Ouch! Here come the facts your subconscious figured out but now they’re in black & white…

“What is it about social media that draws you in?” That’s what a dear friend I was visiting with today asked me as we discussed my struggle with this addiction.  “Is it about affirmation?” She asked, prefacing that question with saying it’s out of character for me but that is commonly the situation.  She, like many others, thought that was the only issue for everyone addicted to the internet.  It’s not.  For some it is, but not all.  For me, it’s stimulation.  And frankly, I’m not sure which is worse…the fact that I can’t even sit on the toilet without scrolling my newsfeed or the fact that some people have a constant need for validation from others.  

In both cases, there are hazards.  For me, the hazard is my now non-existent attention span and omnipresent need for stimulation.  For others, it’s a need for validation to an extreme.  For some, it’s a desperation for connection so much so that some will even be obnoxious just to get reactions.  I do, however, think desperation can be a common theme in all cases of internet addiction.

I was telling her about my journal I’ve been keeping.  As mentioned in my previous blog, when I was banned from Facebook I kept a journal of the interactions I would’ve had if I were able.  I was surprised to learn a lot of those interactions were seeded by frustration or disgust.  Things I hate seem to garnish my attention more than not.  I was perpetually frustrated and looking at that journal just spelled it out for me. Sadly, it didn’t shake me enough to quit this addiction but it is a practice I’ve decided to continue.  I no longer interact on posts, I just journal to myself what my thoughts were in that moment.  At the end of the week, I review those thoughts and most of them are pointless to me after the fact. Not sharing my pointless opinion saves me from someone responding with their opposing yet equally pointless opinion. What am I avoiding?  A conversation that often doesn’t go well because someone has to win this battle of opinions.  Someone has to be right.  Some people, not me but many, will take these battles of opinion so far to go to the profile of their opposition and began insulting them on a personal level such as “What do you know? You just work at Walmart and wear outdated low rise jeans that show your gut!” And the person who stoops that low is commonly even less appealing than the person they are insulting. Hashtag laugh out loud.

Anyway…

As promised, I did a little research and found the following conclusions:

• Internet CEOs are the highest paid CEOs that have ever existed in the history of CEOs
• “Never before have a few thousand (technology) designers had the power over billions of people’s thoughts” – Tristan Harris, former Google Design Ethicist, stated while explaining that the company’s goal was to capture your attention as much as possible while also surveilling your activity for capitalistic gain. He referred to this practice as “the attention extraction model”.  Tristan added to this information that the tool of notifications on apps is designed to fuel the model to extract attention by way of addiction.
• Roger McNee, a Facebook investor, described the business as selling users – which means you and me. He clarified that advertisers are facebook’s customers not members of Facebook. As stated by Jaron Lanier, computer scientist, “It’s the gradual, slight, imperceptible change in your own behavior and perception that is the product.” Furthermore, former Facebook Executive Tim Kendall has stated that when he was hired to monetize Facebook through advertising the main idea was to use artificial intelligence to tweak and manipulate user’s behaviors.
• The amount of information that has become available via the internet is beyond measure creating a market of what people do which is why we see things in our feeds that we have been thinking about or talking about according to Jeff Seibert, a former Twitter Executive. “Every action you take is being watched, tracked and measured” Seibert explained, “Each thing you do is carefully monitored and recorded.”
• “We have created a world in which online connection has become primary,” reports Jaron Lanier.  Lanier broke down the process of “exploiting vulnerability in human psychology” stating there are persuasive technology classes for social media application’s staff that are designed to create new ways to modify people’s behavior and these studies have resulted in technologies such as the “like” feature on social media as well as the refreshing of scroll views so that content is always new and appealing.  Lanier harked this as “similar to a slot machine” and advised that “growth hacking” is a class designed to study people’s psyches specifically.  Per Lanier, “We have moved from using technology as a tool to an addiction to technology as a stimulant.”
• The use of the internet as a stimulant has it’s own set of damaging outcomes including the identifiable damage it does to our mind’s ability to focus. Johann Hari wrote an interesting piece on this topic which really impacted me since one of my biggest problems with this addiction is my growing need for constant stimulation and lack of ability to focus anymore. Like me, Hari was motivated to learn more about focus and attention when he realized that his was declining. UK Tech Ethicist James Williams identified 3 types of focus damaged by continued use of these types of apps; attention to immediate tasks (example; you are about to make an important phone call and when you pick up your phone you are distracted by notifications and forget to make the call) and attention to long term goals (when you are constantly distracted you cannot achieve anything), lastly deep/overall attention (when you combine distractions, manipulated emotions, and the power of AI pulling at you – you cannot complete any solid thoughts or actions that would normally be obtainable). Professor/Author Robert Hassan took a hiatus from technology calling it a “extreme digital detox” in which he went on a long term excursion without any devices.  Hassan made this choice after realizing how negatively technology was impacting his attention span and he wrote a book about the experience titled “Uncontained: Digital Disconnection and the Experience of Time”.  Among the many discoveries he had from his personal experiment, Hassan noted that he “found more details” in his memory.
  link to John Hari’s article: CLICK HERE 🙂
• Technology is expanding and evolving exponentially while humans are not. Per Tristan Harris, algorithms are written in a way to grow and change the longer your activity is studied until it is “perfectly tuned to manipulate your time and thoughts”. Harris added “This is overpowering human nature and this is checkmate on humanity.”
• Google search results are tweaked for a “per user response” and the results you find depend on AI’s biography of you as well as your geological location. Think about this for a moment.  If you are searching a political topic in a blue state, your results will be different than someone in a red state’s same search. Inevitably, both participants will believe what they see.  Inevitably, an argument will ensue on social media in which both parties presume they are correct. No one will win the argument except, of course, the financial benefactors (aka the owners of the social media page via advertising and the owners of the information sources via advertising). The more you argue, the more you revisit the argument.  The more you revisit, the wider the division goes between you and the other party…and the larger the income for the financial benefactors.  So, in short, your argument and the way it affects you emotionally are extorting you for profit. Creating echo chambers via AI is causing a polarization in society. AI manipulations do not measure if what you are served is fact or “fake news” rather it is simply giving you what it knows will keep your attention. In fact, it has been proven that misinformation gains more momentum than factual because it is sensationalized and sensationalism sells.
• The power of AI creates less control for society, leaving us torn between who we are and what we actually believe.  The power to globally impact democracy and social behaviors erodes trust, creates culture wars, forms tribalism and cultivates isolation.  Technology is an existential threat by means of igniting the worst in society for profit.
• Dr. Anna Lembke of Stanford University Medical stated “Social media is a drug that directly effects the release of dopamine and the reward pathway”. Lembke explains that mankind was “not built to require such social approval at such high quantities and frequencies” and that we “create an online personality to receive short term awards”. Psychiatry studies have shown the effects of this by indicating increases in depression and suicide since social media became so prominent in society. According to Lembke, in the past society’s main source of information and entertainment was television that had protections in place to safeguard the effects on society but we “do not have these protections and regulations with the internet the way older generations had with television”.
• We are disconnecting from each other using the very tools that are supposed to connect us. Last week I saw a friend I haven’t seen in decades and she said something that struck me, she said “I guess we really don’t have anything to talk about since we see everything on social media already.” That was like a punch to the gut because she was so right. Also, when I think of this disconnect, I think about a time a few years ago when I was new to Los Angeles and looking to make friends and I saw a group of girls sitting at a table all laughing and smiling and taking selfies of their group having so much fun with their drinks held high and their smiles wider than the horizon. I thought, this looks like a fun group, but as I approached them I realized that quick glimpse was a fake moment and the rest of the evening their faces were down as they gazed at their phones and counted the attention their photos emulating a good time garnished while actually not having a good time at all. It was rather depressing and a disturbing image of society today.
• “Snapchat Dysmorphia” is a real mental health condition that has arisen in the wake of social media which applies to all social media platforms rather than Snapchat alone. It’s name, however, came from the capability of editing photos which originated with Snapchat.  With this condition, you will find people of all ages (but predominantly teenagers) seeking plastic surgery to look more like they do in the photos of themselves they filter. Along side of the dangers of plastic surgery, other dangers for this condition include depression, eating disorders, isolation, suicide and obsession.
• Compulsive comparisons of other’s lifestyles to your own is another mental health condition that has escalated to extreme measures since the birth of social media.  People do not realize that so often what we see of others on social media is relatively false or exaggerated (as well as images edited to improve the appearance or even the backgrounds changed to more exotic places via photoshop).  There is a vicious cycle of misleading profile personalities on social media generating negative emotions from sadness to lust to hate and much, much more.
• Misinformation, as previously discussed, is fed to society for profit.  It is a manipulation that sometimes comes packaged so well you could never imagine it is misinformation. The damage of misinformation, however, can lead to simple things such as blocking a friend or relative on your social media or expand to completely destroying relationships both on and off of social media.  Misinformation can lead to severe illness or death if it involves medical details or it can lead to violence if it touches on an emotional hot button. Consider these topics; people ingesting ivermectin under the premise that it prevents covid and vigilantes yielding weapons and invading a pizza parlor because it was rumored to have a secret child trafficking operation in it’s (nonexistent) basement.
• Research shows that 1 in 3 social media users experience harassment at some point or another.  Harassment in a digital world where all of your personal information can be found by a few clicks is dangerous at best.  There are multiple levels of internet harassment and while some are as simple as poking fun, others can be as extreme as causing someone to lose their job, exploiting one’s personal information or photos, stalking victims and putting them in danger are among a few.
• The mentality of an “internet troll” is more dangerous than we realize.  They aren’t just a burden to overlook. Psychological studies indicate that these types of people have specific deficits in their psyche that should not be overlooked such as; Psychopathy, sadism and apathy. For these reasons, it is impossible to appeal to their sense of humanity as it doesn’t exist. They aren’t just people with low self-worth, as I had previously assumed, but their character is actually far more complex. This is why it is best to not engage no matter how tempting.

And so I close with stating that I hope this information is as useful to you as it was to me.  My sources of this information were mainly derived from direct quotes of former employees of Facebook, Google, Twitter, Snapchat and Pintrest. Other sources were psychology articles from various universities and medical practices and journalists who have written on these topics.

My battle with this addiction is ongoing, but in light of focusing more on these aspects I have to add that (over the last 2 weeks of putting this together) my journaling of what I would’ve said and done on Facebook has steadily declined which means I am steadily losing interest.