This is going to sound a little bit counter intuitive, since I posted this to a social media site and you’re reading this on a social media site but… social media is bad for us and we shouldn’t use it as much as we do.
In fact, in this era of social distancing it may be time to do some social media distancing as well; a conscious effort to put away our phones and end the countless hours of doom scrolling that we’re currently subjecting ourselves to so that we can clear our heads, regain our sanity, and get back on track after a much needed digital detox.
As Spectator puts it:
“Social media escalates the tensions. It’s a hotbed of anonymous trolls, agents of chaos and bad-faith arguments. It brings out the worst in us because the algorithm rewards us for being tribal, divisive and emotional. It preys on our worst instincts. The algorithm doesn’t want to be fed compassion, nuance and reason. Peace isn’t profitable. Social media demands the scalps of the canceled. It wants nothing less than our souls and war.
So if you feel insane, I promise you — you are not alone. We live in mad times and in an effort to keep up with the chaos, we end up on social media trying to make sense of it all. But there we find an even crazier virtual battleground, and that only feeds the madness in real life. If we want to save ourselves from the toxic virus of hate, we need to start practicing social media distancing. Before it’s too late.”
To be fair, not all social media is bad. Facebook helps us stay in touch with our friends and family, Instagram lets us see beautiful pictures, Twitter keeps us informed, and LinkedIn helps us find jobs. But these same sites are also cesspools of hate. Places where anonymous users go to spread misinformation, rile up others with vile insults and try to get a rise out of people that they don’t even know in real life. It’s a toxic environment. One that we should really think about cleaning up and re-imagining for a post Covid world. But don’t take my word for it. Prince Harry of all people summed it up best in an eloquent essay he wrote for Fast Company:
“A little over four weeks ago, my wife and I started calling business leaders, heads of major corporations, and chief marketing officers at brands and organizations we all use in our daily lives.
Our message was clear: The digital landscape is unwell and companies like yours have the chance to reconsider your role in funding and supporting online platforms that have contributed to, stoked, and created the conditions for a crisis of hate, a crisis of health, and a crisis of truth.
We did this at the same time as the launch of a civil rights and racial justice campaign called Stop Hate For Profit, which sought to change online policies around hate speech—in this case, policies at Facebook—by urging companies that regularly purchase digital ads on the platform to withhold their advertising spending for the month of July. As of the end of last month, the campaign (led by respected organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League, Color of Change, and the NAACP) sent a $7 billion message through withheld ad dollars.
Some may ask why a change campaign would take aim at online advertising. Well, many of us love and enjoy social media. It’s a seemingly free resource for connecting, sharing, and organizing. But it’s not actually free; the cost is high. Every time you click, they learn more about you. Our information, private data, and unknown habits are traded on for advertising space and dollars. The price we’re all paying is much higher than it appears. Whereas normally we’re the consumer buying a product, in this ever-changing digital world, we are the product.
While companies made their own decisions about what to do in July, we felt it necessary to say our part about the rise of an unchecked and divisive attention economy. We’ve always believed that individuals and communities thrive when the frameworks around them are built from compassion, trust, and well-being. Sadly, this belief is at odds with much of what is being experienced by people on social media.
From conversations with experts in this space, we believe we have to remodel the architecture of our online community in a way defined more by compassion than hate; by truth instead of misinformation; by equity and inclusiveness instead of injustice and fearmongering; by free, rather than weaponized, speech. This remodeling must include industry leaders from all areas drawing a line in the sand against unacceptable online practices as well as being active participants in the process of establishing new standards for our online world. Companies that purchase online ads must also recognize that our digital world has an impact on the physical world—on our collective health, on our democracies, on the ways we think and interact with each other, on how we process and trust information. Because, if we are susceptible to the coercive forces in digital spaces, then we have to ask ourselves—what does this mean for our children? As a father, this is especially concerning to me.
In the 1970s, there was a groundbreaking study on the societal effects of lead exposure and kids. The research found a clear connection between lead accumulation in children and their mental development. There’s no debate over the dangers of lead today, but at the time, the development was met with strong resistance from industry leaders (lead was used widespread in products such as gas, house paint, and water pipes). Eventually, sweeping health and environmental reforms were put in place to change this. We knew something was harmful to the health of our children, so we made the necessary changes to keep them safe, healthy, and well.
Researchers I’ve spoken with are studying how social media affects people—particularly young people—and I believe the book of data that we will look back on one day will be incredibly troubling.
Around the world, for many reasons, we are at turning point—one that has the potential to be transformative. In all areas of life, a rebuilding of compassionate, trustworthy communities needs to be at the heart of where we go. And this approach must extend to the digital community, which billions of us participate in every day. But it shouldn’t be punitive. When we do the right thing, when we create safe spaces both online and off—everyone wins. Even the platforms themselves.”
And I couldn’t agree more. We can do better. We should do better. And we owe it to ourselves and to our children to try. So let’s take a step back. Let’s social media distance and look at the bigger picture. Let’s regain our composure. And then let’s redesign our online spaces so that they are safe places where the truth runs free and hate is nowhere to be found.
Is Social Media Distancing the Greatest Idea Ever?
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