What strikes me about the experience you are describing (your own on social media) is how active a role you have taken in your experience of it. You should know that very, very few do this: they absorb the medium as it is presented. I have watched people completely tune out to their children playing with knives, cars coming at them, etc. because their focus is so absorbed with what is being presented. This behavior is directly traceable to the reward mechanism in the brain and our ever-increasing need for it if we indulge the addiction.
When the entirety of a platform is created with the intent to addict you, and ever color, line, word, behavior is designed with that intent, you have to be particularly strong-willed to resist it, much less even to notice it. Subtlety is the key, and these systems are getting very very good at making you believe you are willingly participating when really, you just can't make yourself stop.
Facebook has a place, and the way you've described your use of it is a great example. I try very hard to use it in much the same way.
But for most people, there's a great line I loved from Stargate SG-1 all those years ago that describes the path they must take to having a healthy life where social media is concerned:
When the entirety of a platform is created with the intent to addict you, and ever color, line, word, behavior is designed with that intent, you have to be particularly strong-willed to resist it, much less even to notice it. Subtlety is the key, and these systems are getting very very good at making you believe you are willingly participating when really, you just can't make yourself stop.
Facebook has a place, and the way you've described your use of it is a great example. I try very hard to use it in much the same way.
But for most people, there's a great line I loved from Stargate SG-1 all those years ago that describes the path they must take to having a healthy life where social media is concerned:
"The only way to win is to deny it battle."