There is a problem emerging in society with its roots in the technology industry. It is a problem whose namelessness makes it no less frightening. It is a problem that claims lives on a daily basis. It is a problem that if allowed to develop further, could culminate in a checkmate on humanity.
January 9, 2007. The date of the release of the first iPhone from the tech company Apple. It’s no coincidence that a few years later – 2011, to be exact – rates of depression and anxiety began rising dramatically. There was a 62% increase in teen girls plagued with anxiety; for pre-teen girls, that number was 189%. The same pattern could be observed with suicide: A 70% increase was recorded among teen girls, while suicide rates rose by 151% among pre-teens.
These are worrying numbers. People claim that someday robots will commandeer this society and eliminate us all. Well, I can state as a fact that it is social media and its accompanying mental toll that will ruin our lives, particularly those of this generation. Social media and the smartphone were invented to help us develop and expand our networks. Now, it has gone far beyond its intended purpose. It has taken on a life of its own.
It’s important to understand, however, that it’s not the technology itself that is the potential threat. It is the way in which it is so successfully shaping our thoughts, feelings and actions that is the threat. Although, there are countless lives which have been improved by technology and social media. Nonetheless It is bringing out the worst in many if not all of us.
In order to understand the threat presented by social media, understanding how it works in the first place is key. Social media has its own goals, which it achieves primarily by using your own psychology against you. As a drug would, it manipulates you and feeds on you, draining you of your emotions and energy.
Social media users conflate likes with value and truth. Engaging with the platform, such as by posting on Instagram, leaves them feeling even emptier. Yet they are unable to stop, proceeding to open other apps like Youtube and TikTok.
This addictive sensation that pervades a person’s experience with the online world is the product of corporate strategy. Social media apps are designed to keep you hooked – all day, every day. Companies like Facebook spend months, years even, examining how to better develop a feature in order to hook a user’s attention more successfully.
Take the classic example of being tagged in an Instagram post. You glance down at the screen of your newly illuminated phone, switched off moments ago when an extensive session of scrolling came to an end. A distant sensation of irritation niggles at you – while the notification tells you who tagged you, the post itself remains a mystery. The seconds tick by. Your mild annoyance blossoms into a full-blown, insistent desire to know. Yet again, you open Instagram and put yourself at the mercy of social media’s invisible machinations.
Every social media user, blind to the reality that they are being manipulated in a manner that is far from coincidental, has been plunged into a vicious cycle in which we are the product. Our attention is being sold for profit, the likes of which is simply fed back into tech giants’ endeavours.
Over the past years, an incalculable volume of fake news has taken centre stage, spreading at the speed of light. Combating it has been near-impossible, since doing so requires all of us to agree on what constitutes truth. Privacy issues are ongoing, with legislation struggling to keep up. The entire media system, with its accompanying willingness to sacrifice truth for something interesting “clickbait”, is only growing. Democracy is under assault worldwide. What was once a period of information has transformed into one of disinformation – a transition amplified by the use of technology, showing no signs of slowing.
Humanity is being blindsided. Social media driven addiction is causing chaos, outrage, loneliness, distraction and incivility. It is undermining the trust underpinning our relationships with one another. It is eating away at us from the inside. Unfortunately, too many of us are caught unawares by this reality. This situation has to change.
We have to start by being more transparent, and eventually, we must demand that transparency extend to the tech giants themselves. Computer scientist Jaron Lanier underscores the urgency of the task ahead of us in saying that “If we allow the current status quo to persist for another 20 years, we will most likely destroy our civilization, degrade world democracy, ruin the global economy, and ultimately not survive.” The bottom line is this: We perceive ourselves to be in control of technology. The state of our modern society tells us otherwise.
Inspired by: The Social Dilemma
Comments