105: Why Your Brain (and Business) Deserves a Break from Harmful Social Media

In this thought-provoking episode, Jules White lifts the curtain on the hidden side of social media - revealing how these platforms are designed to keep you hooked, distracted, and doubting yourself.

This isn’t about fear-mongering or quick fixes. It’s an honest look at how social media affects not just your focus and wellbeing, but the way you run your business - and why it might be time to step off the hamster wheel.

Jules explains how the same psychological triggers used in gambling - known as variable reward systems - are built into every scroll, notification, and ‘like’. You’ll also hear how algorithms reward outrage and comparison rather than calm, meaningful connection, and what that means for small business owners trying to play the game.

Most importantly, Jules offers a calmer alternative: focusing on owned content such as your website, Google Business Profile, or podcast - assets that compound over time instead of disappearing into the feed.

Key Takeaways

• The truth behind the platforms: Social media isn’t neutral - it’s designed to keep you scrolling, not to grow your business.
• The dopamine loop: How apps use the same behavioural triggers as slot machines to keep you hooked.
• Emotional manipulation: Why algorithms amplify anger and comparison to drive engagement.
• Health warnings we’re not getting: How experts are linking heavy social media use to anxiety and depression - and what that means for our industry.
• Practical first steps: Turn off notifications, notice your scrolling habits, and use that reclaimed time to build content you own.

Resources mentioned in this episode

• Episode 102: Social Media Is Optional - How to Build a Calmer Business Without Constant Posting
• Episode 103: From Fleeting Posts to Lasting Assets - Why Your Website Should Be the Hub Of Your Content
• Episode 104: You’ve Been Sold a Lie: - Smarter Ways to Be Visible Without Social Media
• The Website Growth Club - a monthly membership for calm, sustainable marketing where social media is optional.
• Website Growth Audit - a one-to-one strategic review to help your website and Google presence do the heavy lifting for you.

If you’ve ever felt drained or trapped by social media, this episode will help you understand why - and show you how to take back control of your time, energy, and visibility.

✨ Subscribe to The Website Success Show for more grounded conversations on SEO, website strategy, and marketing that works - without feeding the algorithm.

Chapters

• 0:00 The Truth About Social Media Platforms
• 4:37 Understanding the Psychology of Social Media
• 7:59 The Dark Side of Algorithms
• 10:16 The Measurable Harm of Social Media
• 11:45 Breaking Free from Social Media Addiction
• 13:48 Solutions and Next Steps

Transcript

AI-GENERATED TRANSCRIPT - MAY CONTAIN ERRORS

Do you ever catch yourself scrolling and suddenly realise that half an hour has gone and you don't even feel good afterwards? You're not imagining it.

These apps are actually designed to make that happen. And today I want to talk about the part that we rarely discuss, how social media is actually harmful.

Not just for our focus and our wellbeing, but for how we do business as well.

Now, I know that sounds a bit dramatic, and this isn't about fearmongering, it's about looking honestly at what these systems are doing to us. So let's start with a common belief that most of us hold about social media and why it's not the full story.

And we touched on this last week in episode 104, you've been sold a lie, and we've all heard it, haven't we?

You need social media to grow your business. That's what every course creator, every coach, every algorithm has made us believe.

But actually, the platforms need you a lot more than you need them. Let me explain what I mean by that.

Now, their goal isn't your sales. It's keeping you on your screen.

The business model that they use isn't built on your business success. It's built on your attention, staying on those platforms.

So every post, every notification, and every engagement nudge is a psychological trigger, not a genuine connection tool. So even the tech leaders who built these apps don't let their own kids use them.

And the platforms themselves make you feel like you're failing and you're falling behind if you stop posting, and that fear is deliberate.

As business owners, we are told that we need to use them strategically. We need to plan our content.

We need to get in and get out in five minutes a day.

And in reality, we end up taking hours to create posts. We end up on the platforms and scrolling, and the next thing you know, you're scrolling cat videos or dog rescue videos in my case, or AI-generated sensational content of a cat chasing a bear away from a baby.

It ends up putting us down these rabbit holes and makes us just feel like we're failing all the time.

So, if it's not just about being better at social media, what's actually happening behind the scenes that keeps us so glued to all of it?

Understanding the Psychology of Social Media

As I've been building out this social media as optional series of episodes, I've been reading about how social media uses the same psychological triggers as gambling.

And one thing that really blew my mind with all this was when I started reading about this. Even though people know these platforms are designed to be addictive, they still get caught in them.

So when you get that urge to check your phone just in case something's happened, that's not you lacking discipline. That's the design of the platform working exactly as it's intended to work.

These apps are built on what's called a variable reward system. That's the same mechanism that slot machines use, and researchers call these dark patterns.

And each time you refresh the feed, you dunno what you're gonna get. You might get a like, you might get a comment, you might get nothing, and it's the unpredictability of it that releases a dopamine hit in your brain, which is the chemical that's tied to motivation and reward.

And because you occasionally get that win, your brain learns to expect it.

So you check again and again, chasing that next big hit of dopamine.

The scary thing is this isn't an accident. It's part of that design.

And that's why it's so important that we as business owners understand the game we are playing when we're spending hours posting.

We are not just using the tools. They're actually using us.

Now most of us realise that social media isn't neutral. It's not a fair playing field where you get out what you put in.

It's a system that's designed to keep you spinning the wheel, hoping the next post will be the one that actually lands.

And that's not really a business strategy. I think that's more like behavioural conditioning.

And this is why I keep coming back to this idea that social media should be optional because you can't build freedom and focus inside a system that's actually fundamentally designed to take it away.

And I do think once you see it for what it is, it does make it a little bit easier just to even consider the option of stepping back, stepping outta the game, and that you don't have to keep feeding it and becoming more and more addicted. You can choose to build things that work for you, like things like your website, your podcast, your real relationships, instead of trying to please an algorithm that is never, ever gonna be satisfied.

The Dark Side of Algorithms

And there is another layer to the algorithms that I think is really important to understand, and this is actually where it gets a little bit darker still.

The algorithms don't just reward activity, they reward emotion, but often it's not like the calm, balanced, feelgood emotion. They reward emotionally charged content.

So things like anger, envy, outrage, because that's what keeps people scrolling.

So, when you see a controversial post that gets a huge reach or notice that your negative comments seem to blow up a lot faster than the positive ones, that's not an accident.

That's the algorithm saying, 'This content keeps people on the app for longer, so show it to more and more people.'

So then the system learns to amplify the things that divide us or trigger us, because it's what gets engagement. Outrage drives those clicks, and the clicks pay for the platforms.

So conflict keeps you refreshing your feed, and the more emotional energy we spend there, the more data and ad revenue they collect about us.

It's a bit like junk food for the brain. Unfortunately, the algorithm doesn't feed you what's nourishing.

It feeds you what keeps you coming back for another bite.

So those quick hits of outrage, comparison or shock, the things that spike your emotion, not your wellbeing.

And just like junk food, it gives you that instant satisfaction, but afterwards you feel worse. You feel more and more anxious, more distracted, more drained, and yet the next time you are tired or you're bored, you just reach for it again.

And that's the loop that these platforms rely on.

So when you think about it, being told to just post more consistently is a bit like being told to eat more junk food to get healthy.

It's not your fault that you feel burnt out by it. The system is actually designed that way.

And again, once you know about this, you can start choosing something better and more nourishing, and I think healthier for your business and your mind.

And that's why I believe that social media needs to become optional because the way it's built isn't healthy for the majority of us.

The Measurable Harm of Social Media

And we're not just guessing about this. There's real evidence of harm out there as well.

So the US Surgeon General warns that spending more than three hours a day on social media doubles the risk of anxiety and depression in teens, and most of us adults aren't too far behind that as well.

And in France, lawmakers have proposed banning social media for under-fifteens and setting a digital curfew for teens.

So the harm isn't imagined, it's measurable, and it's accelerating as well.

So I started thinking about how we treat addiction in other areas. In areas like gambling, smoking, and alcohol, those things come with warnings and we know they cause harm and we are reminded of it constantly.

But smoking and gambling took decades, even centuries, before we started seeing them for what they were.

But social media has only been here 20 years, and we're already seeing the same harm signs, but no warning labels, no reminders that this might be doing us real damage.

And yet it uses the same addictive psychology. So what if one day social media apps had to carry the same kind of warnings that cigarettes do?

What if you opened up an app and you saw a message saying, 'This platform is designed to be addictive and may harm your mental health'?

Do you think that would change how we use it? Would it make us pause, even?

Breaking Free from Social Media Addiction

Until that happens, we have to give ourselves those reminders. We have to be the ones saying, 'This tool affects me.'

It shapes how I feel, and I get to decide how much of it I want in my life or my business.

So all of this isn't about learning to manage social media better. It's about realising that the game is rigged to keep you on the app, not to help you and your business grow.

But the good news is you can break that loop and still stay visible online. Let me show you what that can look like.

Let's start small.

Turn off push notifications for a week. Notice how often you reach for your phone out of habit.

Then as you start to notice that, try and use that time differently.

If you're working, write a short blog, update your Google Business profile, or add one helpful paragraph to your website.

If you're not working, when you notice yourself reaching for your phone for social media, do a couple of star jumps. If you can, give yourself a big hug or high five yourself and put a great big grin on your face because you are taking back control of your brain and your time.

And every time you do something on your own platform, on your own website or with content that you own, it compounds, whilst every minute you waste scrolling or posting, it's gone.

You can't get that time back.

And if you're thinking, 'Okay, but I'd love some help making that switch,' that's exactly where my work comes in.

Inside my Website Growth Club, we focus on this calm, sustainable, gentle kind of marketing where social media is optional.

Solutions and Next Steps

We focus on how to make your website and Google presence do the work for you, or if you prefer one-to-one help, my Website Growth Audit is a great place to start.

You don't have to, and it's probably not a good idea to, delete everything overnight. This is about noticing the impact that social media has on us, not just as business owners, but as people as well.

Just start to be aware of it and start shifting where your energy goes.

So before you open the next social media app today, just pause and ask yourself, 'Is this really helping my business or just keeping me addicted?'

We've labelled cigarettes, alcohol and gambling as addictive. Maybe one day social media will carry a similar warning, but we don't have to wait for that.

We can start noticing the effects right now, and if this conversation resonates with you, please do me a favour and share this episode with someone else who's feeling trapped by social media.

And remember, there are other ways to grow: calmer, kinder, more sustainable ways.

Marketing your business shouldn't harm your brain. So instead, join us on the pathway to website success.