How to stop being a mindlessly scrolling consumer:

Have you ever heard the quote?

“You are the sum of your five best friends.” 

Well, I recently heard another quote that changed my entire perspective. 

“You are the sum of your five best friends, including your parasocial relationships.”

I heard the quote on this podcast with Tim Ferriss and Colin & Samir. 

As defined on findapsychologist.org, a parasocial relationship is a “one-sided relationship, where one person extends emotional energy, interest and time, and the other party, the persona, is completely unaware of the other’s existence.” 

This idea made me realize: We often spend more time with our favorite creators than with our best friends or family. 

If you listen to a podcast every morning on your commute to work, you spend hours of uninterrupted time with someone who doesn’t even know you exist. 

But you start to feel like you know them deeply. 

They start to feel like your friend or even a mentor. 

You start taking their advice, adopting their belief systems, and often acting like they would. 

Yet, this person doesn't know you. They don’t know what you are going through or anything about your life.

If their advice is good, why is this a problem?

There is a fine line between these parasocial relationships being beneficial and problematic. 

The problem lies in blindly adopting someone else’s values without leaving room for nuance. 

Think of any die-hard Republican or Democrat. (I hate to speak about politics, but for the sake of this example, I will). They leave no room for nuance in life. They believe every single republican or democratic idea without trying to understand the ideas of the other side. 

They refuse nuance. 

They need to be on their ‘team’ and don’t even try to understand a single drop of information from the other team.

When you scroll on social media, the algorithm assigns you a ‘team.’ 

Keyword: assigned. 

It’s the job of the algorithm to assign you to a ‘team’ because they want you to stay on the app longer. 

So, suppose you interact with one piece of content. In that case, the algorithm will then show you another very similar piece of content, then another, and then another. 

By liking and interacting with a few pieces of related content, your entire feed could change. 

You start to get put into a bubble of specific content creators and are constantly being fed the same ideas. 

The problem is, whenever you consume content, you are always one swipe or three clicks away from the most extreme version of that type of content. 

If you are unquestioningly consuming, you are quickly assigned to an extreme version of a concept or idea. 

The algorithm then continuously feeds you the content of this extreme idea. 

If you spend hours consuming, you subconsciously start adopting these extreme ideas. 

Before you know it, you have a belief system that you didn’t think too much about adopting.

Think of how an innocent boy becomes a die-hard Andrew Tate fan.

They were bullied as a child, they now feel insecure about themselves as a man, and they start to see content about self-improvement.

A girl hurts their feelings, and they begin to see content about how women are evil. Andrew Tate affirms these ideas. He makes their broken selves feel significantly better, so they become dedicated fans. 

They then start to believe everything he says blindly. His word becomes the truth. 

He affirms broken boys' negative beliefs of the world, makes them see they can improve themselves, and becomes their ‘savior.’ 

His word becomes the truth to them because he helped pick them up while they were down. 

Is it incredible that he is able to encourage young men to improve themselves? Yes. 

But does he have extreme content with a lack of nuance? Yes. 

I am not just hating on Andrew Tate; think of any content creator who has an extreme point of view.

A world without nuance is a world without room for discussion and the sharing of ideas.

It’s the whole idea behind cancel culture. You are immediately disposed of if you say or do one thing not aligned with a particular group’s values. 

One bad thing can negate all the good work that some people do. 

No room for discussion. 

Only room for blind followers. 

People need to learn to discuss and share ideas again because society becomes dull without this skill. 

You need to create your own values or your own sense of identity and be willing to understand others. 

How can you create your own sense of identity in today’s world?

1. Be conscious before you open up social media

• Take a breath 

• Why are you opening the app 

• Don’t just mindlessly scroll and accept the information presented to you. Think about it.

2. Curate your feed

• You can control the algorithm. 

  • Only like and interact with positive content. 

  • Once you start to interact with the content you consciously choose to look at, the algorithm will present you with more of that information. 

  • Be wary of content creators who use absolutes and lack nuance while they speak.

3. Question everything

• Never blindly accept information. 

• No matter how much of an expert someone is on a topic, always question it. 

• Always filter information through your own lens.

4. Be EXTREMELY cautious of the long-form content you consume

• Podcasters are one of the most significant sources of these parasocial relationships. 

• At one point, I spent a lot of time listening to the podcast “Call Her Daddy” (I apologize if you like this podcast), BUT the more I consumed her content, I started to notice myself become super self-involved, caring about celebrity drama way too much, and being hyperaware of my appearance. 

  • Quite honestly, I started to feel like I was becoming b*tchy. 

  • I started subconsciously adopting all of her beliefs. Then I turned around and realized I was becoming someone I didn’t even agree with.

  • In Alex’s defense, I think the show is a lot different now, but I still no longer listen to her podcast. - I had to make a conscious decision to stop listening to something feeding me ideas that I don’t believe in.

5. Don’t just consume content to consume content

• Don’t just throw something on in the background to fill the silence of your thoughts; you can use instrumental music for that. 

• Use long-form content as a learning session.

  • Take notes 

  • Be present while listening or reading. 

  • If you don’t actively listen, you will subconsciously adopt many ideas without allowing your mind and soul to filter the information first.

You may not be more intelligent than an algorithm, but you are a human being.

Human beings have the superpower of nuance. Human beings are not meant to be black and white. We contain a lot of grey areas. 

Allow yourself to understand ideas from all different cultures, religions, internet micro-niches, and societies. 

Don’t just be part of a team. 

Be conscious of your parasocial relationships, and ensure the content creators you interact with speak with nuance. 

Don’t let the algorithm control you. 

Don’t be a mindlessly scrolling consumer. 

Take control of your mind; it’s your most powerful tool.

p.s. I listen to many podcasts, read many books, and consume a lot of self-help/healing content, and I would love to share the best ideas with you! If you want to receive little snippets of wisdom and inspiration, click the link below to sign up for Her Twenties Daily Inspiration! (a daily text messaging service)

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