The Harm Done by Social Media

New technologies often invoke unreasonable fears. Technology is neither inherently good nor inherently bad. Yet, social media has disrupted modern societies in many ways, some of them harmful.

In earlier posts, The Human Beast highlighted some of the major harms social media poses to our psychological health.

Mental Health Problems: Depression, Suicide, Narcissism, Eating Disorders, Loneliness

The use of social media has been implicated in a broad range of psychological problems (1). Many of these are on the rise among younger generations who grew up using YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and many other social media sites.

Users share personal information that leads to evaluations, whether a contributor is “liked,” “followed,” “retweeted,” or gets “swiped right.” Such immediate feedback appeals to narcissists who use positive evaluations to burnish their egos. Negative evaluations can be a great source of anxiety, particularly for young people who lack the maturity to cope with them.

Young people are particularly sensitive to evaluations based on personal appearance, and this could explain why the use of social media is associated with an increased risk of eating disorders.

During the pandemic, many of these problems reached a head because real-world social interactions were curtailed.

Recent years have witnessed alarming rises in teenage depression and suicide that are associated with the increased use of social media. Elementary school children who use social media exhibit attention problems, leading to the suggestion that they delay getting phones.

The Surgeon General’s Report on Loneliness found that people who are lonely spend more time on social media. This does not mean that being involved in online communities contributed to their loneliness, but it does indicate that social media is not a cure for feeling isolated in the same way that real-world interaction is. Loneliness is very bad for our health, packing the punch of smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

Although the impact of social media on psychological health looks bad, it might be argued that social media can enable self-help groups and can foster social connections among people around the globe. The reality of such benefits does not neutralize the dangerous social consequences of these sites, whether it is spawning false conspiracy theories, creating investment manias, or fomenting genocide.

Political Division: The Facebook Genocide

In 2016, Myanmar was new to the Internet, and for most people, Facebook was the only site they accessed. What they read there was accepted as trustworthy. Unfortunately, they read anti-Rohingya propaganda that fomented a pogrom against this ethnic group.

While any such genocidal event has multiple causes, Amnesty International claimed that if there had been no Facebook in the country, there would have been no genocide, and the government temporarily blocked Facebook in an effort to reduce violence.

Hate-filled people can use new technologies to advance a hateful agenda. Unfortunately, Facebook had insufficient staff in Myanmar to take down the hate speech. Sins of omission are one thing, but it has become clear that the business model of many social media companies profits from fomenting hatred.

The Hateful Algorithm: Do Lots of Evil and Get Richly Rewarded

Contrary to the “do no evil” motto, social media companies can, at times, amplify political divisions and hatred. Their algorithms promote content that grabs attention, and the most effective way of doing this is often by boosting hateful speech that garners outrage and engagement. So, social media platforms are not just giving a megaphone to paranoid conspiracies but generally profiting from such dangerous rants because greater engagement translates into more advertising dollars.

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Relations Between the Sexes and the Death of Childhood

Swedish sex education created a model of respectful sensitivity to others that empowered female sexuality and reduced sexual violence (2). In contrast, contemporary children are first exposed to sexuality in the form of violent pornography from sites like YouTube viewed on their phones. This has the opposite effect of increasing conflict and violence between adolescent men and women, with an alarming increase in sexual assaults among teens.

Ration Social Media or Avoid Completely?

Social media can be a malevolent force in modern life that facilitates political division and crime and undermines psychological health. No one seriously disputes the harms caused by social media but many users would argue that the problems are still outweighed by the beneficial effects in keeping spatially distant people connected.

As it is, social media use can be both addictive and harmful. Silicon Valley executives are so frightened of what they have created that they steer their own children away from using their social platforms. These need to be regulated with the same care given to dangerous, addictive drugs. Likewise, a free-speech defense of social media is like saying that drug cartels should be allowed to express themselves by distributing freely.