The Descent into Comparison
It starts like a game. A blank page, a dream of creating, but then the wall of resistance arrives. Fear and overthinking drown out inspiration. Seeking relief, he turns to Twitter.
What he finds is not encouragement but intimidation. Algorithms showcase the most popular creators, with millions of followers and polished content. Comparison bias does the rest. Instead of inspiration, insecurity grows. He switches to TikTok, where brief sparks of pleasure turn into overstimulation and depletion. The spiral ends in avoidance, not creation.
Game over. Pleasure fades. Pain wins.
Why Our Brains Struggle Online
Social media connects us across continents, but it also stretches our minds beyond their evolutionary limits. Human groups once averaged around 150 people, Dunbar’s Number. Now we compare ourselves to billions, many filtered and curated into impossible standards.
Dopamine, once the engine of survival, now drives us toward endless scrolling. What once helped us plan and innovate now fuels overstimulation, envy, and depletion. Evolution is slow, technology fast. Our ancient brains struggle to keep up.
Exclusion as a Business Model
Popular social media platforms disguise exclusion as design. Dating apps like Tinder or Bumble promise connection, then charge for visibility, unlimited swipes, or to reveal who “liked” you.
Creators, too, are trapped. After years of building communities, they are told their reach is limited, unless they pay. Engagement becomes a tax, built on exploiting biases like loss aversion and hyperbolic discounting. These aren’t tools for empowerment; they’re systems of scarcity dressed as connection.
Instead of innovating, platforms mimic each other. TikTok copies X, Snapchat, and more. The result is competition-driven design that prioritizes feature-matching over creativity.
For creators, survivorship bias distorts reality. We see only the most successful posts and assume instant success is possible. The truth—years of failed attempts hidden beneath—remains invisible.
In this zero-sum game, comparison turns creativity into a race to the bottom.
The Weight on Mental Health
The costs are visible in rising teen anxiety, depression, and suicide. Young girls, in particular, experience intensified exclusion, self-comparison, and insecurity, amplified by filters that turn selfies into unreachable ideals.
Social feeds are not mirrors of reality. They are curated highlight reels, amplified by algorithms biased to reward envy and FOMO. Each interaction, from likes to followers gained or lost, manipulates fragile biases about social status. As Jonathan Haidt warns, “Social media is leaded pipes for today’s children.”
The Dopamine Trap
Every dopamine spike lowers the baseline, leaving pain in its wake. Yet in the moment, we miss the cost. Notifications mimic slot machines, rewarding us with unpredictable surges of anticipation.
Social media platforms rarely measure the pain they cause. Instead, they reward activity with hearts and likes, conflating attention with value. Habituation ensures tolerance grows, while children are targeted before they can learn to self-regulate. As one of the earliest platform architects admitted, these systems were intentionally built to exploit psychological vulnerabilities.
The constant pull of notifications disrupts flow, the state of deep focus where creativity thrives. Instead of helping us grow, platforms drain attention, selling distraction as connection.
Trust, too, is eroded. Fringe voices, bots, and survivorship bias distort public consensus. Nearly 20% of interactions online are already between humans and bots, not humans and humans. As experiments with no regulation, social platforms now wield more influence than government policy.
The Ascent Toward Balance
Awareness is the first step out of illusion. By observing how interactions affect mood, by counting moments of pleasure and pain, we begin to see the imbalance clearly.
Social media doesn’t have to erode us. With humane design, it can amplify authentic connection, protect wellbeing, and restore flow. That means refusing to monetize exclusion, measuring wellbeing alongside growth, and placing dignity at the core of interaction.
The future of social media isn’t about maximizing engagement. It’s about rebalancing attention, so technology supports our deepest goals instead of distracting us from them.
Further Reading
- Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind — Yuval Noah Harari
- The Molecule of More: How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity — and Will Determine the Fate of the Human Race — Daniel Z. Lieberman & Michael E. Long
- Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products — Nir Eyal
- The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life — Kevin Simler & Robin Hanson
- The Cold Start Problem — Andrew Chen
- The Design of Everyday Things — Don Norman
- The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure — Jonathan Haidt & Greg Lukianoff
- Jonathan Haidt Debates Robby Soave on Social Media — YouTube
- Huberman Lab: Maximizing Productivity, Physical & Mental Health with Daily Tools — Apple Podcasts
- Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers — Robert Sapolsky
- 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People — Susan Weinschenk
- Chamath Palihapitiya: Money as an Instrument of Change — YouTube
- Lex Fridman Podcast: Jonathan Haidt on The Case Against Social Media — Apple Podcasts
- Making Sense with Sam Harris: The Trouble with AI — Apple Podcasts
- How Future Billionaires Get Sht Done* — YouTube
- Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World — Cal Newport
- Collective Illusions: Conformity, Complicity, and the Science of Why We Make Bad Decisions — Todd Rose
- Enlightenment and the Righteous Mind — Steven Pinker and Jonathan Haidt — YouTube
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