A number of people who’ve watched Social Dilemma on Netflix seem surprised at the revelation that social media is designed to keep them on the platform for as long as possible. This surprised me. So, either watch the movie, or keep reading.
The only reason I’m writing this post is because most people don’t seem to know this is happening. So, I’ll say it again… social media is designed to be addictive. Companies such as Google and Facebook use behaviour design, behavioural economics, persuasive technology theory etc. to keep us engaged and coming back to their apps.
Consider what success looks like for an app.
Success in the world of apps is measured by how effectively an app can change behaviour. If an app is opened daily – that’s a win. If an app is opened daily, and hours are spent on it, that’s even better.
Most apps make money by selling your attention to advertisers. All the financial incentives for these companies are directed at bringing you back to the platform and keeping you there for as long as possible. Hopefully the advertising isn’t too disruptive and it doesn’t wake you up to the realisation that you have spent an hour looking at Facebook or Instagram.
How do they keep us coming back? Supplement and Painkiller apps
Apps can usually be split into two different categories. There are the supplement apps. These apps help you with your day-to-day life. They help keep you informed about the weather, public transport, or help you manage your banking, making payments etc. They tend to overcome obstacles and make our lives and easier.
Then there are painkiller apps. Social media apps are painkillers. These apps don’t serve a function other than to alleviate a negative emotion such as boredom, discomfort or loneliness. These apps deliver a stimulus that creates a momentary alleviation of a negative feeling.
Behaviour modification
To incite a behaviour 3 elements need to converge for that behaviour to be realised.
- Motivation – this is the feeling we get that makes us want to check our social media feed. To not act on the feeling creates dissonance and discomfort.
- Ability – this refers to the action required to complete the behaviour. If the action required is too difficult, the behaviour is unlikely to happen. However, if the the motivation is high enough, the effort required to fulfill the action can also go up.
- Prompt – this is the trigger that pushes you to feel the motivation. A prompt might be your phone vibrating or you being bored when standing in a queue.
If all three of these elements are present then a behaviour will happen. To turn a behaviour into a habit, a fourth elements needs to be introduced – reward. If by completing the behaviour a reward can be delivered, the next time there’s a prompt, your motivation to complete the behaviour will increase.
A reward in social media terms are engagement and affirmation prompts such as ‘likes’ and ‘shares’. If many people ‘like’ your post a small dopamine hit is delivered along your neural reward pathways. Dopamine as a chemical is associated with the reward we feel when we have some foods, when we do exercise, fall in love, have sex, gamble etc. If a reward feedback loop is associated with engaging with your social media feed the motivation to go onto social media goes up.
Consider the gesture of swiping down to refresh your feed. It’s very similar to pulling the lever on a slot machine and the concept of refreshing your social media feed taps directly into our the human need for novelty. Sometimes there is something new and exciting behind a swipe (reward) and sometimes there isn’t. In behaviourism this is called intermittent reinforcement.
Staying on social media is different to checking
Checking your app is only one piece of the equation. True success comes with regular checking and long periods of engagement once you’re on the platform.
Outrage, while being a negative emotion, is a little like tonguing a sore in your mouth, it’s an almost pleasant pain. Anger and outrage are thrilling, they can lead to similar rushes as those experienced during extreme sports and can also deliver a dopamine hit as reward. The more anger we experience the more it becomes its own reward and the more we want to replicate the thrill.
This is where social media and our data has become a topic of such controversy. Social media platforms collect our in-app and broader browsing data through various channels. This data is then fed into algorithms designed to curate social media feeds that keep us engaged. These algorithms have, over time, ‘learnt’ what content is likely keep users on the platform for longer. By and large, the content that saw people stay on their feeds for longer evoked outrage and anger. And thus, these algorithms have and continue to optimise and feed us images and stories and make us angry.
The more we see people getting angry, the more socially acceptable it is to react with anger to points of view we don’t agree with. And as more anger and outrage is fed into our lives, the more difficult listening to others has become, eroding opportunities for reasoned debate and understanding of others’ positions.
We need to understand that this is happening
For all of the above reasons I have issues with social media. You can read about my grievances here and here. I believe the debate around how and what data social media and technology platforms collect on their users is one thing. How social networks manipulate and appropriate our emotions and our conscious moments should be uncoupled from that data debate to become a stand alone issue.
Social media and machine learning algorithms are relatively new and have, within the space of a few years, become part of our daily lives. How these will change us is unknown. We are running a live, global social experiment using amazing technology, and most of us don’t realise we’re part of it.
That’s the ‘social media is evil’ info dump. This is the ideas part.
I believe social media does have a role to play in our society. But I think we need to understand and agree on what that role is. Here are some ideas that might help us find common ground on how we view platforms.
- If there are algorithms that decide what appears in our feeds, we need to be informed what they’re designed to do. And we should have the option to opt out of being fed content filtered by an algorithm. I miss the days when my Facebook feed shared all posts with me chronologically.
- This idea I credit to Naomi Simson. It should be considered rude to touch your phone in the presence of another person. We need to learn how to be bored again. We need to reclaim our attention and be more aware of what is happening to the world and the people around us. (I suspect this one will be tough to get up).
- Ban political messages, opinions and advertising on social media channels.
- Have an honest and transparent social media profile on all platforms. I find it amazing how the tone on LinkedIn differs from Twitter. The only reason being; your professional reputation is on the line on LinkedIn, while on Twitter you can hide behind a fake profile and troll people with little to no consequences.
- We should strictly enforce the no social media for people under the age of 16. This one is important.
- I’m happy for Facebook, Google, Twitter etc. to collect my data, as long as I have the final say on what they do with it.
- If number 2 doesn’t fly – I would like to see social media ‘off days’. Once a month all social media channels are unavailable for a day.