The social corrosion caused by Facebook and other platforms isn’t a side effect of bad management and design decisions. It’s baked into social media itself.
There are many reasons Facebook and the social media companies that came after it are implicated in democratic breakdown, communal violence around the world and cold civil war in America. They are engines for spreading disinformation and algorithmic jet fuel for conspiracy theories. They reward people for expressing anger and contempt with the same sort of dopamine hit you get from playing slot machines.
My position on banning TikTok hasn't changed. I don't know if I support banning it, but I do encourage everyone to stop using it. It's digital tobacco, every bit as harmful to the mind.
Throughout history, every single time something's gotten better, it's become somebody has come along to say, “This is stupid. We can do better.” It's the critics that drive improvement. It's the critics who are the true optimists.
How does social media drive political polarization? Justin Rosenstein explains in The Social Dilemma:
You look over at the other side, and you start to think, “How can those people be so stupid? Look at all of this information that I'm constantly seeing. How are they not seeing that same information?” And the answer is, they're not seeing that same information.
This is by no means the only way social media drives political polarization. It turns out, showing users gradually more extreme content is also a great way to keep them addicted. More addiction means more screen time, more ad impressions, and ultimately more money for these companies. Still, it's a great place to start when describing the problem. The other side is not seeing what you see. In fact, they're getting a constant stream of information about how wrong you are, and you'll hardly ever see a drop of it yourself.
As a rule of thumb, I try not to get worked up about people I haven't met in real life. “Supporters of Political Candidate Want Toast Banned,” a headline might read. Well, I've never met anyone in the real world who wants toast banned. Until I do, I'm not going to worry about it.
Of course it's important to notice and criticize bad ideas before they take hold. At the same time, with social media and the lazy, clickbait journalism it fuels, every bad idea now has a moment in the reactionary spotlight, and most will never affect much. Let's focus on the big problems of the day, the ones we'd notice with or without sensationalism.
If I'm wrong about the dangers of social media, so be it. In fact, that would be a good outcome. We would need to find another cause of the discord and the weird rebellious conformity of our time, but they wouldn't be caused by the tools that are now so intertwined with society, and that would be a good thing. On the other hand, if I'm right about the dangers of social media, popular opinion will inevitably come to understand that harm more clearly over time. There will be many casualties along the way, but learning the hard way is sometimes necessary. Either way, it will be fine. I don't think I'm wrong, which I why I continue not to use social media, but it will be fine.
One of the trickier aspects of digital life is the constant pressure to opine. To have a strong opinion on a subject, and to share it with the world. It’s literally baked into the design of the most popular platforms… ‘What’s on your mind, Jamie?’ wonders Facebook. Some of the finest minds in the world work extremely hard to encourage you to tell everyone what you’re thinking and feeling. No wonder it’s hard to resist.
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If I am honest, I know very little about most bad things going on in the world. Certainly not enough that sharing my view will inform or educate or enlighten. Yet whenever I see a news report, an urgent need rises up: what shall I say about this? I have a feeling about it – which must be shared! (And ideally in emotionally charged language, since that will receive more interactions).
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What social media has done is to make silence an active – rather than the default – choice. To speak publicly is now so easy that not doing it kind-of-implies you don’t know or don’t care about what’s going on in the world. Who wants to look ignorant or indifferent? And besides, who doesn’t want to appear kind or wise, or morally upstanding in front of others?
But the result is an undirected anger from all sides: frenetic, purposeless, habitual and above all moralising.
I agree. Of course we should criticize wrongdoing, but knee-jerk, impersonal, emotionally-charged reactions are sometimes profoundly counter-productive, and that's precisely what social media selects for. I actually wrote a blog post in August expressing very similar concerns, and I wish I could have quoted Jamie in it.
I use the Clickbait Remover add-on in every browser that supports it. It replaces ridiculous, attention-grabbing YouTube video thumbnails with images that are actually grabbed from the video. In that way, it defeats the dishonest alarmism that creators employ to win your attention. It's one more reason I disable the YouTube app on my phone, using Android's wellness tools to limit the app to 0 minutes per day, and only use YouTube through web browsers, where these add-ons can take effect.
There's another add-on, DeArrow which de-shittifies both thumbnails and titles. I don't use it because I feel it's a little overzealous and because I think its settings UI is overwhelming, a pet peeve, but others might like it. It's made by Ajay Ramachandran, who also made SponsorBlock, which skips over sponsored content in videos.
I use the Unhook add-on in all browsers to remove all addictive and manipulative features from YouTube's website: recommended videos, trending videos, shorts, autoplay, and even the homepage, which has become a hodgepodge of the others. As I've mentioned before, YouTube is just too good at wasting my time. I've actually disabled the YouTube app on my phone, forcing myself to use their website instead, so that I can always benefit from Unhook. I recommend everyone install it.