How to Win at the Social Media Casino

Welcome to the 24 new readers who have joined us since last week! If you haven’t subscribed, join 2400+ smart, curious folks by subscribing here:

1) On July 8th, Kanso’s Here & Now is coming to London. If you’re looking to spend quality time with quality people, completely unplugged, this is for you. 

We’ll also be back in NYC on July 16th!

3) If you’ve been to a recent Here & Now event, you’ve probably seen our Kanso-branded Meople connection cards. My friend Rebecca started Meople as a way to help people create beautifully customized board games and bring friends and family together offline around the love of play. If you want to pick up a card set for yourself, you can do so here.

Got a fun one this week…

Two weeks ago, I wrote about the URL to the IRL pipeline — my playbook for starting relationships on social media and bringing them to life in the real world.

To say it was well received was an understatement. Many of you replied with positive feedback, and I had one person reply that “this was the best piece of mine he’s read.” Another said that he’s “yet to find someone better than me at capturing great ideas around 'making meaning + genuine relationships in the digital age.'” (Thanks friends!)

But alongside the praise, I also heard the question:

Okay, but how do I actually do this?

While taking relationships from URL to IRL sounds simple in theory, it’s harder to execute, especially in an environment engineered to keep you endlessly scrolling, watching, and reacting.

So, today I want to pull the thread a little bit further on how I approach my time on social media as a whole to build real relationships without getting sucked into the scroll.

If you know me personally, you know my mind works in analogies, puns, and similies, so I’ll defer to the favorite arrow in my quiver — the analogy.

I view social media like going to a casino. Of course, this comparison has been made plenty of times before (the apps are literally designed like slot machines), but I’m taking a different angle here.

Your main goal is to expose yourself to new ideas and meet new like-minded people. These are the "wins" at the social media table – the moments of genuine connection and digital interaction that can enrich your ‘real’ life in the future.

But just like at the blackjack table, these wins are often interspersed with losses. No matter how well-curated your feed is, you're eventually going to hit something that either pisses you off, forces you to self-compare, triggers you, or makes you feel worse than when you started. If somehow you are mentally immune to all this, then eventually the realization that you just wasted your time staring at a black rectangle will make you feel like shit.

The house (the app and the endless feed of algorithmically served content) is always designed to keep you at the table, subtly enticing you with the promise of the next "win." This is where the "willpower to get up from the table" becomes paramount.

The intentional social media user understands that while a quick ‘win’ (a meaningful comment, a valuable insight) can be exhilarating, staying too long will inevitably lead to a deficit.

I treat it like stepping up to the blackjack table with a set limit in mind. I’m there to play a few hands: to share an idea I’m working through, to add value in a comment, to drop a thoughtful DM to someone I respect.

My goal is singular: to spark genuine connection that can move offline, into the real world, as fast as possible.

The idea of URL to IRL is precisely this act of cashing out. This could be exchanging phone numbers or emails, moving the conversation to a video call, or planning a real-life meetup if proximity allows.

This deliberate disengagement is equally crucial if your sole goal is information. You must approach it with the specific objective of curating your feed so effectively that you can extract the necessary data and immediately walk away. On platforms like Twitter or TikTok, this means actively avoiding algorithmic recommendations like the “For You” tab and sticking solely to the ‘Following” tab.

Personally, I find success in making niche accounts for specific subjects, interests, or industries. If I only follow 10 people and keep my attention on the ‘following’ tab, there is a finite amount of information for me to consume at any given time. This allows me to sit down at the table, collect my winnings, and ‘cash out’ as quickly and with as few ‘losses’ as possible. When using apps on the browser, it could even mean employing a newsfeed eradicator altogether and searching only for the specific content that I came to the platform to see.

Similar to gambling, the dopamine rush from the unexpected is potent: you don't know if you'll "win" with a valuable piece of information or "lose" time on irrelevant content.

When you stumble into a "good hole," feeling deeply interested and productive, that's the moment of greatest vulnerability. The true art of information curation lies not just in finding what we need, but in cultivating the discipline to switch off precisely when that need is met.

The same logic also applies to posting content: share your ideas, then get up from the table. Resist the urge to keep checking for likes and comments, subjecting yourself to a dopamine drip every five seconds. This constant validation-seeking, the digital equivalent of watching the slot machine reels spin endlessly, drains your mental energy and transforms an act of creation into an act of passive consumption of feedback.

Of course, I’m not perfect. Shit happens. It’s impossible to avoid entirely. But I hope you think about this analogy every time you open your favorite social or news app.

Let it serve as a constant reminder that every scroll, every check-in, every moment spent passively waiting for a notification, you’re gambling with your most precious resources.

The house always wins if you stay too long. So, choose to be the disciplined gambler who knows when to get up, cash out their chips, and invest those winnings back into the rich, unpredictable, and truly meaningful experiences of the real world.

And now, I’m about to board a flight to the UK and do just that 🙂 

If you’re looking to build a healthier relationship with tech and the people around you, here are a few places to start:

Kanso Here & Now Experiences - Here & Now is a phone-free social experience where strangers become friends through thoughtful conversations, shared moments, and intentional time offline.

Kanso Reset45 Cohorts - A cohort-based bootcamp to reprogram your tech habits in 45 days. Just launched a new site with a ton more info on this.

The Digital Reset Journal - A guided daily journal to help you rethink your tech use, stay present, and build healthier daily habits.

an awesome photo of the Digital Reset Journal sent to me by one of our customers after his morning pages!

Digital Detox Tools - A free directory of 100+ digital wellness tools to integrate into all areas of your life.

Follow me across platforms:

X/Twitter (@GinsburgRandy)

Instagram (@randy_ginsburg)

YouTube (@KansoRandy) - a lot more coming here soon

LinkedIn

You can find Kanso across Instagram and TikTok @unplugwithkanso too.

That’s all for this week! Now stop scrolling and do something great!

— Randy