Social Media Writing Is Just So Lazy

Villainizing[1] social media is typically a narrow hot take. It’s all puffery and chest pounding with little thought to complexity, individuality, and reality. Sorta like this:?

Delete your accounts, get yourself back into the real world and experience the Outernet again. It’s over, it’s done — social media is officially a desolate wasteland that will only make you less informed and mentally unwell.[2]

I used to think stopping social media use was something that’s mainly beneficial to the individual — you’ll be happier and you’ll eliminate a massive time sink, leaving you with more time to actually connect with the people around you and do something useful with your time. Spending your days getting angry on Twitter or looking at AI-generated slop and interacting with chatbots on Facebook just seems so useless.

Respectfully[3], I disagree. Why? Because the reality is, we live on a planet of 8 billion individuals,[4] a fact many anti-social media writers work very hard to ignore.??

When YOU Are Reduced to “Everyone”

According to the paragraphs above, if you’re on social media …?

… YOU are not living in the “real world.”

… YOU are “less informed” and “mentally unwell.”?

… YOU are less happy.?

… YOU are experiencing a “massive time sink.”

… YOU are not connecting with people.?

… YOU are not doing anything useful with your time.?

… YOU are “getting angry” or “looking at AI-generated slop.”[5]

… YOU are “interacting with chatbots.”

To these tropes,[6] my reply is:

You think you know everyone, but you don’t.

You think you can reduce everyone to a single identity, but you can’t.?

Sorry for your bad experience, but it isn’t everyone’s.?

Your opinions–regardless of how rabid they might be–aren’t reality.?

“Everyone” Is Not Me or You or Them?

For nearly a decade, I’ve worked at a university, and despite the prevalence of social media, many students are happy. Many are mentally well. Many connect with people. Many do useful things with their time. Many participate in clubs. Many volunteer to help the homeless. Many read books. Many play flag football. Many sing in the choir. Many play in the orchestra. Many learn Chinese. Many go skating (roller and ice). Many start small businesses, and on and on and on …. And they do all of this (by some miracle!) while using social media to create music, art, comedy, and ideas but also to lift up their friends, share positive messages, and express themselves in imaginative ways.?

I’m not saying this is representative of all 8 billion people on Earth, but it is representative of billions and billions of people … my own children included. You—the anti-social media writer—don’t know my kids. Despite what you might say, they ARE NOT generic, cartoonish robots. Rather, they are two unique individuals who use social media in their own personal (sometimes negative, sometimes positive) ways. My teenage daughter uses social media to find music, recipes, and poetry; she shares things that reflect her quirky aesthetic. My son—a musical theatre major—uses social media to highlight his performances, his sense of humor, and his college friends.??

And as social media users, my children DO LIVE IN THE REAL WORLD! In the real word, my daughter loves to bake desserts. In the real world, she draws using old-fashioned paper and pen. In the real world, she volunteers at science camp. In the real world, she practices the euphonium and performs in the orchestra. And my son? In the real world, he works as a campus tour guide. In the real world, he spends long hours learning to tap dance. In the real world, he hosts a theatre podcast. In the real world, he sits at the piano, composing songs and music.?

Football “Is Officially a Desolate Wasteland”

Anti-social media writers revel in telling YOU that because YOU use social media, YOU are unhappy … YOU are wasting time … YOU are depressed, isolated, and disconnected from life. Of course, they NEVER mention their unique “time sinks,” never mention the hours wasted playing fantasy football[7] or reading romance novels[8] or playing video games[9] or publishing on Medium[10] or drinking at bars[11] or watching Netflix.[12]?

The rebuttal (I suspect) might go like this: “Well, those other things aren’t as bad as social media!” My reply: “Is the plank in your eye bothering you?” But if you’re gonna play the mine’s-not-as-bad-as-yours card, then let’s start by unpacking America’s “unhealthy” obsession with football:[13]

Millions of football fans are wasting time ….?

• A quarter of 2023 survey participants reportedly spent between two and four hours a week watching NFL games. Fifteen percent spent more than six hours a week.
• The NFL averaged 21.0 million viewers per game during 2024’s opening week, making it the most-watched Week 1 on record.
• Over 127 million TV viewers spent their evening glued to this year's Super Bowl.
• A startling 96.6% of fantasy football players in the U.S. admit devoting work hours to their virtual teams, spending an average of nearly 7 hours/week maintaining their teams.?

Millions of football fans are wasting money ….

• The average price of a Super Bowl ticket was $8,076 in the final weeks leading up to the game.
• The American Gaming Association projected that American adults would bet $35 billion throughout the 2024 NFL season.?
• A 2023 study estimated that the average Philadelphia Eagles fan would spend a total of $308.46 on branded merchandise.
• Las Vegas Raiders fans pay a premium for home games. In 2023, the average Raiders home ticket sold on the secondary market for $517.

Millions of football fans are physically and mentally unwell ….?

• Youth tackle football athletes had an estimated 18 times more head impacts per practice and 19 times more head impacts per game than flag football athletes.
• For many avid football fans, “sports fan depression” can impact their life for days to weeks—especially after the emotional attachment related to an event such as the Super Bowl.??
• Research on sports rivalry has emphasized fans’ social identity and the threat posed by rivals. The results consistently demonstrate that NFL fans harbor significantly greater animosity toward rivals than in other leagues.

So football (I guess) is nothing more than a time wasting, money sucking, anger inducing, addiction creating, injury producing pastime. Despite this, I love football … millions of people love it! And yet, someone who doesn’t love it might easily lump every individual fan into one wasteful, angry, addictive identity. Doing this—reducing every football fan to a cardboard cutout—is lazy. Pretending you know the lives of millions and millions of fans … that’s narcissistic.?

Trolls Don’t Just Live on Social Media

When it comes to social media, I’m tired of the (let’s call it) “lazy lumping.” “Lazy lumping” is a tool for narrow thinkers who pander to simplicity while omitting complexity. Anti-social media writers don’t know you, and it’s impossible to know all 8 billion people on Earth. So they “lazy lump” everyone (you included) into a single identity. This is reality portrayed by the unimaginative. It’s a short cut to avoid nuances, counterfactuals, and variability.?

With the epidemic of “lazy lumping,” holier-than-thou writing has become easier. Today, there are more and more sinless crusaders who pile rigid opinion upon messy truth. In a way, these writers are the very thing they hate the most … one-sided, finger-wagging, ignore-the-truth “trolls” who condemn widely and recklessly and (worst of all) hypocritically. In public, they damn YOU for using/enjoying social media, but in private, they have their own (unpublished) vices … gorging on fast food or watching pornography or spending thousands of dollars to see Taylor Swift. Despite this, what do they talk about? They talk about YOU—the social media user—condemning YOU as unwell and unhappy. And what’s subtly implied? That they’re better than YOU, that they’re more balanced, more self-governing, and so much more perfect.

[1] When I write about social media, I always include the caveat/acknowledgment that social media has its problems, addictions, and dangers. However, these problems, addictions, and dangers are not universal, nor are they definitively crushing in their severity. The other thing to note (a truth that’s often buried by anti-social media writers) … social media has proven positives and benefits too:

Understanding why youth use social media can help us understand how to tap into mechanisms to maximize their potential benefits. These reasons include learning, entertainment, relaxation, connection, stress relief, and a normal adolescent tendency to seek out varied and novel experiences. Social media can provide a window to cultural experiences and information and, most obviously, a venue to socialize. Social media can foster positive emotions, as would happen for a young person using the platforms to connect with grandparents who live far away; it can also be used to avoid negative feelings, as might happen when someone watches a funny video or an online music lesson to take their mind off a bad day at school.?

Forming a coherent sense of self and identity are core tasks of adolescent development. In the second decade of life, adolescents define themselves and change their relationship with their parents and other adults. Social media can aid the task, affording young people a place to explore their identity and shape their sense of self.

Teens’ use of social media can support their creativity, especially when the platform has affordances for ownership, association, and visibility. As with many of the benefits and risks of social media, the value of a creative outlet may be more pronounced for different personality types.—National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Health and Medicine Division; Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice; Committee on the Impact of Social Media on Adolescent Health

[2] This article was sparked by “Zuckerberg’s New Meta,” The author writes:

Meta just released an announcement that put the final nail in the coffin for social media having any sort of informative use. Mark Zuckerberg just announced in a video that Meta will be getting rid of fact-checkers and pushing more political content on its users.

I’m in agreement; I definitely don’t like this. But how problematic will this actually be for Facebook’s +3 billion users? Problematic for some, yes, but for many, probably not. My 78-year-old mother loves Facebook; she looks at it nearly every day. And as a Facebook user, she doesn’t live in a political echochamber, nor is she bombarded with smut or violence or trolls. She uses Facebook to share cute messages, follow local foodies, and connect with her friends and family. Despite the narrative, she has yet to encounter a conspiracy or an unkindness or a political assault. The truth is, Facebook isn’t a fragile or divisive universe for all 3 billion of its users; likewise, not everyone is so weak willed and easily duped in the digital world. Yes, those things happen, but those same people are often weak willed and easily duped in the real world (via the news, politicians, celebrities, podcasts, books, etc.) too.?

[3] I didn’t seek this article out. It was served up to me by Medium’s algorithm and hidden behind a paywall. I can only assume the writer wanted this thrust upon me in hopes I’d pay a couple bucks to read it. This notwithstanding, it pains me to disparage a non-journalist’s writing. It takes courage to put one’s self out there, and when someone like myself gets easily offended, it punishes that courage.?

[4] This, in a nutshell, is the reality of social media among 8 billion people:?

The use of social media, like many things in life, may be a constantly shifting calculus of the risky, the beneficial, and the mundane.—National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Health and Medicine Division; Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice; Committee on the Impact of Social Media on Adolescent Health

[5] This raises the question: How much of today’s “writing” is “AI-generated slop”? The answer: much of it::

A surge in AI-generated literature is raising concerns among some who believe this trend could undermine the authenticity and value of the reading experience.

So because of this, should people stop reading?

[6] Where do these tropes come from? Possibly from bad science:?

The perception that social media is a threat may be partially attributed to researchers’ interest in exploring harms. When faced with evidence of a deterioration in young people’s mental health the logical reaction is to first consider the potentially harmful role of new technology. There is also a question of publication bias. The tendency for statistically significant or flashy results to be published and null results to be filed away is a problem across disciplines, although it may be particularly acute in social science. When published literature carries a bias, any subsequent meta-analysis or review will carry that bias forward into overstated conclusions.—National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Health and Medicine Division; Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice; Committee on the Impact of Social Media on Adolescent Health

[7] A startling 96.6% of fantasy football players in the U.S. admit devoting work hours to their virtual teams, spending an average of nearly 7 hours/week maintaining their teams.?

[8] Romance novels generate around $1.44 billion in revenue every year. Stories of love and lust (i.e., not deep intellectual reading) rank as the highest-earning fiction genre.

[9] Sixty-five percent of Gen Z gamers spend over three hours daily playing video games. In addition, 53% spend more than $20 monthly on games. Also, 54% have gaming subscriptions, comparable to music (65%) and video/movie subscriptions (71%).

[10] This one applies to me. I like publishing to Medium, but I don’t have much of an audience, and I don’t make any money from it. Thus, for me, it has neither economic, career, nor ego value. Moreover, pecking on a keyboard every day definitely cuts into my “real world” experiences. So is Medium a “time sink”? YES! But it’s a time sink I enjoy.?

[11] Recent research from Syracuse University shows that “individuals who spend time in bars are at greater risk of heavy drinking than those who spend no time in bars, and risk of heavy drinking is especially high among those who socialize with others for most of the time they are in bars.”

[12] Netflix says subscribers spend an average of two hours each day using the platform. This applies to a total of 282.7 million subscribers globally.

[13] I love football, especially college football. My point isn’t that football is “bad”; it’s that like so many things in the world, football has plenty of negative impacts.?