Studies show that most people check Facebook from their smartphones 13.8 times per day. The average adult checks their phone 30 times per day, while millennials check their phone over 150 times a day! According to a study of Australian consumers by San Francisco-based media-buying firm RadiumOne, social media usage is a dopamine gold mine. “Every time we post, share, ‘like,’ comment or send an invitation online, we are creating an expectation,” according to the study. “We feel a sense of belonging and advance our concept of self through sharing.” You don’t even have to go through the physical exertion of clicking “like” to feel the rush, Delgado (associate professor of psychology at Rutgers University in Newark, N.J.) adds. “Often, if you have the earliest predictor of a reward—a sign of a social media alert, like your phone buzzing—you get a rush of dopamine from that condition stimulus. That might trigger you to go check out the outcome, to see what it is. That type of reinforcement is something that you now seek out.”
I have a feeling that social media is here to stay. I’m not here to recommend that you get rid of all of your social media accounts. In fact, many of you are reading this on the relentlesspursuitofpurpose Facebook page. All I ask is that all of you please share these blogs on your social media sites (I know that’s a shameless plug.) As they say, “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” You and I need to embrace social media, but we have to keep the mindset that it is a tool for social engagement as opposed to a replacement for social engagement.
I work with a lot of teens and many of them have difficulty conducting a proper handshake. They have difficulty holding a conversation that doesn’t include holding a phone. Most of us, especially those under 40, have become accustomed to being bombarded with images, advertisements, and digital information daily. Is it any wonder that we have trouble staying focused on our assignment or our purpose? Someone once said, “the mind is a terrible thing to waste.” The question that should follow is, what constitutes waste?
SELF-CONSCIOUS
Is it possible that social media can ruin our sense of self? Might it be a good idea to turn it off when trying to find your purpose? (Unless you need it to be able to read this blog and discover your purpose.) To be self-conscious means that you are fully aware of who you are and you have a firm grasp on your identity. Your identity isn’t what you do but it’s the essence of who you are that enables you to do what you do. Being self-conscious means you have discovered the purpose that lies inside of you. It means you are comfortable and even excited about the distinct differences that you possess because you realize that they make you a unicorn in a field of horses.
SOCIALLY CONSCIOUS
In college, I majored in Sociology. In one of my courses, we discussed how globally connected everyone was due to the rise of technology and whether those global relationships were a façade or reality. I tend to think it’s the former. I say this as someone who has sold books overseas and spoken in different countries. But that’s just it. I have no real relationship with many of those people. I have encounters with some and with others they know me simply through my writing. There was a time when getting something done meant getting to know those that could get it done. My intent is not to be nostalgic but rather to make us take stock of what we value, who we value, and how we value them.
SUPREMELY CONSCIOUS
There has never been an instance of something coming from nothing. The beginning of every worldview requires that there be an uncaused first cause. If we think about this cause and effect relationship that is so evident in our lives it can help us to gain an understanding of where our supreme consciousness should lie. For example, space, time and matter exist, but they must be the effect since they can’t cause themselves to exist. The cause of those effects must be spaceless, timeless, and immaterial. The one that best fits those criteria is God. Therefore, at the beginning of the universe there was someone – someone ‘supreme’. If we spend more time engaging with our phones and supposedly with the people on the receiving end as opposed to the God, who gave us the ability to process the abundance of information our phones offer, we are missing out. We are missing out on a supremely important relationship with a God that wants to tell us the purpose He had in mind when creating us.
It would be a terrible thing were He to view us as being antisocial in the midst of our social media craze.
NOW BOOKING FOR 2018!!!
http://www.relentlesspursuitofpurpose.com/speaking/