essay on social media has made us unsocial

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The Era of Antisocial Social Media

Sara Wilson

essay on social media has made us unsocial

Young people’s behaviors are changing. How will businesses adapt?

When you look at who is — and more importantly, who is not — driving the growth and popularity of social platforms, a key demographic appears to be somewhat in retreat: young people. They’re craving privacy, safety, and a respite from the throngs of people on social platforms (throngs that now usually include their parents), and gravitating toward more intimate destinations. The author has dubbed these “digital campfires.” She outlines three kinds of campfires, including the characteristics of each, as well as how brands are successfully reaching these audiences.

Social platforms are still reporting robust growth — yes, even Facebook — despite a growing chorus of opposition. Social conversation continues to shape everything from culture to the media cycle to our most intimate relationships . And we now spend more time than ever on our phones , with endless scrolling through our social feeds being a chief reason why.

Sara Wilson helps brands, publishers and high-profile individuals find, engage and grow devoted audiences across digital channels. As the founder of SW Projects , she has advised clients including Nike, Bumble, the New York Times, National Geographic, Sony Pictures Television, Bustle, Overheard, and others. Prior to SW Projects, Sara oversaw lifestyle partnerships at Facebook & Instagram. Sara is also the creator of The Digital Campfire Download, where she interviews the entrepreneurs behind the fastest-growing online communities today. You can follow her on Twitter @ wilsonspeaks or on LinkedIn @ saraewilson .

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Is Social Media Making Us Less Social?

Written by Steve Rose

Identity, purpose, and belonging, 15 comments(s).

On the go? Listen to the audio version of the article here:

In an age where we are becoming more connected through social media every day, it sometimes feels like we are also becoming less social.

Why go through all of the inconvenience of meeting up in person when you can simply catch up online?

Within the last decade, technology has profoundly shifted the nature of human communication.

Some say we are “hyper-social,” always connected and communicating with multiple people at the same time. Others would say we have become “anti-social,” glued to our devices, and lacking interpersonal skills. So which is it?

Is social media making us less social?

Social Media is making us less social when used to compare oneself to others, contributing to higher levels of loneliness and lower levels of well-being among frequent users. It can be social when used to connect with others.

Let’s take a look at the research.

Also, if you or someone you know is struggling with mental health issues, you can check out my resource page for suggestions on how to find help.

Social Media Contributes to Social Isolation

The first study looking at this phenomenon was published in 1998, around the time when many people were starting to use the internet.

The researchers followed 169 people during the first two years of their internet use to determine if this new technology made them more social or less social, finding:

“…greater use of the Internet was associated with declines in participants’ communication with family members in the household, declines in the size of their social circle, and increases in their depression and loneliness.”

This was seen as quite the paradox, given that the individuals were using the internet extensively as a communication technology.

A 2004 study comparing internet use to face-to-face interaction found a similar conclusion, stating:

…the Internet can decrease social well-being, even though it is often used as a communication tool.

Has anything changed since then?

Ten years later, a 2014 study on college students suffering from internet addiction found:

Results show that excessive and unhealthy Internet use would increase feelings of loneliness over time…[.] This study also found that online social contacts with friends and family were not an effective alternative for offline social interactions in reducing feelings of loneliness.

In her recent book, iGen , Jean Twenge writes about the generation born after 1994, finding high rates of mental health issues and isolation:

“A stunning 31% more 8th and 10th graders felt lonely in 2015 than in 2011, along with 22% more 12th graders”…[.] All in all, iGen’ers are increasingly disconnected from human relationships.

She argues the increasing level of screen-time and decreasing degree of in-person interaction leaves igen lacking social skills:

“In the next decade we may see more young people who know just the right emoji for a situation—but not the right facial expression.”

A 2016 study comments on this generational phenomenon, stating:

It is surprising then that, in spite of this enhanced interconnectivity, young adults may be lonelier than other age groups, and that the current generation may be the loneliest ever.

The correlation between internet use and isolation is fairly established in the literature. But let’s not paint the whole internet with the same brush.

A 2014 study highlights the psychological costs and benefits derived from social media use, stating:

…online tools create a paradox for social connectedness. On one hand, they elevate the ease in which individuals may form and create online groups and communities, but on the other, they can create a source of alienation and ostracism.

It turns out the answer may be a bit more complicated.

Let’s take a look at the specific factors that make the difference.

Social Media Can Be Social (If used to connect)

A 2016 study with the apt subtitle, “Why an Instagram picture may be worth more than a thousand Twitter words,” finds that image-based social media platforms like Instagram and Snapchat may be able to decrease loneliness because of the higher levels of intimacy they provide.

Another 2016 study , specifically looking at Instagram use, found that it isn’t the platform that matters. It is the way the platform is used that matters.

The researchers studied Instagram use among 208 undergraduate students, finding there was one thing that made all the difference: “the social comparison orientation.”

What is social comparison orientation?

It’s when you compare yourself to others on social media. For example, you may find yourself passively scanning through an endless feed of finely curated photos, wishing you had a different body, a different job, a different life !

It’s the sense that everyone has it better than you, and that you’re missing out on all of the best events, vacations, and products.

Students who rated high on social comparison orientation were more likely to widely broadcast their posts in an attempt to gain status. Students who rated low were more likely to use the platform to connect with others meaningfully.

A 2008 study on internet use among older adults supports this distinction, finding:

…greater use of the Internet as a communication tool was associated with a lower level of social loneliness. In contrast, greater use of the Internet to find new people was associated with a higher level of emotional loneliness.

Using the internet as a communication tool can decrease loneliness.

Experimental evidence in a 2004 study , highlights this by measuring a person’s level of loneliness throughout multiple intervals as they engage in an online chat. They concluded:

Internet use was found to decrease loneliness and depression significantly, while perceived social support and self-esteem increased significantly.

Although chatting online can decrease loneliness, what about using social media platforms to post status updates?

A 2012 study conducted an experiment to determine if posting a Facebook status increases or decreases loneliness. Yes, this is an actual experiment.

The researchers told one group of participants to increase their number of status updates for one week. They didn’t give any instructions to a second control group. Results revealed:

(1) that the experimentally induced increase in status updating activity reduced loneliness, (2) that the decrease in loneliness was due to participants feeling more connected to their friends on a daily basis, and (3) that the effect of posting on loneliness was independent of direct social feedback (i.e., responses) by friends.

These results may seem to contradict the previous finding that social media broadcasting is correlated with increased loneliness, but there is a crucial difference: the social comparison orientation.

In this experiment, the researchers did not differentiate between users who had high or low levels of social comparison. The users in the group being told to update their status more frequently were not told to scan their news feeds more often, nor was their social media use manipulated to alter their level of social comparison.

So what is the key lesson here?

Using social media in a way that connects us with others can make us less lonely and more social.

Unfortunately, as social media use increases, we are becoming lonelier.

This trend suggests we may not be using social media in the most social ways, comparing ourselves to others. In addition, we may be sacrificing in-person interaction for the convenience of social media interaction. Both of these factors increase the likelihood of experiencing social isolation.

If you are interested in reading more on the psychology of social media, you can check out my comprehensive post on the topic here: Why We Are Addicted To Social Media: The Psychology of Likes .

In that article, I go deep into the research on what keeps our brains hooked on social media likes and how you can use social media in a healthier way.

Fascinated by ideas? Check out my podcast:

Struggling with an addiction.

If you’re struggling with an addiction, it can be difficult to stop. Gaining short-term relief, at a long-term cost, you may start to wonder if it’s even worth it anymore. If you’re looking to make some changes, feel free to reach out. I offer individual addiction counselling to clients in the US and Canada. If you’re interested in learning more, you can send me a message here .

Other Mental Health Resources

If you are struggling with other mental health issues or are looking for a specialist near you, use the Psychology Today therapist directory here to find a practitioner who specializes in your area of concern.

If you require a lower-cost option, you can check out BetterHelp.com . It is one of the most flexible forms of online counseling. Their main benefit is lower costs, high accessibility through their mobile app, and the ability to switch counselors quickly and easily, until you find the right fit.

*As an affiliate partner with Better Help, I receive a referral fee if you purchase products or services through the links provided.

As always, it is important to be critical when seeking help, since the quality of counselors are not consistent. If you are not feeling supported, it may be helpful to seek out another practitioner. I wrote an article on things to consider here .

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15 Comments

that’s just it, people often mistake being connected on a more personal level with the total number of “Friends” they have on FB or MySpace or whatever OTHER forms of social networking, and they often neglect to realize, that face-to-face interaction is what makes these connections between people more intimate…

Exactly. Social media can supplement your social life if used to connect, but can’t be a substitute for it. Thanks for the comment! Great to connect with you again. It has been a while since I’ve posted.

Yeah but now, modern day people tend to use social media as their only FORM of connection, it’s like if you don’t exist on FB or other forms of social netowrking sites, you practctically, don’t exist at all!

With the trend toward increasing loneliness, it would for sure suggest social media is replacing in-person interaction.

one of the damning statistics on the recent programme Pllanet Children was 97% of primary school children were taken to school by an adult. They spend less time outside than those in prison. Our kids are getting fatter. They live in a bubble and social media swells that bubble and the vision of themselves becomes increasingly distorted. My grandkid loves phones because mum and dad always have their noses in their phones. The grandkid isn’t content with a kid-on phone. She wants the real one, and she’s just over a year old. We create our own hell, but our kids jump in with both feet. Why shouldn’t they? Mum and dad do it and it’s vastly entertaining. Social media swallows time. Why am I adding to it here? God knows.

Thanks for sharing this fact and your personal experience! I think you might be interested in this book on the subject of bubble wrapped children: Free-Range Kids, How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children (Without Going Nuts with Worry)

Thanks for raising this issue, Steve. I’ve tried, without success, to arrange a lunch-meet with a dear friend–just half-hour away by bus–who has fallen victim to FB’s false promise of connection. Since I’ve long escaped from FB-addiction, I no longer know how she’s doing.

Glad to see you’ve been able to gain a sense of control! I hope your friend is well and wish her all the best.

In a restaurant, I went to a couple both staring deeply and silently at their phones and said, “That’s true love.” They laughed.

lol! Nice one!

Not up on the research, but it is fascinating. Might we be getting the correlation confused? Could it be that people who are more lonely are more likely to spend time on social media in search of connection? Is this controlled in the research?

From the research I’ve seen so far, it seems that social anxiety is the confounding variable between loneliness and increased social media use. Also, Jean Twange looks at this question in her book igen and finds that the research supports the hypothesis that social media use leads to increased loneliness. A couple of experiments I cited here use a control and don’t support that hypothesis, but they are fairly limited because they only look at narrow forms of social media use like status updates or chatting with an anonymous person.

Correctly said.

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The Power of Social Connection | Steve Rose PhD - […] forms of addiction are especially focused on the “social” theme. My article, “Is Social Media Making us Less Social?”…

Social Media is Making Us Unsocial

The Social Dilemma: How Social Media is Making Us Unsocial

Disclosure: Some of the links on this page may contain affiliate links.

Social media has revolutionized the way we communicate and connect with others, but it’s also changing the way we interact in real life. With the rise of curated feeds and endless scrolling, social media is making us more unsocial than ever before.

Learn about the impact of social media on our social lives and what we can do to stay connected in meaningful ways.

The Addictive Nature of Social Media

Social media is designed to be addictive, with features like notifications, likes, and comments triggering dopamine releases in our brains.

This can lead to compulsive behavior, such as constantly checking our phones for updates or feeling anxious when we’re away from social media for too long.

It’s important to be aware of these addictive tendencies and take steps to limit our social media use if necessary.

The Impact of Curated Feeds on Our Perception of Reality

Curated feeds on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram can create a distorted perception of reality. These feeds are designed to show us content that we’re most likely to engage with, based on our past behavior.

Which means that we’re often only seeing a small portion of the content that’s available, and it may not be representative of the world as a whole.

This can lead to a skewed view of reality, where we only see the highlights of other people’s lives and compare ourselves unfavourably.

It’s important to remember that social media is not a reflection of real life, and to take breaks from it if necessary to maintain a healthy perspective.

The Rise of Cyberbullying and Online Harassment

Unfortunately, social media has also given rise to cyberbullying and online harassment. With the ability to hide behind anonymous usernames, people feel emboldened to say things they wouldn’t normally say in person.

This can have devastating effects on the mental health and well-being of those targeted. It’s important for social media platforms to take a strong stance against cyberbullying and harassment, and for individuals to speak out against it and support those who are affected.

The Effect of Social Media on Mental Health

Social media has been linked to negative effects on mental health, including increased feelings of anxiety, depression, and loneliness.

The constant comparison to others and the pressure to present a perfect image can lead to feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem.

Additionally, the addictive nature of social media can lead to decreased productivity and disrupted sleep patterns. It’s important to be mindful of our social media use and take breaks when necessary to prioritize our mental health.

The Importance of Setting Boundaries and Taking Breaks

With the constant stream of notifications and updates, it can be easy to get lost in the world of social media.

However, it’s important to set boundaries and take breaks to prioritize our mental health. This can include turning off notifications during certain times of the day, limiting social media use to a certain amount of time per day, or taking a complete break from social media for a period of time.

By setting these boundaries and taking breaks, we can reduce the negative effects of social media on our mental health and improve our overall well-being.

Unsocial Media: The Real Effects of More Screen Time

Loss of real-life interaction hampers social development..

Posted April 25, 2022 | Reviewed by Ekua Hagan

A significant amount of real-life social interaction seems essential for the development of emotional and personal skills.
Research suggests that today's youth has about half the exposure to critical real-life social interaction that pre-internet generations did.
Trends in poor social development among young people suggest the need for urgent attention and specific strategies to enhance social competence.

Way back in the last millennium, one of my early psychology teachers told me how he had just finished some research suggesting that people who were in a “weaker” position in a negotiation opted for phone calls over in-person meetings. The assumption was that a telephone could cover up the non-verbal cues that might give away their weaker negotiating position.

If a telephone allows a person to hide important communication cues, what about the omnipresent text message? IMHO a text message reveals none of the subtleties of communication – LOL. The presence of emojis is testimony to the fact that such non-verbal information is important but needs to be, and can be, fabricated. And is your emotional response to an emoji the same as it is to a real emotion genuinely expressed by a person standing in front of you?

How Real Is Virtual Interaction?

And at the dawning of the age of Zoom, how realistic is virtual communication? What is missing? Is critical social and emotional information accurately reflected when people are, for example, seated in front of a green screen that shows them floating in outer space or talking to you from the top of the Himalayas?

Perhaps these issues make interesting reading but are really of no consequence. After all, virtual meetings are not only here to stay but will soon threaten to change “reality” altogether.

However, evidence is mounting that such virtual communication is wreaking developmental havoc on the generation who were born into the internet age.

The Mental State of the World

Sapien Labs is a non-profit organization that conducts research on mental health throughout the world. Their recent Mental State of the World Report shows some very concerning trends that reflect other data collected by a variety of organizations in the last few years.

In previous similar studies, Stone et al (2010) reported 2008 data that showed the 18-24 year age group was amongst the happiest and well-adjusted groups across the age spectrum. Along the same lines, Keyes et al., (2019) showed a decline in depression amongst this age group from 1991 to 2011—but by 2018, the trend had reversed. Twenge et al (2018) reported that depression and suicide rates increased between 2010 and 2015, especially amongst females and one other group: those who were most active on social media .

While there presumably are numerous explanations for this decline in mental health and increase in suicide rates, numerous studies have focused on social media as a possible cause.

In a large national sample of 40,337 children and adolescents, Twenge et al. (2018) found that:

“Among 14- to 17-year-olds, high users of screens (7+ h/day vs. low users of 1 h/day) were more than twice as likely to ever have been diagnosed with depression, ever diagnosed with anxiety , treated by a mental health professional, or have taken medication for a psychological or behavioral issue) in the last 12 months.”

In another study, Kelly et al (2018) reported, “Greater social media use is related to online harassment, poor sleep, low self-esteem , and poor body image ; in turn, these related to higher depressive symptom scores.”

Sapien Labs uses their own Mental Health Quotient (MHQ) that measures a number of mental health variables on a continuous 300-point scale, where each of the 6 categories is divided into 50-point units: Distressed—Struggling—Enduring—Managing—Succeeding—Thriving.

In their 2021 report based on more than 223,000 responses from 34 countries, Sapien Labs found some distressing trends.

The Enhanced Challenges of Adolescence

The youngest group, 18-24 year-olds, had the worst mental health scores. In fact, an astonishing 44% of this group were “distressed” or “struggling” with their mental health, a finding that was independent of region or country. This compares to just 19% of this age group who were “succeeding” or “thriving."

The areas where the scores were the lowest appeared in two categories: Social Self and Mood and Outlook. The most common complaints were feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and distress.

One reason why higher screen use is related to depression and poorer scores of social self, like low self-confidence and anxiety, is that such usage has replaced real-life interaction that is critical in developing a number of skills, like understanding another’s emotional state and interpreting non-verbal behaviors. Tara Thiagarajan, founder and chief scientist at Sapien, estimates that heavy users of screens have about half the exposure to critical real-life social interaction that pre-internet generations did, potentially rendering an 18-year-old today at the social skill level of a pre-internet 10-year-old.

This might indicate that it’s not so much the massive amounts of screen time per se but the loss of real-life interaction that hampers social development and elevates typical adolescent uncertainty to new levels of mental dysfunction.

More research will help unravel the dangers of high levels of virtual interaction, especially for those who have grown up with technology constantly at their fingertips. In the meantime, anyone involved with children and adolescents needs to ensure that technology does not rob this generation of natural and real-life social interactions, which is how we learn the fundamentals of relating to others and to ourselves.

Mental State of the World Report 2021. Tara Thiagarajan and Jennifer Newsom. Sapien Labs.

https://sapienlabs.org/publications/

Kelly, Y., Zilanawala, A., Booker, C., and Sacker, A. (2018). Social Media Use and Adolescent Mental Health: Findings From the UK Millennium Cohort Study. eClinicalMedicine 6, 59-68. doi: 10.1016/j.eclinm.2018.12.005.

Stone, A.A., Schwartz, J.E., Broderick, J.E., and Deaton, A. (2010). A snapshot of the age distribution of psychological well-being in the United States. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 107(22), 9985-9990. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1003744107.

Twenge, J.M., and Campbell, W.K. (2018). Associations between screen time and lower psychological wellbeing among children and adolescents: Evidence from a population-based study. Preventive medicine reports 12, 271-283. doi: 10.1016/j.pmedr.2018.10.003.

Twenge, J.W., Joiner, T., Rogers, M.L., & Martin, G. (2018) Increases in Depressive Symptoms, Suicide-Related Outcomes, and Suicide Rates Among U.S. Adolescents After 2010 and Links to Increased New Media Screen Time Clinical Psychological Science (2018)

Howard J. Rankin, Ph.D., has advanced degrees in clinical psychology from the University of London and is an author, consultant, and podcast host. He has written, co-written, or ghostwritten more than 50 nonfiction books.

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Allison Graham – How social media makes us unsocial – TEDxSMU 2014

Social Media historian Allison Graham offers a witty and ironic view of a society that feels alone together despite the hundreds of virtual connections we have online. With a global population growing up via Facebook and Twitter and a perceptible shift in human interpersonal connections, the constant need for social self-validation permeates our daily existence. This talk shares the funny and revealing insights of a life lived online and how social media is used to connect and disconnect us.

A graduate of Southern Methodist University, Allison has worked all over the country and globe bringing the written word to life on the big screen. Allison has worked for Artisan Entertainment, Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures, Warner Brothers, New Line Cinema, 20th Century Fox, Miramax and Dreamworks SKG as Assistant Director, Production Manager, and Producer working with such titans as Jerry Bruckheimer, Michael Bay, Timur Bekmamvetov and Tim Burton. She was one of the key business strategists behind The Blair Witch Franchise marketing campaigns, leading the team responsible for revolutionizing the way the Internet and film marketing were viewed.

Allison enjoys cooking from scratch, bicycle rides on flat terrain, conga lines and diving boards.

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Does social media make us more or less lonely? Depends on how you use it

Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Wollongong

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Roger Patulny does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

University of Wollongong provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU.

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Humans are more connected to each other than ever , thanks to smartphones, the web and social media. At the same time, loneliness is a huge and growing social problem.

Why is this so? Research shows social media use alone can’t cure loneliness – but it can be a tool to build and strengthen our genuine connections with others, which are important for a happy life.

To understand why this is the case, we need to understand more about loneliness, its harmful impact, and what this has to do with social media.

The scale of loneliness

There is great concern about a loneliness epidemic in Australia. In the 2018 Australian Loneliness Report, more than one-quarter of survey participants reported feeling lonely three or more days a week.

Studies have linked loneliness to early mortality , increased cardio-vascular disease , poor mental health and depression , suicide , and increased social and health care costs .

But how does this relate to social media?

Read more: How to be a healthy user of social media

More and more Australians are becoming physically isolated. My previous research demonstrated that face-to-face contact in Australia is declining, and this is accompanied by a rise in technology-enabled communication .

Enter social media, which for many is serving as a replacement for physical connection. Social media influences nearly all relationships now.

Navigating the physical/digital interface

While there is evidence of more loneliness among heavy social media users, there is also evidence suggesting social media use decreases loneliness among highly social people .

How do we explain such apparent contradictions, wherein both the most and least lonely people are heavy social media users?

Research reveals social media is most effective in tackling loneliness when it is used to enhance existing relationships, or forge new meaningful connections. On the other hand, it is counterproductive if used as a substitute for real-life social interaction.

Thus, it is not social media itself, but the way we integrate it into our existing lives which impacts loneliness.

I wandered lonely in the cloud

While social media’s implications for loneliness can be positive, they can also be contradictory.

Tech-industry enthusiasts highlight social media’s benefits, such as how it offers easy, algorithimically-enhanced connection to anyone, anywhere in the world, at any time. But this argument often ignores the quality of these connections.

Psychologist Robert Weiss makes a distinction between “social loneliness” – a lack of contact with others – and “emotional loneliness” , which can persist regardless of how many “connections” you have, especially if they do not provide support, affirm identity and create feelings of belonging.

Read more: A month at sea with no technology taught me how to steal my life back from my phone

Without close, physical connections, shallow virtual friendships can do little to alleviate emotional loneliness. And there is reason to think many online connections are just that.

Evidence from past literature has associated heavy social media use with increased loneliness . This may be because online spaces are often oriented to performance, status, exaggerating favourable qualities (such as by posting only “happy” content and likes), and frowning on expressions of loneliness.

On the other hand, social media plays a vital role in helping us stay connected with friends over long distances, and organise catch-ups. Video conferencing can facilitate “meetings” when physically meeting is impractical.

Platforms like Facebook and Instagram can be used to engage with new people who may turn into real friends later on. Similarly, sites like Meetup can help us find local groups of people whose interests and activities align with our own.

And while face-to-face contact remains the best way to help reduce loneliness, help can sometimes be found through online support groups.

Why so lonely?

There are several likely reasons for our great physical disconnection and loneliness.

We’ve replaced the 20th century idea of stable, permanent careers spanning decades with flexible employment and gig work. This prompts regular relocation for work, which results in disconnection from family and friends .

The way we build McMansions (large, multi-room houses) and sprawl our suburbs is often antisocial, with little thought given to developing vibrant, walkable social centres .

Read more: Size does matter: Australia's addiction to big houses is blowing the energy budget

Single-person households are expected to increase from about 2.1 million in 2011 to almost 3.4 million in 2036.

All of the above means the way we manage loneliness is changing.

In our book , my co-authors and I argue people manage their feelings differently than in the past. Living far from friends and family, isolated individuals often deal with negative emotions alone, through therapy, or through connecting online with whoever may be available.

Social media use is pervasive, so the least we can do is bend it in a way that facilitates our real-life need to belong.

It is a tool that should work for us, not the other way around. Perhaps, once we achieve this, we can expect to live in a world that is a bit less lonely.

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How Social Media Makes Us Unsocial: Allison Graham (Transcript)

June 11, 2020 7:47 am September 25, 2023 4:21 am
by Pangambam S

Here is the transcript and summary of Social Media historian Allison Graham’s talk: How Social Media Makes Us Unsocial at TEDxSMU conference. In this talk, she shares the funny and revealing insights of a life lived online and how social media is used to connect and disconnect us.

Best quote from this talk:

“I think we would all live life better if we had hands to hold rather than keys to click.”

Listen to the MP3 Audio here:

TRANSCRIPT:

Allison Graham – Social Media historian

Hi! Thank you very much.

I’d like to start out by asking everyone to power down their devices during my talk. And for those of you that don’t know the power buttons, it’s either on the top or on the side of your phone.

I’d also like to thank the guys from state.com for permission to use this video.

[Video clip]

“I want to post about how great this coffee is, but I can’t think of a funny way to say it.”

“This post is like a page long. How do I shorten this?”

“Just take out all the vowels.” [Still be the other page]

“Seriously!”

June 20, 2022

Why Social Media Makes People Unhappy—And Simple Ways to Fix It

Research suggests platform designs make us lose track of time spent on them and can heighten conflicts, and then we feel upset with ourselves

By Daisy Yuhas

Matthew Holland

Disrupted sleep, lower life satisfaction and poor self-esteem are just a few of the negative mental health consequences that researchers have linked to social media. Somehow the same platforms that can help people feel more connected and knowledgeable also contribute to loneliness and disinformation. What succeeds and fails, scientists say, is a function of how these platforms are designed. Amanda Baughan, a graduate student specializing in human-computer interaction at the University of Washington, studies how social media triggers what psychologists call dissociation, or a state of reduced self-reflection and narrowed attention. She presented results at the 2022 Association for Computing Machinery Computer-Human Interaction Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Baughan spoke with Mind Matters editor Daisy Yuhas to explain how and why apps need to change to give the people who use them greater power.

[ An edited transcript of the interview follows .]

You’ve shown how changing social media cues and presentations could improve well-being, even when people strongly disagree on issues. Can you give an example?

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The design of social media can have a lot of power in how people interact with one another and how they feel about their online experiences. For example, we’ve found that social media design can actually help people feel more supportive and kind in moments of online conflict, provided there’s a little bit of a nudge to behave that way. In one study, we designed an intervention that encouraged people who start talking about something contentious in a comment thread to switch to direct messaging. People really liked it . It helped to resolve their conflict and replicated a solution we use in-person: people having a public argument move to a private space to work things out.

You’ve also tackled a different problem coming out of social media usage called the 30-Minute Ick Factor. What is that?

We very quickly lose ourselves on social media. When people encounter a platform where they can infinitely scroll for more information, it can trigger a similar neurocognitive reward system as in anticipating a winning lottery ticket or getting food. It’s a powerful way that these apps are designed to keep us checking and scrolling.

The 30-Minute Ick Factor is when people mean to check their social media briefly but then find that 30 minutes have passed, and when they realize how much time they have spent, they have this sense of disgust and disappointment in themselves. Research has shown that people are dissatisfied with this habitual social media use. A lot of people frame it as meaningless, unproductive or addictive.

You’ve argued this experience is less a matter of addiction and more an issue of dissociation. Why?

Dissociation is a psychological process that comes in many forms. In the most common, everyday dissociation, your mind is so absorbed that you are disconnected from your actions. You could be doing the dishes, start daydreaming and not pay attention to how you are doing the dishes. Or you might seek immersive experiences—watching a movie, reading a book or playing a game—that pass the time and cause you to forget where you are.

During these activities, your sense of reflective self-consciousness and the passage of time is reduced. People only realize that they dissociated in hindsight. Attention is restored with the sense of “What just happened?” or “My leg fell asleep while we were watching that movie!”

Dissociation can be a positive thing, especially if it’s an absorbing experience, meaningful activity or a needed break. But it can also be harmful in certain cases, as in gambling, or come in conflict with people’s time-management goals, as with social media scrolling.

How do you measure people’s dissociation on social media?

We worked with 43 participants who used a custom mobile app that we created called Chirp to access their Twitter accounts. The app let people interact with Twitter content while allowing us to ask them questions and test interventions. So when people were using Chirp, after a given number of minutes, we would send them a questionnaire based on a psychological scale for measuring dissociation. We asked how much they agreed with the statement “I am currently using Chirp without really paying attention to what I’m doing” on a scale of 1 to 5. We also did interviews with 11 people to learn more. The results showed dissociation occurred in 42 percent of our participants, and they regularly reported losing track of time or feeling “all-consumed.”

You designed four interventions that modified people’s Twitter experience on Chirp to reduce dissociation. What worked?

The most successful were custom lists and reading history labels. In custom lists, we forced users to categorize the content they followed, such as “sports” or “news” or “friends.” Then, instead of interacting with Twitter’s main feed, they engaged only with content on these lists. This approach was coupled with a reading history intervention in which people received a message when they were caught up on the newest tweets. Rather than continuing to scroll, they were alerted to what they had already seen, and so they focused on just the newest content. Those interventions reduced dissociation, and when we did interviews, people said they felt safer checking their social media accounts when these modifications were present.

In another design, people received timed messages letting them know how long they had been on Chirp and suggesting they leave. They also had the option of viewing a usage page that showed them statistics such as how much time they’d spent on Chirp in the past seven days. These two solutions were effective if people opted to use them. Many people ignored them, however. Also, they thought the timed messages were annoying. Those findings are interesting because a lot of the popular time-management tools available to people look like these time-out and usage notifications.

So what could social media companies be doing differently? And is there any incentive for them to change?

Right now there is a lot working against people who use social media. It’s impossible to ever fully catch up on a social media feed, especially when you consider the algorithmically inserted content such as Twitter’s trending tweets or TikTok’s “For You” page. But I think that there is hope that relatively simple tweaks to social media design, such as custom lists, can make a difference. It’s important to note that the custom lists significantly reduced dissociation for people—but they did not significantly affect time spent using the app. To me, that points out that reducing people’s dissociation may not be as antithetical to social media companies’ revenue goals as we might intuitively think.

What’s most important for people using social media now to know?

First, don’t pile a bunch of shame onto your social media habits. Thousands of people are employed to make you swipe your thumb up on that screen and keep you doing what you’re doing. Let’s shift the responsibility of designing safe and fulfilling experiences from users to the companies.

Second, get familiar with the well-being tools that are already offered. TikTok has a feature that, every hour, will tell you that you’ve been scrolling for a while and should consider a break. On Twitter, custom lists are a feature that already exists; it’s just not the default option. If more people start using these tools, it could convince these companies to refine them.

Most important, vote for people who are interested in regulating technology because I think that’s where we’re going to see the biggest changes made.

Social Media is Making us Unsocial

October 5, 2020.

A Ted Talk by Kristin Gallucci, a Marketer, specialized in LinkedIn Advertising, shared an experience of a social media conference she attended. She shared how she was trying to interact with people, influencers present there, but was continually being ignored. She also mentioned that people over there chose to connect via social media rather than personally. They were choosing social media over a relationship.

The very first recognizable social media came in 1997 and was called ‘Six Degrees.’ But the real explosion in social media took place once blogging started. And since then, after two decades, we have come a long way. According to Statista data of 2019, an average human today is spending around 144 minutes on social media daily, and this is increasing by two minutes everyday [1]. It turns out to be 5.5 years of an average person’s lifetime being spent on social media. I had my first social media account on Orkut way back in 2010. And today, I am so much involved that I had to take a harsh step; millennials call this by a fancy word, ‘Social Media Detox.’

Social media has made the world a better place for us. But it has also been killing our relationships. Those long discussions in hostel rooms, cousins laughing after seeing old photo albums, and those random conversations in trains; it seems like all this is fading away. Social Media has replaced our experiences as well. While dining out, we let our food get cold to click those perfect images and share them online. Social media today has made us dependent on how people perceive us. We are in dire need of them to like us. But what about the ones who already like us. To them, we are just giving out reasons to dislike us.

According to a study in the USA, between 2009 and 2017, the depression rate increased by 60% among kids from age 14 to 17 [3]. It was also found that for every 10% rise in negative experiences on social media, there can be seen a 13% rise in loneliness. Another survey shows that 37% of teens, between 12 to17, have been bullied online, and more than half of the LGBTQ community faces online harassment. 23% of students are involved directly or indirectly in cyberbullying activities. [2]

Henceforth, I would now like to introduce a phenomenon that exists just because of social media, ‘Slacktivism.’ Slacktivism is the practice of supporting political or social causes utilizing Social Media and is characterized by lesser efforts and commitment. Social causes are what we as humans fight for to make this world a better place. And these causes have been a driving factor in the growth of humans as a race. We are somewhere losing our driving forces behind the face of social media.

In the end, I would like to say that it is not the technology that is to be blamed for making us unsocial, but us humans. We always strive to move forward, and we will make technology to move forward as well. But we can’t be blaming everything on it, because it is us who has created technology and we need it. The human race has come so far, just because of one point of differentiation, our ability to socialize. And if we are giving that away like this, do we even deserve to be this species?

About the Author

$Aniket\-Singh$

Aniket Singh is pursuing his MBA from IIM Udaipur and has an inclination towards Marketing. He is a Mechanical Engineer by profession and hails form the sports city of India, Meerut. Coming from an Armed Forces background, he has had the opportunity to stay and experience the cultural diversity of the country. He is a rubix cube enthusiast and a fan of the series “How I Met Your Mother.” You can connect with him on LinkedIn

https://www.statista.com/statistics/433871/daily-social-media-usage-worldwide/
https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-cyber-bullying#fnref1
https://time.com/5550803/depression-suicide-rates-youth/
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Home / Essay Samples / Sociology / Effects of Social Media / How Social Media Makes Us Unsocial

How Social Media Makes Us Unsocial

Category: Sociology
Topic: Effects of Social Media , Socialization

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