Sep 2022 - The Paradox of Social Media
Hi friends,
📆 Back to my monthly newsletter...
Welcome to my 9th monthly email, in this segment called “Michael’s Monthly Musings”. If you missed my earlier monthly newsletters, please refer here.
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⏱ Social media paradox
This month's recap is going to be a lot more graph/diagram heavy, but I think it illustrates a topic that I've been reflecting upon over the last month. By no means is the below reflection a complete or holistic summary of all my thoughts, but merely some interesting snippets on how I am reconciling with the social media paradox in my head. Some of my inspiration in writing the article below has been inspired by an author/podcaster (Greg Champion, CFA) in a recent blog post on his Substack called "Intentional Wisdom".
So, data.ai reveals that mobile users are spending 4-5 hours daily in apps (from their estimates below), and this is despite the COVID pandemic which was a 2Q20 event. You can the continued growth on average daily hours spent in apps for 2Q21 and 2Q22, despite the so called reopening. It’s been going up despite COVID…
While the daily time spent in apps varies by country, there are now 13 markets where users are spending >4 hours per day using apps. These include Indonesia, Singapore, Brazil, Mexico, Australia (my home), India, Japan, South Korea, Canada, Russia, Turkey, the US and UK. And, in 3 of those markets — Indonesia, Singapore and Brazil — mobile users are spending >5 hours per day in apps.
And for what it's worth, this is the top 10 apps on downloads, consumer spend, and MAUs for the latest 2Q22 per data.ai. No surprise, a lot of the names up there (especially those "downloads") are social media related, like Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, Twitter, etc.
Whether you like it or not, social media play an integral role for the majority of us reading this newsletter. If you're anything like the "average" person, you probably spend at least 1-2 hours staring at some combination of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, BeReal, etc... Even if you haven't been spending much daily time on social media, you haven't escaped the indirect consequences of social media.
You're still living in a world, where those around you, whether your spouse, family, friends, colleagues, are all being shaped by the experiences they are sharing, and the information they are consuming all via social media. Unfortunately in this modern 21st century, closing your ears and saying "I don't do social media" isn't really a great solution anymore if you have even a sliver of hope of understanding what i going on in the world around you, and in the lives of the people that you care about.
💁♂️ The access to people...
I remember my primary school days when you would log in to MSN to message your friends after school back in 2007-8. Times were much simpler then. You didn't take photos. You didn't scroll through news feeds. You didn't see endless short form videos.
In fact, the idea of being connected to the internet with your phone wasn't really a thing for me until maybe year 10 onwards (from 2012). But in year 7-9 especially (2009-11), I was very conscious of how much I could "message" my friends via SMS. We used to worry a lot about how each text message sent via phone costed us like 50c/SMS... That's how frugal we were (since we had to think about costs like that)...
Now we don't think twice about it. Never before in history have we been able to interact for free, with anybody, anywhere, anytime as long as there is internet. This chart below of internet "usage" (measured by hosts/users in millions) since 1991 really brings home the exponential idea of what "social media" has fuelled really from 2005 onwards (and makes my point from above!).
Source: https://growthchart.weebly.com/
Lots of different long-term studies of human ageing argue that the more of a connection we feel to those around us, the higher the chances that we live long, healthy and happy lives (for example, see this Harvard University article here if interested). And for better or worse, social media is a way of forming and maintaining connections. I have some friends who I haven't seen in 5+ years... But I generally know what's happening in their lives, due almost entirely to Facebook/Instagram. I appreciate that. Closer friends of mine will know that I push Linkedin (aside from Twitter) a lot. I have found great value in the network of relationships I've been able to cultivate on Linkedin.
Gone is the stigma of "making friends online". In its place is the reality that people who share the same interests as you are statistically unlikely to be your next door neighbours. I have found like-minded people on Linkedin who are interested in many topics that I care about - things like personal development, investing, education, charity, etc - and I've established relationships with them by often reaching out to them on Linkedin with a simple message.
For example, my continued involvement with UNSW Investing 4 Charity (i.e. UNSW I4C) was a clear example of cold reaching out to the execs via Linkedin in my early days of connecting after I stepped down from my role as Education Director in 2018. Here's an awesome story of my involvement with UNSW I4C's turnaround in the last 5 years that I got to witness here that I always love sharing. If Linkedin didn’t exist, it’s likely I would have never met with those execs at UNSW I4C and maintained my relationship over the years and got to document this amazing story.
🙅♂️ But it can be incredibly addictive...
Smartphones promise to protect us from athazagoraphobia (i.e. the fear of being forgotten). So we impulsively connect, from the moment we wake up to the moment we must surrender ourselves to sleep. At least that's how I feel sometimes. I've admitted above that I have an addiction to Linkedin. When I have downtime, I'm opening up Linkedin on my phone. The scary thing is that it’s almost an unconscious behaviour now. I’m waiting in line to get coffee: open Linkedin. In an elevator to work: open Linkedin. In the bathroom (you get the idea...): open Linkedin.
As another example (using my investor memory recall here), I remember back in July 2019, Netflix came out with a documentary called "The Great Hack", that explored the Cambridge Analytica/Facebook data scandal from a year prior. See trailer here. The film basically explored how in the 2010s, personal data belonging to millions of Facebook users was collected without their consent by the consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica, predominantly to be used for pushing certain political agendas supposedly.
The peak was in July 2019 when the Federal Trade Commission in the US, fined Facebook (now called Meta, of course) a massive US$5 billion due to data privacy violations, and I remember Mark Zuckerberg (the CEO) having to testify in front of court. He was called many names like “robot” and “lizard”... That said, the documentary supposedly opened the publics' eyes to the apparently insidious behaviours of large tech companies who knowingly and intentionally use every technological trick in the book to socially engineer an addiction to using these social media platforms.
It now seems quaint though, that we are now in 2022, and much more aggressive platforms like TikTok have pushed the boundaries of what social media addiction can actually look like...
Max Fisher (New York author of the recently published "The chaos machine: The inside story of how social media rewired our minds and our world") argues that it is no coincidence that our phones resemble slot machines - complete with bright colours, beeps, and buzzes. Perfectly and intentionally engineered to get you hooked. To deliver instant gratification and leave you wanting more. Social media platforms are no different. Your Facebook/Instagram/YouTube/TikTok/etc post goes up and you refresh over and over again (in the first few minutes) to see how many likes it's getting. I've been a serious culprit of this in the past... As the likes go up, the dopamine does, too. We get hooked on the high and need to keep coming back for more.
👂 Some parting words on social media (though not exhaustive by any means)
In saying all of this, I am an optimist by heart. Some friends will say I have my head in the clouds. But that's nothing new. I don't think social media is going to lead to the downfall of society. Realistically I think what will happen is that we're all going to just get smarter about how to use these platforms going forward...
If the social platforms of today don’t fix themselves, I believe other “more humane” platforms will step in and take their place as we collectively demand better as consumers. In the meantime, we can set guardrails for ourselves when interacting with social media. I try to refrain from saying exactly what one should do to manage their relationship with social media.
I'm reminded of a friend's late mother (bless her, she passed away back in 2010), and when I used to go to my friend's house, his mum set a timer of 1 hour dictating how long we could play the Gamecube (the Super Smash Bros Melee game was absolute fire back then), then requiring us to study/read/exercise before allowing any more extra 1 hour sessions with the Gamecube. That worked for my friend, but it never worked for me. Back in my home, my mum did not care how much Playstation 2 I played (some of my favourite games were Ratchet and Clank series, and the Jack and Daxter series!). There were days I played 3-4 hours easily without stopping. When I asked my mum why she didn't resort to setting timers, she told me she thinks everybody is different, and internal motivation to be disciplined about how I managed my time with video games, was better than any extrinsic motivator. It's different for everyone in how they should manage themselves with social media...
And so despite everything said and done, I believe in social media. I’m not going to close my eyes and wish it never existed. And if all else fails, newspapers, podcasts, and you guessed it, email newsletters, aren’t a bad way to consume information and connect with people at the end of the day.
👍 To conclude for now…
Thanks for reading my ramble if you got this far for my September 2022 thoughts. Please do hit <reply> to this email if you have anything to add / any questions. I quite enjoy replying to comments/emails as a source of procrastination. Please share this email with others if you found it value-adding.
Thanks for reading,
Michael
🚀 Some of my favourite memories from September 2022
Got to see Jenny Tian's comedy show with some City Bible Forum (CBF) friends. Was absolute fire, and easy 8.5/10. Never thought of myself as a comedy show person, but I've been really enjoying this and the Nigel Ng (aka Uncle Roger) one last month.
Got to attend ReachOut conference in Katoomba, where we were exploring cross cultural mission as Christians. I don't think I was anywhere near ready to become a global missionary, but I can definitely see principles that could be applied to my workplace as a mission field. Got an excuse again to see the 3 Sisters since we arrived early morning!
Got to speak at City Bible Forum's Headstart program on Monday night recently with my friend, Olivia (a mentor at Headstart, and who has way too much fun bantering with me off camera) being interviewed on the topic of money , exploring what the Bible says about giving, saving, spending, and investing with money. Unfortunately we could not do a zoom replay, but for anybody interested, I'm happy to share a transcript of a seminar I did at my own church, which explores virtually all the points I touched on in the interview, and more! Been encouraged by some of my colleagues who asked for it...
A CBF friend just got married, and it was really sweet (I may have shed a tear!). Probably the favourite day of September for me. Got to get crepes in Mosman (an area I hardly ever go to) with some CBF friends.
That same day (as the above wedding) also got to listen to Prom Praise with some close high school friends. Event was an easy 9.5/10 for me. Really good hymns and classic songs, and it was really interactive too.
Took my parents to Oliveto Ristorant in Rhodes, to celebrate their marriage anniversary (I wont say how many years, but it's been long!). Food was 7.5/10. Waiter was 10/10.
Stay tuned, but potentially taking on a new volunteer role leading a fundraising/investment committee to report to the board of a fairly large charity based in Sydney. Just finalising details, but definitely in pipeline. Lot to learn, but exciting to share in time...
📣 Special shout out for the month
Shout out this month definitely goes to Nathan, the former vice president of North Sydney Boys Business Society (from 2021-22). It's been a pleasure working closely with him since April 2022 to now, as he graduates from high school, and prepares to sit his final Higher School Certificate (HSC) exams. I never thought I would get involved with my old high school again, but he (and the other execs) really proactively engaged with me, with finding guest speakers, planning strategies for the future, improving processes in the society, mentoring other students with potential in the society, and succession planning with the future execs. I'll never forget the tireless efforts he put into NSB BSOC with the execs, and I hope the school recognises too (now and in the future). I've been really inspired. Thank you.
Original post with pic here. Taken at the Woolies Strategy Case Competition that NSB BSOC held ~1 month ago. Nathan (3rd from left) and myself (2nd from right).
