A personal attribute of mine that is particularly vulnerable to technology and the idea of ‘scrolling’ , is my ADHD. Throughout the day it is not hard for me to catch myself mindlessly scrolling through some sort of social media application. Half the time I do this, I notice I am not even taking in the content, I am just scrolling with no destination, goal, or objective. In fact, I am scrolling fast enough to the point where I cannot even read any text, or absorb anything that is actually going on. After watching the movie “Social Dilemma”, I started to pick up on these habits, sometimes even when I did not want to. I started to think about how my ADHD plays into this compulsive urge to pick up my phone and scroll until oblivion. I also started to think about how social media and technology itself could have potentially contributed to my ADHD in the first place. 

Even before taking NMD 200 I have considered taking a break from social media, the amount of power it can have over an individual alone is something to be wary of. Since taking this course though, this idea has become more of a real possibility. Learning about the different ways companies and social media interact with different human vulnerabilities is something somewhat eye opening. To think of something that seems more than out of control at times, so rooted within our reward system, it becomes a little scary. Just today I had a conversation with someone about limiting social media use until right before bed, when one is relaxing. 

This conversation led me to the idea of an app that can maybe restrict use of certain apps until certain times. This way users could not access the apps until said scheduled time, preventing them from using those certain apps during the day. This sounded great to me, but you have to think something like that must already be out there. Which makes me wonder, if an app or program like this exists, why isn’t it known amongst younger people? And how can it potentially be marketed to people in a way that is welcoming and offered as a tool? Would social media companies even allow promotion or growth of something like this? In the end, it would be taking away a lot of time spent on their apps, which means less money in return. 

To me, it seems as if a lot of the tools to help people with restriction of social media use may already be there. The obstacle is how can these tools become mainstream, how can we actually implement these newer ideas of self restriction into people’s lives? How can we market these tools in a way where it will actually work? Figuring out the ways in which social media or technology can personally affect you is just as important. Everybody has their own personal chinks in their armor when it comes to their brain, I feel as if social media and technology has its own way of using those chinks to keep you on board. I think the start is figuring out personally how technology may be rooted into these flaws or defects. If that is what you want to call them.