Introduction
Social media kinda sucks, amiright? I better be! In this paper, I detail the negative effects of social media, both psychological and sociological. To support my idea that social media sucks, I use historical analogies, peer-reviewed scientific studies, differential equations, and common sense. Now, you may be thinking, “Oh great some dude with juvenoia is trying to convince me that my Twitter account is contributing to a worldwide health epidemic!” You would be correct, but hear me out or at least speed read through until the end. If you are not convinced that social media sucks by the end of the paper, my email will be at the very-very end.
Let’s change the topic briefly. Smoking is good for you. It helps people relax, socialize, and lose weight. Smoking has also been shown to reduce symptoms of irritable bowel diseases and decrease risk of dementia and Parkinson’s disease, according this this random article I found on the internet [1]. However, It is also incredibly addictive and increases your risk of lung cancer. People can experience negative health effects just from standing next to someone smoking. For a long time, the negative effects of smoking were ignored due to its good qualities and, more importantly, capital that the smoking industry provided. Despite smoking’s obvious benefits, we have created laws regarding tobacco use and teach our children the dangers of tobacco use. Looking back, how society viewed smoking seems ridiculous. Kids could walk into gas stations to purchase cigarettes for their parents, and tobacco ads and ashtrays were everywhere. How could society embrace something that could cause so much harm?
Social media helps people connect with others from all around the world. People can express their unique ideas to millions of people virtually instantly and instantly virtually. Eighty one percent of Americans use social media. That’s 258 million people in the United States alone. Now, not all of us have 20–20 vision, but by the year 2020, the number of users in the world with a connection to social media is expected to be 2.46 billion [2]. If a bunch of people were doing something that was potentially detrimental to society, many would agree that, “Hey, maybe we should not do that?” That’s what we did/are trying to do with smoking [3]. The effects of social media need to be examined due to the sheer ubiquity of social media. If somehow social media has unavoidable negative effects on society (even though it provides us with enjoyment and self-expression and creates huge amounts of capital for the consumer internet economy), should something be done about it?
It’s Stupidly Addictive
As I mentioned earlier, social media is a ubiquitous part of our society today. Nearly 90% percent of young adults, 18–29, use Facebook [4]. Social media is popular and addictive; it is designed to be both of those thigs. Former Facebook executive, Chamath Pahlihpitiya, during an interview at the Stanford Graduate School of Business said, “Consumer internet businesses are about exploiting psychology.” That’s how social media has become so successful. Pahlihpitiya later went on to nonchalantly say, “We [consumer internet companies] want to psychologically figure out how to manipulate you as fast as possible and then give you back that dopamine hit.” You have probably heard this before, but social media IS designed to be addictive — not just fun-to-use-addictive, but methodically-designed-to-be-psychologically-manipulative addictive [5].
Social media is addictive, and we basically can’t avoid it either. A literary review published by the International Gaming Research Unit, Psychology Division at Nottingham Trent University by Daria J. Kuss and Mark D. Griffiths stated,
In accordance with the biopsychosocial framework for the etiology of addictions and the syndrome model of addiction, it is claimed that those people addicted to using SNSs experience symptoms similar to those experienced by those who suffer from addictions to substances or other behaviors. This has significant implications for clinical practice because unlike other addictions, the goal of SNS [Social Networking Sites] addiction treatment cannot be total abstinence from using the Internet per se since the latter is an integral element of today’s professional and leisure culture [6].
People are becoming addicted to social media in ways similar to how people get addicted to drugs, like tobacco and other addictive behaviors. The main issue with social media addiction is that in many ways it is more difficult to treat compared to other addictions because it has been ingrained in multiple aspects of our lives [6].
It’s Not the Best for Mental Health
Of course, you can’t blame a company for wanting to make money, and you can’t blame people for wanting to use an addictive, yet entertaining product. What’s the issue? The consumer internet and social media industry is highly addictive and has negative effects on its users. This business model bears striking resemblance to the tobacco industry. Also mentioned in that psychology review, by Kuss and Griffiths, were multiple studies that correlated high social media use with neuroticism, low academic performance, lack of real life social interaction, relationship difficulties, low self-esteem, narcissism, and loneliness [6]. I am aware that correlation does not imply causation. However, these findings, while not definitively conclusive of anything clear and profound, raise questions regarding the psychological effects of social media.
Adults are not the only demographic affected by the negative effects of social media. For me, this reality had not crossed my mind until very recently. Children and adolescents must deal with the negative effects of social media while they grow up. While I did get Facebook at the ripe age of fourteen back around 2010, I do not feel social media was as ubiquitous and significant as it is today. I also do not believe anything good came from fourteen-year-old Sterling Berg having Facebook. A 2015 study, by Marion K. Underwood from School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences at the University of Texas at Dallas, and Robert Faris from the Department of Sociology, University of California at Davis, was conducted to investigate the effects of social media on young adolescents. The study concluded, “that thirteen-year-olds care deeply about their online social interactions, at least as much or more than their face-to-face interactions.” A high correlation between social media usage and emotional distress experienced by 13-year-old study participants was found that emotional distress was defined as feeling socially isolated (47%), anxious (35%), insomnia (51%), and depression (47%) [7]. So basically, these developing and impressionable adolescents are spending considerable amounts of time and effort on social media, and this is causing significant emotional distress.
Obviously, correlation does not imply causation, and when it comes to issues such as mental health, there are many things that cannot be feasibly considered in a psychological study. But a lot of things that have been found in these studies are obvious. For example, a study conducted at the University of Amsterdam concluded interactions on social media had a direct impact on adolescent self-esteem and wellbeing by stating,
The use of the friend networking site stimulated the number of relationships formed on the site, the frequency with which adolescents received feedback on their profiles, and the tone (i.e., positive vs. negative) of this feedback. Positive feedback on the profiles enhanced adolescents’ social self-esteem and well-being, whereas negative feedback decreased their selfesteem and well-being [8]
Giving people positive feedback will make them feel good and giving negative feedback makes them feel bad. Duh! Or, how about an academic literary review article that concluded social media (constantly looking at other people’s best representations of themselves) can “significantly influence body image concerns [9].” Seems pretty obvious to me. What also seems obvious to me is the possibility that social media may be related to the increasing rates of reported mental health issues [10]. Social media could easily be affecting our society negatively on a scale of and in ways similar to what we have seen before with things such as tobacco or leaded gasoline (more on those topics later). Social media doesn’t just affect us on a psychological level.
It Confuses Society
Fake News. I cringe at hearing “fake news” because it is a big issue with potentially detrimental effects. If a tree falls in the middle of a forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound? Depending on your concept of reality, the tree does or does not make a sound. If a blatant lie is shared on Facebook, and nobody realizes it’s fake, is it true? No. Social Media has given individuals the ability to alter the perceived truth of millions of people. During a different interview on CNBC, Former Facebook exec Chamath Pahlihpitiya stated,
Today we live in a world now where it is easy to confuse truth and popularity. And you can use money to amplify whatever you believe and get people to believe that what is popular is now truthful and what is not popular may not be truthful… And the reality now is that I can take money, and I can use that through all of these social media systems that exist, to hundreds of millions of people, and I can convince all of Joe’s friends and everybody like him, of my opinion in very small and subtle ways [11],
In other words, people can easily influence others’ beliefs via social media. Anyone, including you or I, can post on an idea or ‘alternative fact’ on Reddit, Facebook, or something and pay money to promote it to millions of people. Now that net neutrality has been revoked, opportunities for large capital holders to influence massive amount of people have become even more available. Alternatively, if an idea has just the right properties, the false information can spread and develop all on its own.
Social media can significantly increase the scale and rate at which false information can spread. Youtuber, CGP Grey, uses the analogy of online information as germs [12]. Where information that provokes an angry emotion is similar to a highly contagious virus. Where these angry germs can multiply (people share information whether true, false, or misleading) and mutate like bacteria (over time the information is changed and further spread by people on social media). Like bacteria and germs, these thoughts evolve to be very effectively spread. This results in a type of positive feedback loop where ideas can quickly spread and change uncontrollably.
Also, the Bullshit Asymmetry Principle (1) still applies to information on the internet. The Bullshit Asymmetry Principle states, “The amount of energy needed to create bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than the energy needed to refute it [18].”
We can determine the amount of people spreading false information using Daley and Kendal’s standard model for rumor spreading [19]. **MATH TRIGGER WARNING** Given that there are three major types of people: people who spread rumors (denoted using “I”), people who are don’t know about rumors, (denoted using “S”), and people who don’t spread rumors (denoted using “R”), we can make some reasonable assumptions.
· When a spreader meets an ignorant, the ignorant will become a spreader.
· When two spreaders meet with each other, one of them will become a stifler.
· When a spreader meets a stifler, the spreader will lose interest in spreading the rumor and will become a stifler.
,where α and β are constants that depend on the rate of online interactions. Also, we are working under the assumption that everyone using social media, N, is one of the three types of people, (2).
We can also express the problematic people as fractions of the total number of social media users; x = I/N and y = S/N. With the above assumptions, calculus, some substitutions, and simplification the a 2-by-2 system of differential equations can be written, (3). Differential meaning we are dealing with rates of change that depend on the amount of stuff that is changing. For example, dx/dt is the rate at which the percentage of false information spreaders changes overtime; in this case, that depends on the amount of people using social media and rate at which stuff happens online.
Unfortunately, this system is non-linear system of differential equations, so general solutions cannot be solved for. However, we can just look at them, make some assumptions, and figure stuff out. Because at least one person is needed to start spreading false information and people aren’t getting brain zapped by the Men in Black, we can see that the amount of people who have not been influenced by the false information can only decrease, (3). Using some math involving discrete-time, finite-state, time-homogeneous Markov chains (that I honestly don’t understand), it can be determined that α is the rate at which people start spreading false information and β is the rate at which people start ignoring false information [19]. So, assuming that we’re dealing with some juicy dankmemes laced with alternative facts, α is probably much-much greater than β. By inspection of (3), we can see that the rate of people who spread false information’s increases, leading to more people spreading false information. This creates an unstable system, positive exponentials, snowball effect, slippery slope, trying-to-eat-a-single-Pringles-chip kind of situation.
Again, 2.46 billion people use social media very frequently because it’s part of society nowadays and they are addicted. This means that the rates at which stuff happens, α and β, are very large. This leads to lots of effected people. Now, take that large amount of people and consider the Bullshit Asymmetry Principle… So that kinda sucks. We can relate the spread of false information to the SIR model used to predict the spread of infectious diseases (4); they are very similar [20].
In the standard SIR model, S is the susceptible people, R is the resistant people, I is the infectious people, β is the contact rate, and γ is the rate at which people recover/survive the illness [20]. The variable names make more sense now, right? We can see that the only way to prevent the spread of false information is to increase the survival rate (don’t believe everything you read on the internet) and decrease the rate of contact (stop using social media so much)! But, by all means, feel free to share this paper.
Historical Analogy
This isn’t the first time an easily preventable problem has confronted society. People used lead pipes for water supply because lead was cheap and malleable. We literally allowed our life-giving water to be transported in pipes made from a known neurotoxin because it was cheap and easy. It wasn’t until 1986 when the United States amended the Safe Water Drinking Act to prohibit the use of lead pipes, solder, and flux in public water systems [14]. Another dumb thing we did, as a society with lead, was use leaded gasoline. In 1922, we started using leaded gasoline to raise octane levels. Many people were poisoned by lead. It wasn’t until 1965 when a scientist named Clair Patterson noticed lead levels were one hundred times greater than the natural level in humans. It wasn’t until 1970 when president Nixon basically said, hey maybe we should do something about this neurotoxin we are pumping into the air. And it wasn’t until 1990 when amendments to the Clean Air Act banned lead from gasoline [15]! Some people theorize that the amount of lead is a large contributing factor for the high crime rates correlating with the amount of lead in the air [16]. Ever wonder why a bunch of 80s movie antagonists are just gangsters or bullies? Today, a prevalent antagonist in modern movies and literature is the corrupt corporation or misguided bureaucracy (e.g. the mining company from Avatar, the “DOE” in Stranger Things, the Capitol in the Hunger Games, the antagonist of basically every episode of Black Mirror, etc.). I digress. The point is that it is not farfetched social media could be a large contributing factor for the increase in reported mental health issues while also effecting society, on a whole, in a negative way.
Conclusion
When asked about how he felt about his contributions to the largest social media platform on Earth, Pahlihpitiya said,
I feel tremendous guilt. I think we all knew in the back of our minds, even though we feigned this whole line of like there probably aren’t any bad unintended consequences. I think in the back deep, deep recesses of our minds we kind of knew something bad could happen. But I think the way we defined it was not like this. It is literally at the point now where I think we have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works. That is truly where we are [5].
So here we are, you likely were able to find this paper due to social media. A ton of people are addicted to social media due to its methodically-designed addictive properties. Social media negatively impacts our personalities, academic performance, real-life social interactions, relationships, self-esteem, and mental health. It is also very difficult to break this addiction due to not only being addictive, but also because it is ingrained in our society. However it is not an impossible problem to fix.
I believe, in the future, we will finally decide to address this issue with more gusto once the capital gains of the internet consumer economy that revolves around social media no longer outweigh the negative effects social media has upon society. We need to educate ourselves and our children (I don’t have any children, but you might) about “digital hygiene”. Just as we think about how ridiculous it was for people to dump sewage straight into the River Thames leading to what is now referred to as The Great Stink [17]. We will one day, hopefully soon, see how ridiculous our reliance and unrestrained use of social media is.
TL; DR
Social media kind of sucks. Its addictive and harmful to individuals AND society. Here’s my email: sterling.berg@jacks.sdstate.edu
Survey
I’m kinda curious. If you have some free time (which I’m assuming you do, you just read a 13 page paper written by someone with no credentials in the topic), please these answer 3 questions.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KF85QB5
References
[1] Here Are The Ways Smoking May Actually Be “Good” For You
https://io9.gizmodo.com/here-are-the-ways-smoking-may-actually-be-good-for-yo-1721438933
[2] Percentage of U.S. population with a social media profile from 2008 to 2017
[3] Trends in Current Cigarette Smoking Among High School Students and Adults, United States, 1965–2014
https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/tables/trends/cig_smoking/index.htm
[4] Social Media Update 2016
http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/11/11/social-media-update-2016/
[5] Chamath Palihapitiya, Founder and CEO Social Capital, on Money as an Instrument of Change
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMotykw0SIk&feature=youtu.be&t=1282
[6] Online Social Networking and Addiction — A Review of the Psychological Literature
http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/8/9/3528/htm?hc_location=ufi
[7] #Being Thirteen: Social Media and the Hidden World of Young Adolescents’ Peer Culture
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2448422-being-13-report.html
[8] Friend Networking Sites and Their Relationship to Adolescents’ Well-Being and Social Self-Esteem
http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cpb.2006.9.584
[9] Social Media Effects on Young Women’s Body Image Concerns: Theoretical Perspectives and an Agenda for Research
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-014-0384-6
[10] The Mental Health Needs of Today’s College Students: Challenges and Recommendations
http://naspa.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2202/1949-6605.1310#.WjH4_FVKu70
[11] Former Facebook Exec Chamath Palihapitiya On Social Media, Bitcoin, And Elon Musk (Full) | CNBC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zyRpq2ODrE
[12] This Video Will Make You Angry
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc
[13] Fake News stuff
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/09/us/politics/debunk-fake-news-election-day.html
[14] Lead Ban: Preventing the Use of Lead in Public Water Systems and Plumbing Used for Drinking Water
[15] A Brief History of Lead Regulation
https://scienceprogress.org/2008/10/a-brief-history-of-lead-regulation/
[16] Lead-crime hypothesis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States#Crime_over_time
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead-crime_hypothesis
[17] Great Stink
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Stink
[18] Bullshit Asymmetry Principle lightning talk
https://www.slideshare.net/ziobrando/bulshit-asymmetry-principle-lightning-talk
[19] Rumor spread in social network
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumor_spread_in_social_network
[20] Compartmental models in epidemiology
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compartmental_models_in_epidemiology#Transition_rates
[21] The secret to living longer may be your social life | Susan Pinker
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptIecdCZ3dg
[Bonus Video 1] I Forgot my Phone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OINa46HeWg8
Contact and Extra thoughts
I have gone social media cold turkey before. While I was way more productive, it also kinda sucked. It was kind of weird; I felt lonely — not like physically lonely. When I would hang out with friends or be on a break at work, everyone else seemed to always be on his or her phone. Everyone else stared at their phones while I stared at the wall, drank my coffee, or attempted to have a conversation. It’s kinda like, when you’re at a party or something, trying to enter a conversation and just awkwardly stand around the outside the circle for a bit, except the circle is facing outward towards the entire Earth and everything connected to the internet and you’re in the middle. Maybe I am just a boring conversationalist. Maybe I just hang around uncourteous people, no offense if you’re reading this. Maybe I am just a narcissist who needs attention when I’m around people. I don’t know ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. I’m also not sure how to find a solution to this problem, as of right now. I definitely know I don’t want to be ignoring somebody who may feel the same way I do. Either way, I am deleting all social media off of my phone for the reasons listed in the paper above and as a way to ‘stick it to the man.’ Eventually, I’ll probably permanently delete some of my accounts.
In this paper, I didn’t even talk about how the consumer internet companies wreck our attention span. Or how social media decreases our real life social interaction [6], and how quantity and quality of real life social interaction correlates with longer, healthier lives [21]. I didn’t talk about how online dating is kinda weird and dehumanizing or how social media allows for invasive and manipulative advertising.
Since I’ll be deleting all my social media (Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Snapchat, Youtube, Instagram) off my phone after I promote this paper using all of my social media (does that make me a hypocrite?), you may contact me using my email, sterling.berg@jacks.sdstate.edu . I could also give you my cellphone number if you’re interested in keeping contact with me. If you’ve actually read this paper this far, I’d love to hear what you have to think about the topic.
