ソーシャルメディアって面白いものだと思います。
ときどき、「この投稿めっちゃいい！すごく新しい視点だ」と思うこともあります。
でも、正直なところ、その90％は5分後には忘れてる。
たぶんこれは、ほとんどの人が感じていることじゃないでしょうか。
だから結局、ソーシャルメディアは大半が時間のムダになってしまう。
以下は僕自身のソーシャルメディアの使い方の変遷です。
これを読んでくれているあなたが、自分自身の使い方を一歩進めるきっかけになればうれしいです。
僕の3つのステージ
ステージ1：消費
多くの人と同じように、僕のソーシャルメディア体験の最初は「見るだけ」でした。
中学のときは、ゲームのYouTube動画を見るのが大好きで、自分が持ってないゲームのプレイ動画ですら楽しんでました。
高校に入る頃には、Mr. Beastみたいなライフスタイル系・チャレンジ系の動画に惹かれていき、そしてTikTokの沼へ…。
この時期は、ソーシャルメディアはただの娯楽で、現実逃避の手段でした。
ステージ2：意識的な消費
高校2年の頃、自己成長系のYouTubeにハマり、ソーシャルメディアの使い方を意識するようになりました。
YouTubeは学びの場所になり、「効率的な勉強法」「筋トレ方法」「お金の管理」など、知識を得る場に変化しました。
ポッドキャストもよく聞くようになり（クリス・ウィリアムソン、ヒューバーマン、レックス・フリードマンなど）、スクリーンタイムも6時間以上から大幅に減りました。
僕をこのステージに押し上げたのは、競争心。
平均的な人は毎日約2.5時間、学生なら5時間近くSNSに使っている。
もしその半分を「何かを創ること」に使えたら？それだけで、他の人に比べて1日2時間のアドバンテージがあるんです。
ステージ3：発信（＝生産）
ここが一番難しい。
何かを「作る」ことは、「見る」ことよりはるかに大変です。
でも、価値はここにしかありません。
例えば、授業を聞いているだけじゃあまり身につかないけど、テスト勉強やレポートを書くときには内容がちゃんと頭に入ってくる。
何かを作ることで、自分の中に知識が定着するだけでなく、他人にも価値を提供できるんです。
そしてもう一つ大事なこと。
作れば「運」がやってくる可能性も広がる。
ブログ、YouTube、X（旧Twitter）、TikTok…どれかがバズるだけで、思ってもみなかったチャンスが舞い込むことだってある。
今の僕のステージ
僕は、今ステージ2から3へ移行しようとしているところです。
まだ「学ぶための消費」はしていますが、その時間の一部を「書く」ことに費やすようになりました。
ステージ2に進んだことで自分の人生がかなり良い方向に進んだと実感しています。
だからこそ、次のステージにもチャレンジしたいと思っています。
各ステージに進むことで得られるリターンは、思っている以上に大きいです。
お金・感情・健康・精神的な面など、あらゆる面で人生を加速させてくれるものだと、僕自身の経験から確信しています。
今週、あなたも一歩を踏み出してみませんか？
この投稿を読んでくれたあなたも、今週中にSNSとの関わり方を「ほんの少しだけ」変えてみてください。
その一歩が、意外なほど大きな変化になるかもしれません。
【オリジナル】
Social media is a funny thing.
Sometimes, you feel like specific posts yield immense value; you gain a unique perspective that you never saw before. But let’s face it. 90% of the time, you forget about it five minutes later. What’s more, this is the experience of probably 90% of social media users. In the end, social media becomes largely a waste of time.
The following is my journey with social media usage, and I hope to inspire you to take the next step in your own relationship with it.
My Journey
An interesting insight I had recently is that my social media journey has come in three pretty distinct stages:
Stage 1, Consumption. Like most of you, the majority of the time I’ve ever spent on social media was spent consuming. When I was in middle school, I loved watching YouTube videos about the different video games I played. Heck, I even enjoyed watching people play games I didn’t even have. Then, around the time I transitioned to high school, I was drawn to the lifestyle and Mr. Beast style content (challenges, large-scale games, etc) that FaZe, a gaming team, transitioned to. And of course, I fell prey to TikTok.
In stage one, social media was purely for entertainment—an escape, if you will.
Stage 2, Mindful Consumption. Around my sophomore year of high school, I started to really get into the personal growth space on YouTube, which made me more aware of my social media usage. Instead of an escape, YouTube became a platform where I could learn, whether it was about how to study effectively, how to build muscle, or how to navigate personal finances. Moreover, I was drawn to longer-form content, including podcasts (Chris Williamson, Huberman, Mike Israetel, Lex Friedman, and the like). Additionally, my screentime decreased significantly. I used to have something like 6 hours a day spent on different social media platforms, but after becoming more mindful, I managed to really minimize my time spent on social media outside of eating and lifting weights.
The main thing that pushed me from stage one to two was my competitive drive—maybe I can help you make the level up as well. Consider this: the average person spends about 2.5 hours a day on social media. Even worse, if you’re a student, you probably spend around double that time. Imagine if you could convert just half that time into anything productive. Oh, the things you could accomplish! For the average person, that’s an extra 1.25 hours a day, and for the average student, that’s an extra 2.5 hours a day! Not only that, but from a more competitive perspective, that means you have a 2 hour per day advantage over other people. That’s huge. And for the especially competitive people out there, think about like this: every minute you spend on social media, someone is out there spending that minute getting closer to the thing you want to achieve.
Stage two is characterized by a mindful and ambitiously driven use of social media. This is a great place to be. However, the very top percentile of achievers are in stage three.
Stage 3, Production. Let me tell you, creating is worlds harder than consuming. Even the worst quality production is harder than consumption. That’s why students have class everyday but not tests or projects or essays. However, production is where all the world’s value lies. For example, students don’t really take much from lectures; passive learning doesn’t promote memory retention, but active recall does. The work that goes into building a great project, writing a valuable essay, or studying to perform well on a test is how we internalize lessons and experiences. Moreover, these products are tangible and can thus help others learn as well.
So, what does that all mean in a practical sense? First, this all explains why most people only consume and don’t create. Every species on the planet acts in accordance to risk/reward ratios, doing the easiest possible thing that will give the greatest reward (with a bias against risk). Evolutionarily, this has been beneficial because it allows us to conserve energy. However, in the modern world, we don’t need to worry about energy conservation because we have a surplus of resources available! But our brains haven’t quite progressed as quickly as we have acquired resources. Understanding this will hopefully help you, a human with free will, act against your primal instincts and maximize your real potential.
Secondly, we gain more value from creating than we do from consuming. I’m currently rereading Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People for my high school health occupations club, and it encourages the reader to teach others about their learnings from the book. This is in alignment with the “Feynman Technique”, a learning method popularized by legendary physicist Richard Feynman, which essentially said, “You don’t truly understand something until you can teach it to someone.” When you produce, you are truly internalizing whatever it is you are talking/writing about. You don’t quite attain the same depth of knowledge on topics you only consume information about. You must create.
Finally, products help others. Yes, in creating products, you are helping yourself immensely by consolidating all the information you’ve learned and articulating it in your own words. Additionally, though, a byproduct of creating is that other people can learn from your perspective or journey. If you create YouTube videos about your weight-loss journey, you’re making sure that the lessons you’ve learned along the way stick with you. But you’re also ensuring that others don’t make the same mistakes you did. The main purpose of this Substack is to serve as my notebook and journal of life, and since anyone can see it, some random people might take away something valuable by reading.
Moreover, you’re opening up more opportunities for luck to strike. If you’re consuming meaningful information, it may be helping you with your various pursuits. However, when you create, you’re not only aiding your pursuits but you’re also being given a ticket to the social media algorithm lottery. At any given time, your blog post, YouTube video, Tweet, or TikTok may go viral, opening up more doors than you ever knew existed.
Stage three is where everybody should aim to be. And this might mean shooting for stage two first—you have to start somewhere. Minimally consuming meaningful content, then going straight into production is what stage three is all about.
Where I Currently Land
I can confidently say that, right now, I’m a stage two-er trying to make the transition to stage three. I still consume a lot of meaningful content, and that’s totally fine, but I am trying to allocate more and more of that time to writing. Transitioning to stage two has done me wonders and I have become very proud of myself for doing so. I can only imagine what stage three may bring, so I am taking on that challenge.
I glossed over the benefits of advancing to each stage, but these rewards are not to be taken lightly. Speaking from true experience, they can exponentially advance your life across all cylinders: financially, emotionally, physically, spiritually, etc.
I encourage every reader to take one step throughout this next week to make better use of their time on social media.