How Social Media Exploits the Psychology of Crowds

“Having no doubts about what it believes to be truth or error and possessing a clear idea of its strength, the crowd is as authoritarian as it is intolerant.” It’s a perfect encapsulation of our current social media world — except it was written 120 years ago by Gustave Le Bon, in his classic book,?The Psychology of Crowds.?

Mobs, and the surrender of reason and judgment to group outrage, have always been with us. We can find examples throughout history.?But technology, and especially social media, have amplified the most negative elements of our social wiring in ways that make it increasingly hard for us to access the more positive aspects of our social instincts. And this makes it a lot harder to cooperate and collectively solve the multiple crises we’re facing today. As Tristan Harris — something of a modern-day Gustave Le Bon and the central figure in?The?Social Dilemma?— has said, technology hijacks our mind’s vulnerabilities.?Once we realize how social media hijacks our brains and elevates our lesser selves, we’ll be better able to take control of our relationship with technology and replace the authoritarian, intolerant impulses that so often prevail online with the more humane qualities of compassion, empathy and reason.?

We are, of course, social creatures. Fitting in with the group doesn’t just feel good — it fulfills an evolutionary need. Cooperating and being accepted by the collective makes us safer and less vulnerable to threats.

But now?we’ve ceded our public conversation, and the psychological levers of our deepest social impulses, to technology. It’s what Harris calls “the greatest psychological experiment we’ve ever run on humanity.” The result is that we’re in perpetually hypervigilant fight-or-flight mode, signaling our tribal loyalty by looking for enemies.

That’s not a by-product of social media — that?is?the product. A recent study by researchers from Yale showed how social media amplifies moral outrage and drives even moderate groups toward more extreme positions. “Social media’s incentives are changing the tone of our political conversations online,” says study leader William Brady. “People learn to express more outrage over time because they are rewarded by the basic design of social media.” Another study by researchers from NYU found that adding just one word of moral outrage to a tweet increased retweets by 17%.

“Each time you swipe your finger, people get something that confirms affirmation, not information,” Harris says. “And that has shattered our shared assumptions.” And the toxic run-off of our social media-fueled culture of outrage is fear. Anne Applebaum has spent decades writing about authoritarian regimes in 20th century Europe. As she writes in?The Atlantic, the most effective method of control wasn’t violence, but peer pressure and the fear of sticking out of the group. “Even without a clear risk to their life, people felt obliged — not just for the sake of their career but for their children, their friends, their spouse — to repeat slogans that they didn’t believe, or to perform acts of public obeisance to a political party they privately scorned.” Sound familiar? “Fear of the internet mob, the office mob, or the peer-group mob is producing some similar outcomes,” Applebaum writes. “How much intellectual life is now stifled because of fear of what a poorly worded comment would look like if taken out of context and spread on Twitter?”

We all have a need to belong to a group. And our sense of moral outrage is essential in fighting injustice. But we also all have a choice to act on the better angels of our nature, a choice made harder because of the way social media incentivizes the darker side of our social impulses.

As researchers at Beihang University in China found, it’s not joy or praise or kindness that spreads the fastest on social media — it’s anger. As a result, influencers/content creators know that polarization is good for them.

Once we understand how social media preys on our social fears, we can begin to take back control. But to do that we need to fulfill our need to connect with others on platforms not designed to sow discord and bring out the worst in us.??

We don’t have to go cold turkey. That wouldn’t even be possible, and the point is to use technology in a way that augments the best parts of our humanity. And there are plenty of Microsteps we can employ to help us do that.

• Turn off all notifications, except from those who need to reach you. The more our phone buzzes at us, the more it conditions us to release cortisol, which is the stress hormone.
• Remove social media apps from your phone’s home screen.
• Be intentional about when and how you enter social media conversations.
• Take a Marie Kondo approach to your digital environment, and unfollow any accounts or people who make you angry, stressed or anxious.
• Before posting a comment, check for Compassionate Directness. Are you recognizing that there’s an actual human on the other side of the screen?
• Set boundaries by declaring a social media cutoff point in the evening.?
• Charge your phone outside of your bedroom — you’ll sleep better and be less likely to be sucked into an outrage-generating social media session.

Controlled breathing techniques have also been found to help us respond to an amygdala hijack. When we’re in fight-or-flight mode, our sympathetic nervous system is heightened. Focusing on our breath activates our parasympathetic nervous system, lowering our levels of the stress hormone cortisol. And as neuroscience shows, it only takes 60-90 seconds to move from the sympathetic to parasympathetic nervous system.?One of my favorite methods is called “box breathing,” which is done by simply inhaling for a count of four, holding for a count of four and exhaling for a count of four.?

Our social instincts can produce connection or polarization, openness or fear. We can be a group that lifts each other up, or — to return to Le Bon — an intolerant, authoritarian mob, with no time for doubt or nuance, and always on the lookout for enemies. All of these instincts have a biological basis. By shaping our relationship with media, social media and technology, we can control which ones prevail.

This is part 3 in a series on social media and outrage culture. To read more and follow the links to all the stories and quotes,?click here. Parts 1 and 2 can be found?here?and?here.

Fall Back… to Sleep

It’s that time of year again — when?we do a massive global experiment on our circadian rhythms by changing our clocks by an hour. At least this time we’re gaining an hour — hopefully of sleep, and not just sneaking in tonight’s new episode of “Succession,” which I highly recommend, though not as a substitute for that?extra hour of sleep. But even though “falling back” is easier than “springing forward,” our circadian rhythms are so sensitive that?studies show?that hour’s difference — in both times of the year —?can raise our risk of stroke. Here are?some tips?on how to make the transition as smooth as possible. Unfortunately,?they don't include how to change the time on the microwave oven, which, unlike our phones, doesn’t change automatically. Worst case,?just wait six months and it’ll be back on time!?

Getting Rid of Virtual Fatigue, in Just 60 Seconds

Thrive Reset on Webex

One of my favorite pieces of science is how we can course-correct from stress in as little as a 60 to 90 seconds. What that means — and why it makes me so optimistic — is that, yes, of course stress is unavoidable in life, but with tools to interrupt it, cumulative stress?can?be avoided. And the tool we’ve built for just that purpose is Thrive Reset, which allows us to reduce stress and reset in just 60 seconds. To combat virtual fatigue, we brought Reset directly into Zoom meetings, and now I’m delighted to announce we’ve partnered with Cisco to bring it to millions more by integrating Reset into Webex meetings. There are six Resets to choose from — and 100 more coming — on themes like gratitude, movement and reframing problems. Each 60-second Thrive Reset includes?a guided breathing bubble that helps you inhale, exhale and bring yourself back to center. Focusing on the rising and falling of our breath, even for 60 seconds, activates our parasympathetic nervous system, lowering our cortisol levels. So yes, these are stressful times and there will always be daily challenges, but we should also remember that we have the power to manage stress in the moment so it doesn’t become cumulative and lead to burnout. Download Thrive Reset in Webex?here. And if you use Zoom, you can download Thrive Reset in Zoom?here.?

Changing Lives and Inspiring Others, One Better Choice At a Time?

Photo: Arvis Abban, Walmart Customer; Fredericksburg, VA

Reading the stories of how Thrive Challenge winners have changed their lives never fails to inspire me. Walmart and Thrive Global have launched the Thrive Challenge to help Walmart’s millions of associates and customers boost their well-being and resilience. It’s based on the idea that the best way to make meaningful changes is to start as small as possible with Microsteps and find support and inspiration from others. For instance, I love Anna Masse’s story. “Before the Thrive Challenge,” she writes, “you’d have found chips and cookies. If you come to my house now, you’ll find tangerines and apples. I can walk four miles now, and I couldn’t walk one before. Now everything seems possible.” Or Sherin Thomas, who changed her diet, lost 34 pounds and is keeping the weight off. She wrote on Facebook why winning $50,000 with the Thrive Challenge is different from winning the lottery. “It inculcated discipline and accountability... [A] lottery cannot and will never be able to equip me with these qualities that would make me a better person. Any day, I would prefer a Thrive journey over winning a lottery.” What I love is that the Thrive Challenge doesn’t just motivate people to achieve their goals, it helps them reconnect with themselves, with others and with their community — in short, to live a more fulfilling life. Every story is a testament to how much we can transform our lives through the power of Microsteps, community and storytelling, and I’m so excited for more people to get inspired and try their own Thrive Challenge.?You can read more about the Thrive Challenge in this?piece?I wrote with Walmart Chief People Officer Donna Morris?here.

Before You Go

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Book of the Month

Watch my conversation with Shelly Tygielski on her new book "Sit Down to Rise Up"

Sit Down to Rise Up: How Radical Self-Care Can Change the World, by Shelly Tygielski. All through the pandemic, Shelly has been one of my constant touchstones of inspiration, hope and joy. One of the hardest consequences of this time has been the added pandemic of disconnection and loneliness. Shelly has responded?with the Pandemic of Love, which is the name of the amazingly successful mutual aid organization she founded. Shelly is the true embodiment of her new book’s central thesis — that?“there is an undeniable and intricate connection between our inner work and the outer world.” So by showing up for ourselves, we’ll be better able to show up for others — and begin changing the world.?One of the things we’ve all learned through the pandemic is the value of human connection. And as Shelly has shown connection — with ourselves, with others, with something larger than ourselves — is profoundly transformative. “Just being present for someone is a deeply divine act,” Shelly?writes, “something that I believe is the ultimate gift we were made to share with others.”?

Moment of Awe

The aurora borealis, or “northern lights,” was?visible?in more of the U.S. than usual this month, and it was spectacular!

Photo: Greg Ash /?spaceweather.com

Best,