Social Media: We Open It for a Reason. We Stay Without One.

Every single day, the internet produces more than 400 quintillion bytes of data. A large part of it comes from social media. Billions of people uploading, watching, and sharing. Every minute. Every second. It’s hard to even imagine that scale. And yet, it is one of the most powerful tools we have created. It connects people across continents. Builds careers out of nothing. Turns ideas into movements.

A perfect example I can think of is Balendra Shah. A few years ago, he was just another civil engineer sharing opinions online. And today he is the Prime Minister of Nepal.

Yet most of us don’t use it like a tool; our use case usually looks like:

Open → Scroll → Refresh → Close → Repeat.

Not because there’s something important to see, but because "maybe the next post will feel worth it."

The world is neither good nor bad; it simply exists. What we see in it depends largely on our experiences, expectations, and the lens through which we observe it. The same is true for social media. Some people build entire businesses on it, some learn skills, find communities, create things that matter. Some of us open it for “2 minutes”… and come back 40 minutes later with no memory of what we saw. So maybe the question isn’t: “Is social media good or bad?” Maybe it’s: What exactly are we doing on it?

The Social Gathering We Never Physically Attend

Lets say you're in a gathering surrounded by people. Some familiar, some strangers, some you’ll never meet again. You watch. React. Occasionally, say something. You start showing the version of yourself that works best. But in the case of social media, it isn’t one gathering. It’s thousands of gatherings happening at the same time. Everyone is speaking, reacting, trying to be seen… while also watching everyone else. Suddenly, we see a world where ideas travel faster, opinions spread wider, communities form without geography. And somewhere in between all that, most people just scroll.

The 90-9-1 Reality of Social Media

Jakob Nielsen observed a pattern online and described it as the 90-9-1 rule. Out of 100 people online:

• 90 are consumers: they scroll reels, watch videos, and read posts
• 9 are contributors: they occasionally comment, share, or interact
• 1 is a creator: they create content and build communities

For the majority, it is a one-directional experience: constant consumption with very little creation. At first, it sounds like a statistic, but it also explains a feeling. If you’re in the 90… you’re not really participating, you’re just absorbing. Endless opinions. Endless content. Endless noise. And maybe that’s why it feels exhausting.

Because consumption without creation is a one-way street. Things go in. Nothing comes out.

Using Social Media Intentionally

A healthier approach is to move slightly toward the 9% or even the 1% side. Instead of only consuming, share ideas, write posts, document experiences, and teach something you know. Even small contributions can make social media feel less like a time drain and more like a meaningful exchange.

Researchers say that you can use a simple sequence:

Create → Connect → Learn → Leave

• Create something of value
• Connect with people around that idea
• Learn from others
• Leave before the platform begins consuming your attention

But strangely… most people don’t. Not because they can’t.

Scrolling is safe, while creating is visible. Scrolling asks nothing, creating inflicts judgment. It makes us feel exposed, so we choose the easier side and then wonder why it feels empty.

The Trap of Chasing Likes

The first time you post something, it feels… small. A little excitement. A little nervousness. You check who liked it. Then you check again. And again. At some point, without noticing… you are trapped inside a loop where expression becomes performance and performance decides what to express.

From "I want to share this." you go towards "Will this work?"

And "work" doesn’t mean meaningful anymore. It means:

• Will people like it?
• Will it get attention?
• Will it perform better than the last one?

A number on a screen slowly starts deciding what is worth sharing… and what is not. And while this is happening, there’s another illusion running in parallel. Everyone else looks like they’re doing better. More productive. More successful. More interesting.

But of course they do. It's just that we forget that we’re seeing highlights of their life.

Comparing someone else's best moments with your everyday life is not just unfair, it is fundamentally misleading.

The Question of Online Toxicity

Critics often blame social media for harassment, trolling, and abusive behavior online. But none of that is new; people have always judged, mocked, and argued. The difference is… offline, there are consequences. Online, there’s distance. And distance does something strange to behavior. It removes hesitation. Not because technology changed us. But because it revealed parts of us we usually keep hidden. In many ways, this is less a technological issue and more a question of moral conduct.

Blaming social media for every toxic interaction is like blaming Sony for a poorly written television show.

Addiction to Social Media

This isn’t the dramatic kind. It’s the quiet kind.

• You open an app without thinking.
• You check your phone without a reason.
• You use it constantly during other tasks.

Think of a night you decide to sleep early, lights off, phone in hand, just checking one thing. Suddenly, it’s 1:47 AM, and you don’t even remember what you were checking. It doesn’t feel serious, but it happens every day. And slowly… time starts disappearing in small, forgettable pieces.

It’s not accidental. Every scroll. Every notification. Every suggested post is designed to keep you there. Not forcefully, just gently enough that you don’t notice. But just enough to make you stay a little longer on the platform and then a little longer.

You tell yourself: "At least I’m watching informative content." Productivity reels, finance tips, fitness advice, 20 videos later… You haven’t actually done anything, just collected ideas, like bookmarks you’ll probably never open again.

Totally irrelevant fact I recalled from bookmarks - even reading books can become compulsive. There is a term for it— bibliomania. That does not mean books are harmful. It simply means any activity can become unhealthy without boundaries.

Influence or Something Else?

Somewhere in between all this clutter of likes, expression, and addiction, there is another layer. People don’t just share anymore. They influence. What's wrong with that? Everyone influences someone. Parents influence children. Teachers influence students. Friends influence each other. Online, it feels slightly different because sometimes it’s not clear whether someone is sharing something they believe in or shaping something because they know it will work. The difference is subtle.

You open Instagram for no reason in particular. A video shows up, someone explaining a product. Calm. Confident. It doesn’t even feel like an ad, you watch it fully. Then another video about the same thing, then reviews, then comparisons. Ten minutes later… you’re checking the price. You weren’t planning to buy anything. But now it feels like your idea.

When you carefully think about social media, it gets you slightly uncomfortable. Because social media is a tool you can’t avoid. In today’s world, that would be both impractical and unnecessary. But it’s also a tool that improves the more you stay on it. So if you don’t decide how to use it… it quietly decides how to use your time.

People don’t just celebrate festivals anymore. They pause. Click → Edit → Caption → Post. Then wait. Because celebration feels slightly incomplete until it’s been seen.

So what should we do? Create more? Consume less? Use it intentionally? Most of us already know the answer.

And yet… most of us will close this article and open Instagram again. "Bas 5 minute scroll karta hoon."
It’s probably the most confident lie we tell ourselves and somehow the easiest one to believe. So maybe the question isn’t what the right way to use social media is. Maybe it’s simpler than that.

The next time you open it, will you notice why... or will you just scroll until something feels worth it?