Something I’ve instructed in each workshop I’ve ever given: the payoff isn’t dopamine. The expectation is. The rush you experience before even checking how many likes you’re going to get? The hook is that one. Social media milks it for everything it’s worth. The like button? Skinner box pure. You publish it, you wait, you refresh. Perhaps there’s a comment. Perhaps there isn’t. The unpredictability is the same reward for gambling addiction.
I’ve seen people make content for the mere quest of that feeling alone. Not for something greater. Not for value creation. For attention alone. You can’t blame them. Those apps are programmed to exploit that exact desire.
New Self-Esteem: Likes!
We’re wired to require social validation. Before tech, it was from your immediate circles. Now it’s from algorithms and from strangers. And that shift hit hard. It’s not only that people are now editing content—they’re editing identity. The identity you establish on-line is a second skin.
I’ve seen younger clients cry over the performance of a single post. One even took down a video because it hadn’t gained enough traction within the first 30 minutes. This type of judgment used to be reserved for public figures. Now it’s everywhere. And worse, it’s normalized.
FOMO’s Not a B.S. Term: It’s Real, It Hurts
I remember missing a weekend offline coming back to several hundred messages. Events, memes, announcements. In a span of 48 hours. I was not only out of the loop. I was behind. Such is the truth of today. FOMO is not about missing a party. It is about being out of sync with the beat of culture.
The issue is, social media doesn’t ever end. You never reach a point where you’re somehow able to go, “OK, I’ve gone through everything, I’m done.” So you keep scrolling. You refresh. You’re hooked, just in case something major happens on there. The brain then starts to associate following with failure.
The Psychological Warfare of App Design
None of this happens by accident. Infinite scroll isn’t convenience mode. It is a trap. Notifications are not alerts. They’re imperatives. Red badges flashing on screen. Haptic vibrations on your skin. Delayed rewards calling back at the precise second that you’re trying to walk away.
Algorithms learn rapidly. Whatever you pause on, whatever you readback, whatever you comment on. And they double down on it. I had a client buy views on YouTube views for a launch campaign. They thought it’d do a bump for eyes on it—and it did to some extent—but what utterly blew them away was how quickly the algorithm caught onto the surge and started highlighting more of their content. Not because it was amazing. Because it was being noticed.
That’s the game. Platforms monetize attention, not quality. And they’re really good at getting you to continue providing it to them.
Your Favorite Creator Has No Idea You Even Exist. But It Still Hurts
Parasocial relationships are cruel. You watch a person for months, perhaps years. You find out about their life, their mind, their face. You begin to think you know them. But they don’t know you. Not in the way you imagine. I’ve watched people cry at creators leaving or going quiet. And I understand. The sentiment is genuine.
Several years ago, I was teaching long-form creator content to a group of students, monitoring emotional tone across some of the most prominent vloggers of the day. And audiences reacted most to videos on which the creators “opened up.” Vulnerability was currency. But for the viewer, it’s boundary-stretching. You’re emotionally invested in a person who isn’t necessarily doing the same work for you. It’s unbalanced—and somehow equal.
The High Cost of Viral Fame and Subsequent Crash
Going viral is exhilarating until it happens to you. You receive the attention. The comments pour in. Views skyrocket. Followers skyrocket. You feel invincible. Then? It ends. And what may have felt like momentum was a moment. I have worked with creators after they’ve gone viral. They don’t speak about thrill. They speak about stress.
YouTube views go up for a week, then plummet. People begin questioning what they’re doing next. Each post is a trial by fire. Is it going to take off? Am I going to trend again? That pressure is constant. And for most of them, the plummet is worse than the high.
I’ve seen creators try to cling to relevance on Instagram, some even get followers to improve their profile just to stabilize their image. And it’s not baseless, over 65% of users say follower count affects how credible a profile looks, so they’re not chasing vanity, they’re chasing survival.
The Myth of Self-Control within a System Illusion
It is about discipline, they contend. But if everything is in place to lure you back, willpower only does so much of the job. I’ve tried every screen time hack out there. App limits. Screen dimming mode. Even hiding my phone in a distant room. Some work for a while.
What changed everything was intentional use. Not quitting. Not purging. Just pausing a second to ask yourself, before launching an app, “Why?” Am I bored? Procrastinating? Seeking social connection? It is a pause that creates space. And within that space, you become volitional once more.
