Should we try to make it keto or just have an apple?
Whether ‘social media is bad for you’ has these annoying debates. Social media has benefits! But there’s no doubt that there are psychological effects from forms of communication that are equivalent to advertising, in which consuming content necessitates others to be served a lot of actual advertising for things they don’t need, which themselves are served by fostering insecurity and internal lack, not to mention tribalism and division. And that there have been real harms as a result of social media, including genocide.
Unsavory similarities
What if we think of social media like refined sugar? It’s fantastically tasty, but has no nutritional value. Its negative effects go beyond individual health.
Production of sugar comes from a powerful (and subsidised) industry with roots in slavery. It is ubiquitous and seems impossible to avoid in modern life. Our collective palate-shifting towards it has caused all kinds of downstream effects on our health and ability to moderate our behaviour (so much so that we now have pharmaceuticals to address our inability to naturally self-moderate).
Sounds similar to many criticisms of social media. The idea that we should try to hang on to the “good parts” of social media does seem akin to the proliferation of ‘keto snacks,’ highly processed items that are low in ‘net sugar.’ (TBH some of those snacks are pretty delicious! but probably not great for us).
There’s always an interesting tension between ‘we’re living with human systems that are leading to our ultimate demise‘ and ‘we have to live in these systems and anyway there are rewards in this system I don’t want to live without.‘ Part of the practice, in my mind, is holding both feelings while getting curious about how either are true.
I am fairly certain that my absolute happiness would not be reduced by the non-existence of social media, even though it has its rewards and pleasures. I was alive, even if I was only a child, when we weren’t all connected and ‘sharing’, and people were pretty OK.
Don’t look back
I am not advocating ‘going back in time;’ instead, I am asking ‘how can technology support first principles?’ What might ‘unprocessed’ look like in our digital interactions?
If everyone was on Mastodon or some other still-social-media platform that was not ad-driven, would all the problems dissolve? Is it possible to have a way to share thoughts and information and promote your group or art or thinking in a network that isn’t gross?
There’s a distinction between “within my network and x degrees of separation” to “public,” and perhaps there’s some ways of imagining ourselves being less prone to performance and self-censorship if we have an idea of who we’re talking to. Models of highly cross-pollinated small groups could serve us to share more thoughtfully than trying to get attention from ‘everyone in the world.’ Decentralization could make this possible but more needs to be done to set limits, to normalise boundaries.
The negative effects of social media come not just from bad actors and harassment, not just from being exposed to advertising and algorithms, not even just from participation in a system that mirrors corporate oppression in general. Investment of time and emotional bandwidth into superficial forms of connection, being constantly evaluated, and seeking attention take us out of our own freedom and sense of belonging.
But what about nihilism?!
Is there any real argument for not eating a sugar-filled diet if you are like “well, we’re all going to die eventually?” My experience suggests that as I divest from more of the systems like corporate work, social media, faith in institutions, I not only feel better but I start seeing the possibility of supporting human patterns of connection and belonging with technology, rather than trying to create a successful startup that exploits human behaviour to gain power and influence.
My experience with the path towards internal freedom is that I find more compassion for my behaviour but far fewer reasons/ less need to choose comfort and convenience over what seems to be right for me. But it’s a curious question of whether you act your way into right thinking or if you heal enough to not need the crutch?
Cultural addictions
Our collective decisions about what to do about addictive things is curiously inconsistent. Some people become alcoholics and there’s no evidence that alcohol has health benefits, but we’ve collectively decided to allow adults to make their own choices about how to use it. Some people become nicotine addicts and cigarettes are still widely available, though there’s awareness of some of the malfeasance of the companies who profit from selling tobacco products. Some people become heroin addicts and we’ve collectively decided to criminalize that behaviour or at least criminalize possession of heroin. Some people become prescription opioid abusers and we have decided to hold corporations somewhat accountable and also continue to permit doctors to prescribe opioids. Meanwhile, it’s worth pointing out that when there’s a lot of money being made, less profitable alternatives will often be suppressed or vilified, even if they are actually more salubrious.
To take an opposing position, indulgence is fun. And social media is fun. It entertains us, it gets us excited, it is silly and sexy and delightful. We can be creative and be rewarded and recognised. We can find people who we vibe with and share aspects of ourselves that might be unappreciated or censured in our local community. We can learn and discover things and perspectives we wouldn’t have encountered offline.
Everything in moderation no pun indended
There are no absolutes. I still love to eat a brownie, have a drink, and watch YouTube videos. But I don’t feel happier if I have two brownies or three drinks or spend too long looking at content. It’s only because I generally eat healthy that I notice the ugh feeling of going off the rails. It’s because I have so many other, meaningful things I care about that I’m satiated by a limited amount of entertainment. I don’t long for more stuff. But we’re living in a time where limits are not the norm, and consumption is king.
When people bring up “making the internet weird and fun again,” I am reminded that the online world can feel like a portal, a place of mystery, surprise, and new connections. Part of this to me feels like it’s not compatible with social media, which is designed to be a firehose, an endless amount of stuff, not a place to have an experience, to feel something and feel a reciprocal sense of knowing.
Socially mindful
How can we have social media that is intentional? How can we create an environment that still allows us to perform, to show off our creativity, but to slow it down to an embodied, breathing, collaborative experience?
Could we have the delight and fun of social media without the approval-seeking and ranking algorithms? Let’s start with the ‘feed.’ What does feed-free social media look like? Even in the so-called ‘cozy web,’ popular community platforms have feed metaphors, though they may not be updating at a social media clip.
Could we live without likes and views? Could we have social media that didn’t reinforce unnatural standards of physical appearance or encourage polarizing viewpoints? Could we have social media that didn’t replace actual feelings of interdependence, collective good, and mattering?
I’m excited to live in a world where we’re not going for “not as bad as…” and living into new ways of being and thinking that rest on the fundamental idea of our collective freedom, our collective responsibility for the space and for our individual experience, and it strikes me that centralized social media simply is anathema to that vision.
Yes, we need breaks from all the seriousness, we need to have fun, we need to laugh and play- but I am not convinced social media is a prerequisite for these activities. If anything, it seems much harder to really feel joy when we’re glued to screens, when there’s always another thing queued up to entertain us or to be processed, especially when a huge number of those things are selling us something. This is how it seems to me, but I love to discover the ways I am making assumptions, and I want to understand how you think we can align social media with a world that supports us as humans, isn’t extractive, and doesn’t rely on violence and dominance to function.