their latest marketing campaign aimed at increasing sales within a younger audience. Customers felt dissociated from the branding, and many have boycotted the drink. "Go Woke, Go Broke" they say. The company has now reported a 26% decline in sales with that volume directly absorbed by two competitors.

Let's try to think about what happened from the standpoint of the decreasing signal to noise ratio. First, let's procedurally walk through how this mistake happened:

- Attention is drawn to the extremes of the bell curve of the human experience.
- Online, our aggregation algorithms optimize for these experiences in exchange for attention.
- Transgenderism is naturally a curious idea so it draws disproportionate attention (male/female is a paradigm we learn from very young)
- The actual number of trans compared to non-trans people lies at the extreme end of the bell-curve of our society (very few people are actually trans).
- Aggregation algorithms recognize this spike in demand in attention and begin to cycle more and more of this idea.
- Companies aggregate attention data and draw conclusions for their brand.

Anheuser Busch made the mistake of losing the signal from the noise, and in my opinion this mistake can be traced back to asymmetries in knowledge, as created by the nature of our attention algorithms. Many other companies engaging in corporate suicide seem to also be plagued by this issue.

The issue of attention becomes even more muddy in the face of rapidly increasing volume of data. In a world of ever-increasing and potentially limitless AI generated content - the data begins to tell us less and less about our behavior, because it becomes harder and harder for it to recognize us from itself. This is likewise true for us.

This is problematic for Bud Light, but more importantly, it reflects how technology shapes our perspective on reality.

Ask yourself: How much of your digital environments are AI? And how would you know? What if your digital environment is feeding you made-up lies optimized solely to grab your attention?

For now, you should be mindful of your digital environments as they may not reflect reality. This can obviously lead you astray.

Sometimes the problem is light: you end up in a rabbit hole on YouTube looking at jellyfish instead of working.

In business, it can mislead you by convincing you to change your brand strategy in a way that pushes your customers away.

The problem becomes more serious when you consider that it can convince you to support nuclear war in the name of peace.

Most recently, it just seems ridiculous and unbelievable.

As for myself, I find it more and more important to plug in and out of the matrix with diligence. What tools I use, what networks I access, what information highways I tap into, and for how long should be carefully considered as to improve my ability to see the real signal within the noise.

That's it - felt it was important that we talk about the bizarre nature of what's happening across the internet.
 
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Panos Daras

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First thing to ask is what type of content do you want to consume & thinks help you. I find military history very interesting to me, so I only will listen, not watch YouTube when I'm doing something else. That's the only type of content I use.

Here's some stuff that's helped me. 1,2,3 & 4 are inspired by Atomic Habits.

1. Make it not obvious - Flashy app symbols, search history, notifications. No, no, no, no. Get rid of it. These apps will be craving for you to switch on notification again. Snapchat & YouTube does this to me, when I get that I know I'm doing something right. Out of sight, out of mind.

2. Make it ugly
- You know that sinking feeling you get from an hour of YouTube Shorts? Knowing you've wasted half the day doing F*ck all? Internalise it. That hurts knowing I'm not following the path that I want to take.
I know you said not to suggest this, but a strong purpose does really help. I'm trying to beat my super-villain (the best Spenny to ever exist, that does everything I know I'm not doing) & I feel like shit knowing he's done double the amount of work because I spent hours on YouTube.

3. Make it hard to do
- Block all instances, or better yet, uninstall. In industrial safety, the first protocol is to engineer out any instances that maybe unsafe, so that there is less overall chance for danger. Do the same here. You may be able to go around it, but it adds a layer of annoying obstacles.
- I would pick up my phone and start scrolling as soon as I would wake up. I bought a boring alarm clock, I don't have my phone in my room. Problem solved.

4. Make it dissatisfying
- Live with the repercussions of your actions. If I end up destroying my day because of social media, I will not go to a social event. This kills me. Find your equivalent.
- Replace it with something else.
I did this with video games & swapped it out with chess. Haven't played a video game in five months (wow I didn't even realise) because I don't want to go back. The joy of it is that I can only play so much until I hang my queen.
I'm now doing this with social media --> Fastlane Forum.

5. Tell someone who will string you up on this crap.
Accountability is a crazy thing, I've overcome a lot this year because of it. Whenever I get temptations, I remember people will be checking in with me & I will be embarrassed if I break my word.

Message me & tell me what you're going to do, that goes for anyone else reading this.

I'll be waiting.
1 2 3 and 4 I have already done by uninstalling the app from my phone. It definitely has improved the situation. Accountability never worked for me because I don't give a shit about what other people think of me. I think I will also try Self Control plugin and also watch YouTube only on the treadmill or doing house chores. Thanks a lot!
 

Panos Daras

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I use a Mac, and there's a terrific little plugin called Self Control that blocks what I tell it to, for as long as I tell it to, and there's no workaround unless I use a different computer. Add that tool to time blocking a series of 90-minute work sprints, and you're good to go.
I will try it. Thanks a lot. Good to see that you are giving actionable advice and not only new-age hustle bros shit.
 

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I don't give a shit about what other people think of me.
Cap. You care about what certain people think about you. Maybe it's not strangers (or soon to be friends) on a forum, maybe it's instead someone you're close with. They're the ones that'll be the most potent.
 
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What process has worked for you guys to eliminate social media? I have removed Instagram, Facebook, and Youtube from my phone and this has made it easier to abstain while on the phone. My problem is that F*cking YouTube keeps creeping on me (it is my fault of course), and I end up spending way too much time on it. It is the only one that I use actually. I also tried apps like Cold Turkey but I just cannot abstain from opening the tab while on the computer. I spend around 1 - 3 hours a day on YouTube. What has worked for you? Do you have any actionable advice? (Please abstain from advice in the context of finding your why, working harder, don't be a pussy).

The actionable advice starts in your head.

If I offered you $1M if you stayed off social media for one week, would you?

Of course you would.

If threatened you with hacking off your hand with an axe if you use social media in the next week, would you stay away?

Of course you would.

This is about priorities and desire.

I know you don't want to hear the tough love, but strap on some balls. Uninstalling takes 10 seconds.

Step 1: Uninstall (10 seconds)
Step 2: Get Busy (10 days, weeks, or months)
Step 3: Will my business benefit from social media exposure?
Step 4: If so, create a new account, solely for that purpose.
 

Panos Daras

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Cap. You care about what certain people think about you. Maybe it's not strangers (or soon to be friends) on a forum, maybe it's instead someone you're close with. They're the ones that'll be the most potent.
No, I don't. I love many people predominately my family because of biological reasons, and very close friends but I do not care about what they think of ME. I care about what they think and feel in general but in regards to me, I don't care. If they say I need to improve on something I will only listen only if it is justified by examples not subjective criticism.
The actionable advice starts in your head.

If I offered you $1M if you stayed off social media for one week, would you?

Of course you would.

If threatened you with hacking off your hand with an axe if you use social media in the next week, would you stay away?

Of course you would.

This is about priorities and desire.

I know you don't want to hear the tough love, but strap on some balls. Uninstalling takes 10 seconds.

Step 1: Uninstall (10 seconds)
Step 2: Get Busy (10 days, weeks, or months)
Step 3: Will my business benefit from social media exposure?
Step 4: If so, create a new account, solely for that purpose.
I agree with the statements above. Of course, I would be able to quit YouTube for 10 days. I am not hooked to the other apps at all now. I just use Messenger, the rest I do not open at all. The problem is that for more days of quitting it requires a better strategy from my side to accommodate the depleted willpower. All these apps have been developed in a data-driven manner to keep you hooked! So I need to choose the battle wisely. Maybe going completely off YouTube for 1 day which would turn into more days, weeks, etc would also be a viable strategy. In regards to the steps/ checklist. Step 1 I have done. Step 2 is something I need to do. Step 3. Yes, all businesses need social media exposure these days (I think). Step 4 I have done. I have not posted stuff yet because I am still in the product development phase. Once it is done we will run social media campaigns to identify whether someone wants to buy my thing or not and determine what our potential customer profile is. So long story short part of the solution for me would be to get more busy and quit YouTube Cold Turkey (no pun intended).
 

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From the Fastlane newsletter being sent out today...
Highly relevant to this thread about shutting down social media.

-------

My stepson never cared about financial freedom or wealth until he started getting up at 6AM and working Monday through Friday. Now all of a sudden, he's interested in his step-dad's advice.

After several conversations and strategy pow-wows, he's devised a Fastlane plan. This is a great start.

However, there's one big problem, a problem that will likely prevent him from succeeding: He's addicted to social media. He wastes countless hours scrolling content on YouTube and Instagram.

He fails to see this as an issue, making the problem worse. He fails to recognize his addiction. He fails to recognize what this is doing to his brain, his motivation, and his goals. And when you add up his full-time job, his commitment to the gym, and his social media addiction, there's no time left for his Fastlane plans.

If nothing changes, he will remain hog-tied to a job he hates, clutching on the ubiquitous excuse of "I don't have time!"

Actually, as I remind him, he does have time. But social media is more important. Whenever I see him lost in a social media binge, I tell him, "That's not going to make you rich," and he realizes just how much time he's wasted.

As I've been saying for years, your actions express your priorities.

You might say, "I want to get rich," but your actions say, "I want to be comfortably entertained, outraged, or humored." You might say you want to lose weight, but that tub of ice cream in your freezer says otherwise.

Priorities get your time.

If mindless social media scrolling is your priority, you will never succeed. Let me repeat: You will never succeed.

A highly-discussed thread at the forum, "Young fastlaners: Shut-Down All Social Media," advocates abandoning social media.

I totally agree, but only from a consumer perspective.

Social media is a tool. For your business, it is incredibly powerful in reaching an audience. For your life, it is addictively destructive, purposely designed to steal your attention, hack your dopamine system, and keep you enslaved to the platform. You are being manipulated.

Katherine Boyle, a tech executive at Andreessen Horowitz, said it best:

We are in a full-contact, all-out war with forces competing for control of our minds. Not just attention but control... this may seem like a consensus opinion, but in practice, eradicating these forces from one's life is a daily battle that requires contrarian actions, not just belief.1

Whenever I visit Twitter to post content, I notice I get stuck in the scroll loop for a few minutes and leave with higher anxiety, anger, and stress. Countless studies show that social media influences anti-success in the form of anxiety, depression, and intense feelings of FOMO. Some studies even suggest that it fosters suicidal feelings. And this negative baggage doesn't even account for lost time!

This brings me to the metaphor everyone-- including you-- needs to hear regarding social media...

A drug kingpin who sells heroin to his addicts doesn't snort his product. He is the producer and lives in a mansion with a Rolls Royce parked on the driveway. You are the consumer and live in a trailer with a Honda parked on the gravel.

I boss dei social media stanno progettando il loro prodotto per la dipendenza, la viscosità e l'agenda. Tu sei il prodotto.

Negli ultimi 20 anni ho incontrato molte persone di successo. E tu sai cosa? Non conosco nessuno di loro che utilizza Instagram e TikTok 3 ore al giorno. Usano queste piattaforme solo per i loro scopi commerciali, non per i loro vizi di intrattenimento . In altre parole, il ragazzo con 2 milioni di abbonati YouTube non passa ore a scorrere i social media; passano ore a creare contenuti per gli swiper.

Vi lascio con un'altra metafora.

I social media sono un martello. Puoi usarlo per costruire un grande business che ti renderà libero, oppure puoi usarlo per martellare il tuo cervello nella mediocrità e nella sottomissione.

La scelta è tua.

Fonti:
1. Meditazioni moderne: Katherine Boyle | Il generalista
2. Fardouly, J., Diedrichs, PC, Vartanian, LR e Halliwell, E. (2015). Confronti sociali sui social media: l'impatto di Facebook sulle preoccupazioni e sull'umore dell'immagine corporea delle giovani donne. Immagine del corpo, 13, 38-45.Link: Reindirizzamento
2. Primack, BA, Shensa, A., Escobar-Viera, CG, Barrett, EL, Sidani, JE, Colditz, JB e James, AE (2017). Uso di più piattaforme di social media e sintomi di depressione e ansia: uno studio rappresentativo a livello nazionale tra i giovani adulti statunitensi. I computer nel comportamento umano, 69, 1-9.Link: Reindirizzamento
3. Twenge, JM, Joiner, TE, Rogers, ML e Martin, GN (2018). Aumento dei sintomi depressivi, esiti correlati al suicidio e tassi di suicidio tra gli adolescenti statunitensi dopo il 2010 e collegamenti all'aumento del tempo davanti allo schermo dei nuovi media. Scienze psicologiche cliniche, 6(1), 3-17.Link: https://doi.org/10.1177/2167702617723376
4. Woods, HC e Scott, H. (2016). #Sleepyteens: l'uso dei social media nell'adolescenza è associato a scarsa qualità del sonno, ansia, depressione e bassa autostima. Giornale dell'adolescenza, 51, 41-49. Link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2016.05.008
5. Kross, E., Verduyn, P., Demiralp, E., Park, J., Lee, DS, Lin, N., Shablack, H., Jonides, J., & Ybarra, O. (2013). L'uso di Facebook prevede un calo del benessere soggettivo nei giovani adulti. PloS One, 8(8), e69841. Link: L'uso di Facebook prevede un calo del benessere soggettivo nei giovani adulti
Mj è incredibilmente vero. La mia vita è cambiata dal settembre 2019 quando, all'improvviso, non sono più entrato nei social. Da allora ho letto (o riletto) oltre 200 libri, mentre prima ne leggevo due all'anno.
questo mi ha permesso di comprare sei immobili che ho messo a reddito.
Un piccolo cambio di abitudine mi sta cambiando la vita.... In meglio!
 
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marius84

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What process has worked for you guys to eliminate social media? I have removed Instagram, Facebook, and Youtube from my phone and this has made it easier to abstain while on the phone. My problem is that F*cking YouTube keeps creeping on me (it is my fault of course), and I end up spending way too much time on it. It is the only one that I use actually. I also tried apps like Cold Turkey but I just cannot abstain from opening the tab while on the computer. I spend around 1 - 3 hours a day on YouTube. What has worked for you? Do you have any actionable advice? (Please abstain from advice in the context of finding your why, working harder, don't be a pussy).
Ciao Panos, io ho cambiato smartphone e non ho installato i social (avevo solo Facebook): è dal 2019 che non lo utilizzo più
 

mikecarlooch

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I'm glad to see everyone on this forum going showing the consumerism of social media as the devil recently, because in all truth it is.

I would also like to add something that social media addiction is also doing to young people, and it's happened to me, I've never seen it put into words though.

Any 13-25 year old's feed will be full of people saying things that will make you skip the entire process that @MJ DeMarco talks about in his broke to millions video.

These videos create a superiority bias in us and make us feel like we should be doing something bigger RIGHT NOW. It doesn't matter if you have no experience, you should be rich right now and if you're not, you suck.

This leads all of us young people into delusions of being like the people on social media. For example, because Andrew Tate is big there are thousands of young people that are now trying to skip the entire process to start dropshipping because they're "too good" for a job at any point in their lives.

Then when it doesn't work and they realize the path they took was complete and utter bullsh*t being preached by someone who profits off it, it leads to a massive amount of inaction, lack of purpose, and depression.

Since X said I'm a "brokie" if I work a job in order to stay afloat while working on goals, then I should quit and keep trying to do this "internet thing"

That's what all of the kids who are lost nowadays say. They're doing this "internet entrepreneur thing" - (I am heavily guilty). but deep down they are lost and depressed and lack meaning because they are doing nothing all day.

And I'm here to say F**K that. Sitting behind a damn computer all day if you don't know what you're doing, I don't care what guru you're listening to that's telling you to "start a step-by-step internet business", it's SELFISH, and it's a WASTE OF LIFE.

All of a sudden they're so deep in these influencer philosophies of bullsh*t that they are incapable of seeing through that they now only seek out information that confirms this new identity that they have.

The process that MJ laid out in his 0 to millions video is the path that none of these videos will tell you about. They're just gonna tell you how you're a loser and trust me, you'll feel like one.

The moral of the story is - you're not special. You're not superior to anyone until you f**king earn it. The "confidence" you get from a lot of these motivational videos is pure delusion. Most of those videos you see, there is an underlying motive behind them.

They may be telling you how to "escape the matrix", but what they are saying indirectly is - click on the link in my bio and join my course, and I'll show you just HOW to escape the matrix. You become delusional, and you're following insincere people who quite frankly don't give a F about your success. They want your money and your attention.

Are you really going to give that to them? Are you going to let these videos waste your life? Or are you going to start listening to people who really did start from the freaking bottom and built their way up the old fashioned way?

Even Mark Cuban started from the bottom with $60, moved in with a bunch of kids, and got a job which lead to his first business success.

But you're going to listen to Andrew Tate and start dropshipping? Get lost.
 

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1 2 3 and 4 I have already done by uninstalling the app from my phone. It definitely has improved the situation. Accountability never worked for me because I don't give a shit about what other people think of me. I think I will also try Self Control plugin and also watch YouTube only on the treadmill or doing house chores. Thanks a lot!
Implement regimentation in your life.

Complete a task in 2 hours, if fail do push up or send money to charity.

Reward yourself with youtube for 30 min, exceed by one minute send one dollar to charity. Fine yourself.
 

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My stepson never cared about financial freedom or wealth until he started getting up at 6AM and working Monday through Friday. Now all of a sudden, he's interested in his step-dad's advice.
They never care until they get that first full time job. Then all of a sudden its, "soooo, tell me how to start a business..."
 

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All these apps have been developed in a data-driven manner to keep you hooked!
Just this is enough to make me quit. It's like when you know someone or something is using a tactic against you, it's just easy to ignore it.

You already know that they programmed it to manipulate you. But instead of saying, I see your tricks. You are saying, you guys are good and it's working on me.

Let's say I can trick you into giving me $1,000. I use it on you and you give my $1,000. Then I reveal how I mind tricked you into giving me $1,000. And instantly, I use the same trick again. Would it work on you again?
 
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What process has worked for you guys to eliminate social media? I have removed Instagram, Facebook, and Youtube from my phone and this has made it easier to abstain while on the phone. My problem is that F*cking YouTube keeps creeping on me (it is my fault of course), and I end up spending way too much time on it. It is the only one that I use actually. I also tried apps like Cold Turkey but I just cannot abstain from opening the tab while on the computer. I spend around 1 - 3 hours a day on YouTube. What has worked for you? Do you have any actionable advice? (Please abstain from advice in the context of finding your why, working harder, don't be a pussy).
I struggled with youtube for a long time but after a response by @MJ DeMarco where he told me that I had the choice between youtube or success (I had a thread where I cried about not being able to do shit) so I choose success.

I decided that I was never (yes never) again going to watch youtube. No exceptions or anything. I have not watched youtube since. Well, occasionally there were some missteps or whatever but I probably watched like 3 hours of youtube in the last 4 Months.

Cold turkey blocker helped since I locked it which means I can't watch yt, even if I wanted to.

Then I learned more about dopamine and how addictions work. When you feel cravings and can hear Dr. Andrew Huberman explaining in your head "Because of a recent high in dopamine levels there is now a low which is signaling you body to get that high again. But getting that high again will keep the cycle going untill your dopamine baseline is so low that even highs can't get you to your usual baseline" it's way easier to disassociate and stop. So go and listen to his podcasts on dopamine.


Overall my biggest lesson is that balance is bs. "Work hard and reward yourself with youtube" BS. Why reward yourself by punishing yourself? I work hard to make progress to my goals and then watch youtube to get further away from my goals again?

If balance works for some people, fine.
It clearly doesn't work for us. We are built different and what we really want (or rather what our addiction wants) is mindlessly binging for hours. The best thing you can do is to really get it clear in your head that you will never do it again. Yes it is slightly inconvenient sometimes but there are workarounds to it. When you stop smoking it is also inconvenient sometimes as you can't connect with other smokers over a cigarette. But the positive far outweighs the negative. You loose one or two hours here and there but save 3 to 5 hours a day.

Also forget the myth that you want to watch youtube because your life is too bad. You want to watch it for the dopamine spike and nothing else. If that didn't exist, there would be 0 people addicted to youtube. If your life is bad the addiction says " Let's watch some youtube to get your mind off these horrible things". When you feels good the addiction says "Let's watch some youtube to enjoy this good time".
When you are hungry the addiction says " Let's watch some youtube while eating food, preferably processed fast food".

Make the decision to quit and then never look back. If you truly know that you will never look at youtube videos again, quitting is way easier. The pain and depression comes from uncertainty.
 

Panos Daras

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I struggled with youtube for a long time but after a response by @MJ DeMarco where he told me that I had the choice between youtube or success (I had a thread where I cried about not being able to do shit) so I choose success.

I decided that I was never (yes never) again going to watch youtube. No exceptions or anything. I have not watched youtube since. Well, occasionally there were some missteps or whatever but I probably watched like 3 hours of youtube in the last 4 Months.

Cold turkey blocker helped since I locked it which means I can't watch yt, even if I wanted to.

Then I learned more about dopamine and how addictions work. When you feel cravings and can hear Dr. Andrew Huberman explaining in your head "Because of a recent high in dopamine levels there is now a low which is signaling you body to get that high again. But getting that high again will keep the cycle going untill your dopamine baseline is so low that even highs can't get you to your usual baseline" it's way easier to disassociate and stop. So go and listen to his podcasts on dopamine.


Overall my biggest lesson is that balance is bs. "Work hard and reward yourself with youtube" BS. Why reward yourself by punishing yourself? I work hard to make progress to my goals and then watch youtube to get further away from my goals again?

If balance works for some people, fine.
It clearly doesn't work for us. We are built different and what we really want (or rather what our addiction wants) is mindlessly binging for hours. The best thing you can do is to really get it clear in your head that you will never do it again. Yes it is slightly inconvenient sometimes but there are workarounds to it. When you stop smoking it is also inconvenient sometimes as you can't connect with other smokers over a cigarette. But the positive far outweighs the negative. You loose one or two hours here and there but save 3 to 5 hours a day.

Also forget the myth that you want to watch youtube because your life is too bad. You want to watch it for the dopamine spike and nothing else. If that didn't exist, there would be 0 people addicted to youtube. If your life is bad the addiction says " Let's watch some youtube to get your mind off these horrible things". When you feels good the addiction says "Let's watch some youtube to enjoy this good time".
When you are hungry the addiction says " Let's watch some youtube while eating food, preferably processed fast food".

Make the decision to quit and then never look back. If you truly know that you will never look at youtube videos again, quitting is way easier. The pain and depression comes from uncertainty.
Very good points! My problem with Youtube is that I feel like I am missing something if I quit completely. With alcohol and cigarettes, I never had FOMO.

And the struggle is real! YouTube has had a good impact on my life along with being a huge distraction!
For example, I discovered the Fastlane series of books from a YouTube video. Starting reading happened ironically from YouTube videos talking about books that I was like, "These are so cool to read!". I started with one and I have read around 20 this year. Quitting smoking the same. Six years ago, I read Allen Carrs' book after reading a YouTube comment (I did not buy the book I pirated it). Quitting alcohol was the same, I saw the short video of
Nikki Glaser talking about it and then I bought another book and I was done. Losing weight well the friggin same! Binged Biolayne's, Jeff Nippards, and Greg Douchette's content bought some of Greg's books, the very cheap ones, and boom after a year and a half still consistent at the gym and 30 kilos (66lbs) off the scale.

It is a love-hate relationship for me with YouTube.
 

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From the Fastlane newsletter being sent out today...
Highly relevant to this thread about shutting down social media.

-------

My stepson never cared about financial freedom or wealth until he started getting up at 6AM and working Monday through Friday. Now all of a sudden, he's interested in his step-dad's advice.

After several conversations and strategy pow-wows, he's devised a Fastlane plan. This is a great start.

However, there's one big problem, a problem that will likely prevent him from succeeding: He's addicted to social media. He wastes countless hours scrolling content on YouTube and Instagram.

He fails to see this as an issue, making the problem worse. He fails to recognize his addiction. He fails to recognize what this is doing to his brain, his motivation, and his goals. And when you add up his full-time job, his commitment to the gym, and his social media addiction, there's no time left for his Fastlane plans.

If nothing changes, he will remain hog-tied to a job he hates, clutching on the ubiquitous excuse of "I don't have time!"

Actually, as I remind him, he does have time. But social media is more important. Whenever I see him lost in a social media binge, I tell him, "That's not going to make you rich," and he realizes just how much time he's wasted.

As I've been saying for years, your actions express your priorities.

You might say, "I want to get rich," but your actions say, "I want to be comfortably entertained, outraged, or humored." You might say you want to lose weight, but that tub of ice cream in your freezer says otherwise.

Priorities get your time.

If mindless social media scrolling is your priority, you will never succeed. Let me repeat: You will never succeed.

A highly-discussed thread at the forum, "Young fastlaners: Shut-Down All Social Media," advocates abandoning social media.

I totally agree, but only from a consumer perspective.

Social media is a tool. For your business, it is incredibly powerful in reaching an audience. For your life, it is addictively destructive, purposely designed to steal your attention, hack your dopamine system, and keep you enslaved to the platform. You are being manipulated.

Katherine Boyle, a tech executive at Andreessen Horowitz, said it best:

We are in a full-contact, all-out war with forces competing for control of our minds. Not just attention but control... this may seem like a consensus opinion, but in practice, eradicating these forces from one's life is a daily battle that requires contrarian actions, not just belief.1

Whenever I visit Twitter to post content, I notice I get stuck in the scroll loop for a few minutes and leave with higher anxiety, anger, and stress. Countless studies show that social media influences anti-success in the form of anxiety, depression, and intense feelings of FOMO. Some studies even suggest that it fosters suicidal feelings. And this negative baggage doesn't even account for lost time!

This brings me to the metaphor everyone-- including you-- needs to hear regarding social media...

A drug kingpin who sells heroin to his addicts doesn't snort his product. He is the producer and lives in a mansion with a Rolls Royce parked on the driveway. You are the consumer and live in a trailer with a Honda parked on the gravel.

The social media kingpins are engineering their product for addiction, stickiness, and agenda. You are the product.

In the last 20 years, I've met many successful people. And you know what? I don't know any of them who are rolling through Instagram and TikTok 3 hours a day. They only use these platforms to serve their business purposes, not their entertainment vices. In other words, the guy with 2 million YouTube subscribers isn't spending hours swiping through social media; they're spending hours creating content for the swipers.

I'll leave you with another metaphor.

Social media is a hammer. You can use it to build a great business that will set you free, or you can use it to bludgeon your brain into mediocrity and submission.

The choice is yours.

Sources:
1. Modern Meditations: Katherine Boyle | The Generalist
2. Fardouly, J., Diedrichs, P. C., Vartanian, L. R., & Halliwell, E. (2015). Social comparisons on social media: the impact of Facebook on young women's body image concerns and mood. Body Image, 13, 38-45.Link: Redirecting
2. Primack, B. A., Shensa, A., Escobar-Viera, C. G., Barrett, E. L., Sidani, J. E., Colditz, J. B., & James, A. E. (2017). Use of multiple social media platforms and symptoms of depression and anxiety: A nationally-representative study among U.S. young adults. Computers in Human Behavior, 69, 1-9.Link: Redirecting
3. Twenge, J. M., Joiner, T. E., Rogers, M. L., & Martin, G. N. (2018). Increases in depressive symptoms, suicide-related outcomes, and suicide rates among U.S. adolescents after 2010 and links to increased new media screen time. Clinical Psychological Science, 6(1), 3-17.Link: https://doi.org/10.1177/2167702617723376
4. Woods, H. C., & Scott, H. (2016). #Sleepyteens: Social media use in adolescence is associated with poor sleep quality, anxiety, depression and low self-esteem. Journal of Adolescence, 51, 41-49. Link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2016.05.008
5. Kross, E., Verduyn, P., Demiralp, E., Park, J., Lee, D. S., Lin, N., Shablack, H., Jonides, J., & Ybarra, O. (2013). Facebook use predicts declines in subjective well-being in young adults. PloS One, 8(8), e69841. Link: Facebook Use Predicts Declines in Subjective Well-Being in Young Adults
So bloody true. Social media is amazing to reach potential customers but so toxic for our mental health. After a few minutes of scrolling any social media my gut tightens and I feel anxious. Can't imagine how bad the kids and teens feel ! Some kind of ban needs to be put in place , no idea how that is possible but that could be a good business idea..
 
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ocricci

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From the Fastlane newsletter being sent out today...
Highly relevant to this thread about shutting down social media.

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My stepson never cared about financial freedom or wealth until he started getting up at 6AM and working Monday through Friday. Now all of a sudden, he's interested in his step-dad's advice.

After several conversations and strategy pow-wows, he's devised a Fastlane plan. This is a great start.

However, there's one big problem, a problem that will likely prevent him from succeeding: He's addicted to social media. He wastes countless hours scrolling content on YouTube and Instagram.

He fails to see this as an issue, making the problem worse. He fails to recognize his addiction. He fails to recognize what this is doing to his brain, his motivation, and his goals. And when you add up his full-time job, his commitment to the gym, and his social media addiction, there's no time left for his Fastlane plans.

If nothing changes, he will remain hog-tied to a job he hates, clutching on the ubiquitous excuse of "I don't have time!"

Actually, as I remind him, he does have time. But social media is more important. Whenever I see him lost in a social media binge, I tell him, "That's not going to make you rich," and he realizes just how much time he's wasted.

As I've been saying for years, your actions express your priorities.

You might say, "I want to get rich," but your actions say, "I want to be comfortably entertained, outraged, or humored." You might say you want to lose weight, but that tub of ice cream in your freezer says otherwise.

Priorities get your time.

If mindless social media scrolling is your priority, you will never succeed. Let me repeat: You will never succeed.

A highly-discussed thread at the forum, "Young fastlaners: Shut-Down All Social Media," advocates abandoning social media.

I totally agree, but only from a consumer perspective.

Social media is a tool. For your business, it is incredibly powerful in reaching an audience. For your life, it is addictively destructive, purposely designed to steal your attention, hack your dopamine system, and keep you enslaved to the platform. You are being manipulated.

Katherine Boyle, a tech executive at Andreessen Horowitz, said it best:

We are in a full-contact, all-out war with forces competing for control of our minds. Not just attention but control... this may seem like a consensus opinion, but in practice, eradicating these forces from one's life is a daily battle that requires contrarian actions, not just belief.1

Whenever I visit Twitter to post content, I notice I get stuck in the scroll loop for a few minutes and leave with higher anxiety, anger, and stress. Countless studies show that social media influences anti-success in the form of anxiety, depression, and intense feelings of FOMO. Some studies even suggest that it fosters suicidal feelings. And this negative baggage doesn't even account for lost time!

This brings me to the metaphor everyone-- including you-- needs to hear regarding social media...

A drug kingpin who sells heroin to his addicts doesn't snort his product. He is the producer and lives in a mansion with a Rolls Royce parked on the driveway. You are the consumer and live in a trailer with a Honda parked on the gravel.

The social media kingpins are engineering their product for addiction, stickiness, and agenda. You are the product.

In the last 20 years, I've met many successful people. And you know what? I don't know any of them who are rolling through Instagram and TikTok 3 hours a day. They only use these platforms to serve their business purposes, not their entertainment vices. In other words, the guy with 2 million YouTube subscribers isn't spending hours swiping through social media; they're spending hours creating content for the swipers.

I'll leave you with another metaphor.

Social media is a hammer. You can use it to build a great business that will set you free, or you can use it to bludgeon your brain into mediocrity and submission.

The choice is yours.

Sources:
1. Modern Meditations: Katherine Boyle | The Generalist
2. Fardouly, J., Diedrichs, P. C., Vartanian, L. R., & Halliwell, E. (2015). Social comparisons on social media: the impact of Facebook on young women's body image concerns and mood. Body Image, 13, 38-45.Link: Redirecting
2. Primack, B. A., Shensa, A., Escobar-Viera, C. G., Barrett, E. L., Sidani, J. E., Colditz, J. B., & James, A. E. (2017). Use of multiple social media platforms and symptoms of depression and anxiety: A nationally-representative study among U.S. young adults. Computers in Human Behavior, 69, 1-9.Link: Redirecting
3. Twenge, J. M., Joiner, T. E., Rogers, M. L., & Martin, G. N. (2018). Increases in depressive symptoms, suicide-related outcomes, and suicide rates among U.S. adolescents after 2010 and links to increased new media screen time. Clinical Psychological Science, 6(1), 3-17.Link: https://doi.org/10.1177/2167702617723376
4. Woods, H. C., & Scott, H. (2016). #Sleepyteens: Social media use in adolescence is associated with poor sleep quality, anxiety, depression and low self-esteem. Journal of Adolescence, 51, 41-49. Link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2016.05.008
5. Kross, E., Verduyn, P., Demiralp, E., Park, J., Lee, D. S., Lin, N., Shablack, H., Jonides, J., & Ybarra, O. (2013). Facebook use predicts declines in subjective well-being in young adults. PloS One, 8(8), e69841. Link: Facebook Use Predicts Declines in Subjective Well-Being in Young Adults

your next book needs to be a collection of advice for your stepson
 

Xeon

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Very good points! My problem with Youtube is that I feel like I am missing something if I quit completely. With alcohol and cigarettes, I never had FOMO.

And the struggle is real! YouTube has had a good impact on my life along with being a huge distraction!
For example, I discovered the Fastlane series of books from a YouTube video. Starting reading happened ironically from YouTube videos talking about books that I was like, "These are so cool to read!". I started with one and I have read around 20 this year. Quitting smoking the same. Six years ago, I read Allen Carrs' book after reading a YouTube comment (I did not buy the book I pirated it). Quitting alcohol was the same, I saw the short video of
Nikki Glaser talking about it and then I bought another book and I was done. Losing weight well the friggin same! Binged Biolayne's, Jeff Nippards, and Greg Douchette's content bought some of Greg's books, the very cheap ones, and boom after a year and a half still consistent at the gym and 30 kilos (66lbs) off the scale.

It is a love-hate relationship for me with YouTube.

Lots of extremist, black-white and my-way-or-no-way views here, so here's a bit of unpopular and unconventional personal opinion: do whatever helps you and works for you.

Everything in the world should, including all the posts here and mine, should be analyzed by the reader (you, in this case) after reading and not following blindly. A lot of people seem to lack that underlying, most basic "meta" layer of thought that permeates all opinions and views.

Just because you admire someone or an idol, doesn't mean you need to follow everything they say. Many times, you'll find that you agree 80% and disagree with the other 20%. Example: I admire MJ's thoughts but I disagree with his vegan food choice, for example.

The key is to develop critical/abstract thinking skills. It's reported everywhere that Warren Buffett eats lots of fast food even in his 90s and drinks lots of coke. Assuming this is true, shouldn't his admirers adopt his habits?

If YouTube helps you, or watching a bit of YouTube energizes you to work on your fastlane project, why not?

There may soon be threads about how going full monk mode (aka abstaining from sex, meat and all forms of worldly pleasures including contact with human society and wealth) is good for your mindset in the fastlane journey.

There are people who can do intensive work for 23.5 hrs a day nonstop and never get tired. Can you? If you can't, then you should mix and match from various sources that works for you, and make that YOUR OWN.
 

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