Jose Mujica, the former president of Uruguay, said that we do not buy things with money, but with time. His rationale? The cost of money is the time of our life that we use to produce it. Like other people, I have found myself spending more time on social media, in part thanks to “suggestions” from the apps.
After a quick search on the web, I found that the idea of suggested posts on social media aims to make us spend more time on their apps. Social Media marketing seems to me like a fair price to pay, taking into consideration that I get to use their apps for free. However, it makes me reflect on the value of time. Time is a complex thing, it is relative, we get it for free and it is the only thing that we cannot get back.
The time spent on social media looking at posts that we do not care about is time taken away from doing productive things or activities that are important to us. And it is tricky because we use social media for different purposes, such as connecting with family, entertaining and keeping ourselves informed, which makes it hard to determine when we cross the thin line from using the app as a tool to becoming a tool of the app.
Technology will keep advancing and social media apps will get smarter. But what about us? Are we going to rise to the challenge that represents having constant access to the world through multiple posts at our fingertips? The answer to this question will tell us if we know the value of our most important resource. Time.
