First things first. What are the reasons that led to creating this blog?

1. I thought, that I could share my perspectives with more people.
2. I want to document a few things and share them at the same time.
3. My lack of self-discipline. This blog hopefully makes me more disciplined with my work, since I want to report about certain experiments that require consistency in any kind of way.
4. I wanted to build this blog, because I got inspired by the design and thought that I had to upgrade from my old website.

These are pretty much the reasons for this blog. (I find them kind of funny, too)

Alright let's talk about why I chose social media as my first topic. The reason is that I see a huge problem in our society, because people basically live for social media in any kind of way. For example, a friend of mine once got angry, because I went on someone's TikTok which apparently notifies the person that he visited this person's profile.

Isn't that crazy? I could probably give hundreds of examples but this is the first that came to my mind.

But what does this have to do with me now? Over the last couple of years I noticed, that I also tend to spent a large amount of time on social media. In the last few months I really noticed how crazy addictive it really is and what some of the negative effects are on myself and other people around me.

I want to do the following challenge:

• 30 days without social media
• I am only allowed to use my phone for WhatsApp, Telephone or Messenger if it is really necessary.
• only consume content if it serves a purpose (e.g. a tutorial for something)
• not looking at the phone unconsciously (which implies only looking at the phone for a specific purpose)

Why I want to do this challenge? Honestly, I don't feel so good and I think the reason for that is because I often times don't achieve the goals that I set for myself, even if they are the smallest goals. I noticed that I make excuses, when wanting to start to study just to scroll a few times more. Even, while I am studying I tend to grab my phone sometimes and have a look at it for a few minutes. Often times I sit at my desk for long hours but feel like I have made not much progress. Over the last few days I had a look at more and more scientific studies on how social media affects our brain, concentration, motivation and well-being. I mean the results didn't shock me, since my parents kept telling me this stuff all my life basically. Maybe that I am starting to become adult slowly I notice how time passes by and I don't have reached the goals that I set for myself when I was a kid.

What does the research say?

1. An experiment was conducted by a psychologist named Gloria mark in 2015, which measured how often people switch between screens (meaning switching from one program to another one). It showed that people switched screens every 1.5 minutes (150 seconds) in 2003. In 2012 people switched screens every 75 seconds on average. and in 2020 the number is close to every 40 seconds.
2. Increased short form video use is associated with poorer cognition, attention span and inhibitory control.
3. Another study tested 72 college students from China before and after scrolling 30 minutes of SFV (short form videos). The group, that had to swipe to get to the next video consistently performed worse than the group that was shown a playlist.
4. Researchers from LMU Munich conducted an experiment on people where they gave them a sequence of words, one by one. If the word was a fake word, they had to press a certain key on the keyboard, if it was not they had to press another key. Additionally they chose three words for which the participants had to press different keys. Now, they separated the people into different groups:

• a group that had a rest in between taking the tests
• a group that scrolled X in between taking the tests
• a group that watched a YouTube video in between taking tests
• and a group that scrolled TikTok in between taking tests The results showed a dramatic decline in performance for the people that scrolled TikTok. This can largely be attributed to TikTok's highly personalising feed, where users have to choose as little as possible of what they watch.

Okay enough for now. These are some of the reasons why I want to do this test on myself and see if I notice improvements. If I have a good experience with this experiment I will keep it going for a longer time. I am probably going to do a weekly report on my situation, my well-being and any changes in my daily life. Feel free to join and share your experience.

I hope you enjoyed reading my first post! Have a great week

Sources: Howtown - What the actual science says about "brain rot" Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdIUMkXxtHg Griffith University - Feeds, Feelings and Focus - A systematic review and meta-analysis examining the Cognitive and Mental Health Correlates of Short-Form Video Use LMU Munich - Short-Form Videos Degrade Our Capacity to Retain Intentions: Effect of Context Switching on Prospective Memory