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Why Is Addictive Social Media Bad While Addictive Streaming Movie Platforms Are Good?

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Why is it that society condemns social media platforms for their addictive nature even while lauding streaming video sites for providing their users similarly addictive platforms that offer endless hours of movie watching? What is it that makes spending hours surfing social media a behavior to be corrected, while spending hours streaming movies is a behavior to be encouraged and something that has risen to pop culture phenomenon?

It is perhaps one of the most understated ironies of the digital era that not all digital addictions are viewed the same.

We spend more time each day watching television and listening to the radio than we do surfing social media. All those Facebook posts, Instagram images and Twitter updates receive endless condemnation for addicting us to our screens, yet we actually spend more time each day on screens consuming television for which streaming media companies are lauded.

What is it about social media that makes it bad for us to spend a few hours a day keeping up with the news of our friends, family, colleagues and celebrities or the latest world headlines, while spending a few hours a day sitting comatose in front of a screen watching a movie is something to be encouraged?

Why is mindlessly absorbing canned content from our screens that has nothing to do with us better than browsing updates of friends and family we are actually connected to and which may directly involve us?

Why is the consumption of the read-only medium of television a positive use of our time, while the read-write medium of social media in which we can actively engage with others, sharing our thoughts and dialoging with others considered tragedy to be avoided?

Why is it that watching an hour of cat videos on Facebook is considered a tragic waste of time, while watching an hour of sitcoms on television is entertainment?

Why is it that social media is criticized as destroying our mental health, while television watching is viewed as a useful mental break that contributes to our well-being?

After all, to most users, social media is merely a form of interactive entertainment and escapism, little different than watching a movie.

Could it be the toxicity of social media is what makes it bad compared with television watching? If that were the case, then many genres of television shows and movies would also yield such a label, given the harmful narratives and behaviors they depict and often lionize.

Could it be the personalized nature of social media that is the problem? While toxic movies have nothing to do with us, toxic social media content can target us directly, harming our well-being and creating personal and professional conflicts that pursue us into the physical world.

Just what is it that separates the entertainment of social media from that of streaming movie platforms and why is the former’s addictiveness viewed as toxic, while the latter’s is viewed as a useful service?

Perhaps the answer is that there is no difference.

Half a century ago society lamented television as a useless and potentially toxic waste of time that was contributing to the spread of falsehoods, diverting us from productive undertakings and undermining society. Today it is social media that is blamed for each of these. Nothing has changed but the name.

Putting this all together, perhaps it is not that social media’s addictiveness is any different from that of television, it is that each generation needs a scapegoat upon which to pile its troubles and fears. Television served its time in this role and has reinvented itself as a positive societal force. In its place for the moment social media is to blame for today’s problems. Perhaps all it can do is wait for the next scapegoat to emerge and take its place.