By now, we think we know everything there is to know about the dangers of social media. After all, adults have talked our ears off – that we should be cautious of what we post, that likes do not define us, and so on. But these dangers are barely scratching the surface of the bigger, long term risks that social media can present. And these risks not only have great impacts on us individually, but also on our society as a whole.
The recent Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma explores the detrimental side of social media and the complex ways in which anything and everything we see are in the hands of people behind our screens. Former employees and developers of tech giants such as Google, Apple, Facebook, and Twitter – the real insiders and experts of Silicon Valley – express their concerns. Since its release in September, the documentary has been gaining traction around the world.
In the artificial world that social media creates, realities are tailored to fit us like a glove, so that all that we see is to our liking. It tries to create our personal utopia, so that we will never want to leave. Everything on your phone is designed to capture your attention – it beeps, vibrates, and lights up to alert you when a friend of a friend of a friend likes a post you were tagged in. After all, social media companies profit off of who holds your attention the longest, and are fighting over your time.
Now, this may sound like a nuisance, but not necessarily a danger. You could argue that everything is trying to gain your attention, even if it's not a business with a malicious financial agenda: a poster on a wall, the artworks in a gallery, or a cliffhanger in a book. The question is, to what lengths will companies go to keep you satisfied? And how much more access to you and your sensitive personal information do they have access to?
The fact is, neither a poster, nor an artwork, nor a book, and not even a television demands your attention. You have control over whether you choose to pay attention to it – read the poster, open the book or turn on the TV. A phone is constantly reminding you of its presence and that you are missing something every time it rings in your pocket. Once you look at it, the game begins.
Starting from your location, age, race, gender, and communities you are a part of, algorithms are already selecting the things you will be more likely to engage with from the second you join. By tracking what you look at and how long you look at it, it recommends similar content, producing a never ending stream of posts and videos and ads that align with your interests. According to Facebook’s Q2 2020 earnings, more than 1.79 billion people use the app per day, and each of these users generate an average revenue of $7.05. This is where the term ‘Surveillance Capitalism’ enters the system; in order to determine success of the advertisers that fund the company, social media platforms must be able to predict the users’ behavior accurately, which means they need a lot of data. A lot of your data.
People are desperate to believe things that confirm their preconceived notions. Anything that goes against it is ignored or branded in our brains as wrong. This has been amplified by today’s exacerbated use of social media, to the point where we are now living in a society where opinions are regarded as fact and conspiracy theories actually considered. We are stuck in this echochamber of information that reinforces our beliefs to keep us happy and hungry for more.
This lack of diversity in opinion can cause severe issues such as political polarization, which can be seen in the United States. According to a study by the Pew Research Center in 2017, there is less overlap in the political values between Democrats and Republicans, with 97% of Democrats now more liberal than the median Republican and 95% of Republicans now more conservative than the median Democrat. By comparison, these numbers were 70% and 64% just 23 years prior, in 1994. This political polarization has led to violence, deterioration in relationships, and even voter suppression, as exemplified through the recent Presidential elections. Media, including social media, and the limited discourse among different political groups makes us fall victim to confirmation bias: only seeking information that confirms our beliefs. This is why media outlets are divided into ‘left-wing’ and ‘right-wing’, and why the information consumed by two people with opposing political ideologies are so different. Fox News and CNN will give drastically different accounts of the same event, and because they too are a business, their content is then ‘improved’ by tailoring it to their audience (also known as coverage bias). This causes more polarization, and we are left with a vicious cycle that pushes the envelope of news coverage to the point that we consume different versions of the ‘truth’.
Social media is not typically tied up in the same category as mainstream media. However, it has rapidly become the vector through which news and information spreads through retweets and sharing without any real fact checking or validation of the source. In some ways, the mainstream media is less dangerous than social media because when we watch or read news from specific media channels, we know what we’re getting into – we know that the information will be biased and can keep that in mind while watching. But that is not the case for social media as it spoon-feeds us information that we immediately want to believe. And who would actively try to search for evidence to prove a thing that they agree with wrong?
This is where the danger of manipulation, misinformation, and conspiracy theories comes into play, whether it’s to do with politics or the Coronavirus. In January 2012, Facebook secretly conducted a study on emotional contagion, which showed that changing the tone of the content on users’ news feed could significantly impact their emotions. In 2010, another study showed that a simple message reminding users about election day could influence voter turnout, eliciting approximately 340,000 extra people to vote in the US congressional elections. These studies prove that the worldview that is implanted on us through social media can affect real world behavior and emotions without users even being aware of it. What does it mean if there are huge discrepancies between the worlds that each of us sees on the internet that don’t reflect the real world? Chaos. The feed each of us sees on social media strives to tell us, “You’re right. See, everyone agrees with you. Anyone else that contradicts you is stupid.” instead of “Here are the facts.”
Just look at the thousands of conspiracy theories that have amassed followers on social media: flat-Earth theories, QAnon, COVID-19 conspiracy theories. The list ranges from laughable to life-threatening. And because of the way that algorithms work, if certain Facebook conspiracy theory groups start gaining popularity, it recommends those groups to people who are likely to enjoy the content, and are therefore more susceptible.
The bottom line is, the truth is boring. Fake news is exciting. Social media promotes exciting content because it increases engagement, which increases the profitability. And voilà, the facts become irrelevant.
One thing The Social Dilemma does incredibly well is (ironically enough) engage viewers and aid comprehension through the storyline that is intertwined with the information. The film is a docudrama that tells the story of how each family member of a fictional family is affected by social media. The resemblance between our personal lives and this family makes us empathetic and the illustration of algorithms as humans break down the technical jargon of the experts into bite-sized pieces for the audience.
Although cyberspace may feel like another universe, its implications extend into very real consequences in our physical world. Just look at the Pizzagate conspiracy theory and the Russian involvement in the 2016 Presidential elections. That’s the distinction that we’ve been struggling with for decades. As technology progresses, it will become more and more difficult to remain in control when we ourselves do not comprehend the complexities of the system we are operating in.
Personally, through this documentary, I’ve not only realized the importance of cybersecurity and remaining in control of my screen time, but I have also learned how crucial it is to stay educated about the latest developments in technology and its potential impacts on me in the future. The members of the younger generation are growing with technology, but the growth rate of technology is much faster than any of us can acknowledge. This is why computer science has become a mandatory part of many curricula around the world and a certain level of technological expertise has become an expectation for the job market. In order to be able to tame it – as well as just maintain our identity and sanity – we must first understand it.
“We live in a world in which a tree is worth more dead than alive, in which a whale is worth more dead than alive... Now, we’re the tree, we’re the whale, our attention can be mined. We are more profitable to a corporation if we’re spending time staring at a screen, staring at an ad, than if we’re spending that time living our life in a rich way.” – Justin Rosenstein (quote from The Social Dilemma)
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