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Created: 02 November 2024

Last Updated: 02 November 2024

Introduction

Have you given much thought to what draws you to social media? What is it that prompts you to check your phone notifications, scroll through images posted by glamorous strangers, or reply to articles with witty tweets? While the appeals of social media are as individual as the people who use it, re­ searchers have found some common themes that link usage patterns across age groups and demo­ graphics. You may not be aware of it, but your smartphone has modified your behavi or. It's changed what you reach for in the middle of a sleep­ less night, and it accompanies you everywhere - from bedroom and bathroom to bar and board ­ room. You check it when you're lonely, happy, sad, or bored. You even check it for no reason at all other than that it's always there. But the dark side of social media is that you're being tracked. Your personal relationships, prefer­ ences, habit s, and political opinions are under surveillance, constantly studied by corporations to figure out how to manipulate you into consuming the data and products they sell. You and your friends are being measured, analyzed, and profiled, and the aggregation of this information is sold and distributed to dozens of corporations.

The more you like, comment, and engage, the more tailored your social media feedback content will be. Platforms can even track what your facial ex­ pressions are when you're looking at certain content and discover where and when you're most likely to be drawn to certain types of posts. Then, your social media feeds are engineered to provide you with posts that are most relevant to who you seem to be, hypnotizing you into endless streams of pleasurable content that advertisers use to prime you for a pur­ chase.
Smartphones and social media have only been around for the past 10 years or so, but in that short amount of time, society has accepted the pervasive surveillance and subtle manipulations that arrive on your handheld screen as if they're completely nat­ural.
In his book, Jaron Lanier argues that the tracking and sale of data are only two of the sinister aspects of social media use. Another alarming effect is that it creates short dopamine loops in the brain. Dopamine functions as a neurotransmitter that plays a major role in reward-motivated behavior, and when you're looking at social media and getting little jolts of dopamine, your brain responds by telling you to keep clicking, scro lling, and com­ menting. Researchers know that social media is not only changing your brain, it's changing your social relationships and your ability to concentrate. Most importantly, these dopamine hits alter your capacity for willpower, especially when it comes to the stim­ ulus that's producing them. In other words, the more you use social media, the harder it is to look away.
Lanier lays out 10 reasons why you should delete your social media accounts and reconnect with the real world around you. In this Snapshot, you'll learn three of his compelling arguments.

Social Media Undermines the Best of Who You Are
Lanier suggests that social media use changes who you are in three fundamental ways. First, online so­ cial platforms bring out the worst in you. Second, they bring out the worst in others, which affects how you perceive them. And third, social media destroys your capacity for empathy.
In all likelihood, you've experienced a taste of all three of these elements when using social media. Would you agree that so cial media has brought out the worst in you from time to time? H ave you ever posted som ething and then deeply regretted it? Spent too long arguing with a friend (or stranger) about politics? Used har sher language than you would in real life to respond to an annoying post? Most people have done all these things. The fact is that you're not qu ite yourself online - no one is.
The nature of this m edium is that it removes many of the boundari es, i nhibitions, and social cues that are built in to real-life interactions, and som e­ times, this tempts you to post the raw, unfiltered content of your thoughts in a way that you wouldn't dream of doing in perso n. People who loathe inter­ personal confrontations are often prodded into fierce online arguments, especially if they can re­ main an onym ous. But these encounters are just of view. This means that in the myopic environment of social media, it's increasingly difficult to under­ stand the worldviews of others.  pseudo-encounters because they're mediated by corporate platfo rms that are invested in algo rit hm ­ boosting behaviors like comments, use of emojis, and viral article shares. These companies are not in­ vested in helping us build strong personal relation­ ships.
If you've noticed how you sometimes interact with people on social media differently than you would in person, you might've also given some thought to how people are interacting with you. It's hard to know where you really stand with people when you're interacting with them through social media because the platform causes misunder­ standings, social blunders, and even paranoia. No one is quite themselves online, and everyone has adopted a persona, so it's much harder to relat e to the real person behind the screen. These factors make it difficult for people who spend a lot of time on social media to have healthy relati on ships in per­ son.
Because algorithms determine what you see, and you don't know what others might be seeing, it's often difficult to find common ground online. Empathy, which involves being able to inhabit the perspective of another, becomes more difficult as well because each person's newsfeed, search, and streams are personalized to reflect their own points

Social Media Devalues Truth
When misinformation is packaged like any other piece of content, it can be hard for social media users to differentiat e between facts and alternative facts or news and fake news. Thus, social media undermines truth by replacing it with clickbait, sound bites, and viral conspiracy theories. In re­ sponse, Lanier suggests an alphabetic way of remembering how to spot manipulative tactics in social media:

• A holes turn discourse into discharge, mak­ ing people align with the groups they agree with rather than thinking about issues as indi­viduals.
• Tech companies butt into your life, coaxing you to trade authenticity for surveillance.
• Social media platforms cram content down your throat, and this content has been care­ fully crafted to manipulate your preferences.
• Online platforms direct your attention to what­ ever is most profitable for you to see, limiting your access to other perspectives.
• Influencers and advertisers earn money by fig­ uring out the best ways to modify your behav­ ior, so you'll buy their products.
• Fake people have no incentive to tell the truth, and they'll avoid being held accountable at all costs.

Truth involves clai ms that can be tested and agreed upon by a community of people. But social media is full of fabricated personas, doctored images, corpo­ rate s pons o rs hi ps, and calc ulated content aimed at ma ni pulat i ng users' thoughts and feelings. For example, fake reviews try to persuade you to visit a certain dentist, and arm ies of bots bring contro­ versial tweets to your attention.
Social media removes genuine human beings from the equation and replaces them with anony­ mous substitutes. After a while, even the aut he nt ic speech and actions of real humans are cast into doubt and deval ue d. The roar of the onli ne crowd makes what you have to say meaningless because me ani ng has been diluted, su bs idized, and modi­ fied.

Social Media Makes You Unhappy 
Does social media make you happy? You may think the answer is yes. Why would you keep checking your accounts if there wasn't some kind of reward, right? And doesn't social media make you feel more connected to people?
On the contrary, research shows that social media users feel more isolated and sad than their counter­ parts. In fact, Facebook has bragged in publications that it knows how to show people content that makes them sad without them even realizing why.
If that wasn't enough, people often become sad when comparing their lives to the shiny images pre­ sented by friends or flashy celebrities. This causes users to compare their social and economic status to people they hardly know. Perhaps you become anxious that you're not as successful or attractive as others in your cohort, without even realizing that your posts are being shown to others to make them feel the same way. The whole purpose of this is to turn your feelings into a behavior that leads you to buy a p ro duct.
Another important way that social media messes with your happiness is by taking away your eco­ nomic dignity. By giving away high-tech services like Google, Facebook, and YouTube for free, these companies are able to grow membership rapidly so that they can make money with ads. The message is that the only way for digital services like these to earn a profit is to make their users dependent and subservient. In the long term, allowing free services to come at the price of your privacy and economic dignity is a terrible arrangement. Sending a message to corporations that this is unacceptable is one of the best reasons to quit social media.

Conclusion 
In this Snapshot, you've explored many of Jaron Lanier's reasons for deleting your social media ac­ counts. Its business model of surveillance and tracking, emotional manipulation, disregard for truth, invasion of privacy, and undermining of au­ thentic, interpersonal relationships all contribute to a breakdown of social norms and behavi ors.
Closing your social media accounts will change how you engage with the world and help you enjoy more personal freedom and dignity. Your experi­ ences will feel more authentic, and you'll be less ad­ dicted to meaningless notifications. You'll think dif­ ferently about other people and about yourself be­ cause you'll no longer measure your posts against theirs or compare frivolous lifestyle posts. Not only that, but business follows money, so quitting social media can send a powerful message to corporations that you can live without irresponsible, socially­ harmful platforms that exploit users and sell their data.
Lanier provides a helpful analogy for thinking about the social media industry: lead paint. When scientists and public health official s discovered how harmful lead paint was, no one decreed that houses must remain unpainted. Inst ead, due to the public outcry, legislation was passed that made lead -free paint the new standard. Most people simply ',, stopped buying paint until the new lead-free paint became available.
It can be the same with social media. As scien­ tists, researchers, parents, and educators become aware of how social media is changing brain chem­ istry, interpersonal relationships, and public dis­ course, they can raise the alarm to legislators and fight for higher standards across these platforms. In the meanti m e, quitting social media might be the best thing you can do for yourself and your commu­ nity.
 
About Jaron Lanier
Jaron Lanier is a scientist, musician , and interna­ tional bestselling author. He started the first com­ mercial VR production company in the 1980s and pioneered prototypes of surgical simulation and multiperson virtual world experiences.
 
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