Social media is sugar. It’s time we limit its negative impact

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Social media is sugar. It’s time we limit its negative impact.

BY Zack Rosen

We all know social media has become highly addictive, so it came as no big surprise when?an internal Facebook memo ?likened the platform to sugar. Despite social media’s innocent beginnings, its growth in popularity has careened into corrosive territory with its AI-driven algorithms, targeted ads, and rampant misinformation.?

Social media’s role in degrading and fraying society has had undeniable consequences for?mental health —making addicts of adults and kids alike. Any parent who has to debate handing these products over to children is surely troubled by this, and for good reason—teenage depression has skyrocketed . Meanwhile, channels like Tik Tok, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram support multi-hundred-billion-dollar market caps built on an assumption by investors of an ever-increasing share of global attention. These platforms are only growing and becoming more powerful.?

The good news is that we have societal experience dealing with other highly addictive and harmful products—alcohol, cigarettes, pharmaceuticals—and while the solutions aren’t perfect, the key is to be proactive—both individually and via governmental action.?

We must start with a clear understanding that we don’t have to be unwitting victims of the features designed to appeal to our digital sweet tooth: incessant social notifications, curated news feeds, artificially enhancing filters, and algorithms tuned to outrage and endless engagement.

As a long-standing proponent of the open web and the promise it holds, I believe that by building more awareness around the dangers of social media and supporting channels that rely less on addiction and work instead to elevate connective discourse and uncorrupted information feeds, we can build better and healthier selves and societies. Here’s how:

STOP BEING VICTIMS AND START BUILDING AWARENESS OF SOCIAL MEDIA’S PERVASIVE PULL

Social media has become a powerful and prolific force in our lives, and if we’re going to reckon with it, we need to incite a personal and societal shift in our consumption patterns. That starts with building greater awareness of the harmful effects.

There are plenty of resources available to help us?break our addiction to social media ?and boost our understanding of its tripwires and underlying advantages, not least of which is the fact that it’s been architected by psychologists, engineers, and powerful businesses to drive behaviors that lead to profit—and control. Remember that even Steve Jobs?wouldn’t let his kids have iPads ?for the same reason we regulate our kids’ candy intake.

I’m not suggesting we abandon social media entirely (though?limiting its use ?is a good idea). But we can make a conscious effort to navigate it more thoughtfully and with eyes wide open to its very real and pervasive effects, much like we do every day when we decide whether or not to give our children candy, or at the very least how much we allow them to have.?

REGULATION IS COMING—BUT IT’S SLOW AND COMPLEX?

In recent years, questions have abounded about who is responsible and liable for what gets posted on social media platforms. Since then, Facebook has banned political advertising, and Section 230 of the Communications Act has been clarified to indicate that?social media companies are indeed liable ?for disinformation and objectionable content posted by users on their platforms.

But this is not a solved problem. The newly dominant TikTok, which shapes so much attention nowadays (closing in on?two hours per day ?for teenage users), is owned and controlled by the Communist Party of China. It’s also becoming known for its?biased search terms and rampant misinformation . It will be a long road to figure out the role of government regulation of these types of platforms.

Wide-sweeping social change takes time and we’re still in the early days. It took more than 60 years for the 1934 Communications Act to become the 1996 Telecommunications Act, and massive updates are required once again. But as governments slowly grapple with how best to manage this powerful and prolific force in our lives, we’re going to need to lead the charge on our own.?

SUPPORT AND INVEST IN A HEALTHIER MEDIA DIET

If social media is analogous to sugar, then what is the digital equivalent of eating our vegetables? I believe it involves supporting the parallel growth of democratized publications that are conversely creating an unmistakable net good in society.?

As some of the early online outlets have evolved into credible and highly respected platforms, such as Wikipedia, today we can also access channels like Substack, Medium, and an?ever-growing list ?of podcasts. Local outlets, too, have?tapped into open-web-powered platforms ?to modernize—and monetize—their journalistic offerings and bring production efficiencies to online content streams. Even long-form narrative storytelling has?made a comeback ?in recent years in mainstays like the New York Times and Washington Post.

Although healthier content choices are more accessible and appealing today than they were even a few years ago, ultimately, we need to invest in making these outlets—and their business models—more robust if they are to compete with social media’s Goliaths. We can’t force people to eat their vegetables, but we can make it easier to engage in quality content on the open web.

The bottom line??

We need to stop assuming we are victims of runaway algorithms and addictive technologies in the attention economy. We have the choice to manage our social media sugar addiction in the same way we design our consumption habits, and if we care about the future of our society, we can seek out online sources that are powered by real journalism and standards, that don’t facilitate the propagation of misinformation, and that don’t censor discourse on the critical issues of our time. Ultimately, we control who gets our attention.

Zack Rosen is the co-founder and CEO of?Pantheon , an established leader in WebOps, and a passionate proponent of advancing the open web.

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