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Addiction Generation: How long can social media last?

Joe Biden has had a tough few weeks, so it feels only fair to give a little attention to his strengths – although we do acknowledge that the Lobster’s observations will not give the Democrats the boost they need. Nevertheless, his policies regarding cyber security in particular merit examination.

 

The president has been hard at work combatting the encroachment of TikTok, as he signed a bill in April which could ban it from the country after 2025. The reason behind this radical move? TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, is thought to pose a serious security threat from China. Most alarming to the Biden administration is the prospect of American user data falling into the Chinese government’s hands.

 

In terms of data security, however, the US might look more seriously within its own ranks for traces of cyber threats. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg will remember with dread the 2016 Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which millions of Facebook users saw – or rather didn’t see – their data being unlawfully collected. In democracies, like in dictatorships, ethical practices in technology are never guaranteed.

 

Social media, then, appears problematic from most angles. If it’s not the dubious, government-affiliated ownership of one platform, then it’s the illegal data extraction of another. And of course, one must consider – as this article does – the plethora of health impacts affecting the user.

 

All of which pose the question: how promising is the future of social media?

 

A logical answer would be: not very. In theory, with governments increasingly wary of these networks and individuals better versed in their dangers, the coming years should not look bright for social media. Yet Facebook (now Meta) shows no sign of slowing down. On the contrary, it has been growing its customer base steadily; in the final quarter of 2023, the platform totalled 3 billion users. It seems people aren’t as deterred as one would imagine – or as they should be.

 

This seems a bizarre phenomenon, for the draining effects of social media are familiar to us all. More serious even are the related long-term mental health issues. Although correlation does not equal causation – and research only dates back a few decades – it is significant that users of all the largest platforms (Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, and X) report negative impacts on sleep, bullying (exacerbated by cyberbullying), body image, anxiety, and depression.

 

Many also notice an increase in loneliness – rather a paradox for ‘social’ media – as they experience FOMO, or ‘fear of missing out’. This can be understood as a Gen Z-specific malaise amplified by seeing others’ lives constantly shared online. According to the Yale School of Medicine, this isolating sentiment most damages users of the Gen Z generation (born between 1997 and 2012) as feelings of self-worth are most malleable between the ages of 10 and 19 (these are very formative years for the brain). There is no need for extensive scientific insights on the topic, however, as the dangers of social media can be obtained straight from the horse’s mouth: Sean Parker, Facebook’s founding president, admitted that his site works by ‘exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology’.

 

Baffling as this claim might appear, a slowing down, let alone a reversal, of social media’s popularity is unlikely. It seems more probable that this technology will evolve to ensure its survival. Linda Mayes, chair of the Yale Child Study Center finds that the issues presented by social media today resemble those brought about by television. Yet television hasn’t been eclipsed. Rather, it has kept its place as a household staple, only now it projects streaming sites, not channel programmes. Similarly, smaller, more community-focused apps may emerge to compete with social media’s first generation. As the bigger platforms increasingly adopt a brand-orientated approach, exploiting data for sponsorship and advertisement purposes, newer ‘niche’ sites offer the positives of social media – namely, a space for self-expression and the building of community.

 

The question is whether these young sites can do away with the bad part. A potential success story in this respect might be Strava, a fitness recording app which allows data to be shared between users. It isn’t exactly new, having been founded in 2009, but it only truly rose to fame with the Covid-19 pandemic. Strava offered physical wellbeing and a sense of community at a time when we most craved it. The app encourages healthy habits, forcing users to swap screen time for a nature ramble. And unlike TikTok, the even bigger star of that period, it doesn’t pose a national security threat.

 

All of which sounds ideal… until one returns from said nature ramble. Once the trainers are off, we find ourselves back in the familiar world of comparison offered by Facebook and the like. At the risk of sounding overly dramatic, it seems plausible that Strava, albeit well-intentioned, could risk cultivating the same issues of poor self-esteem as larger platforms. An appallingly slow runner myself, I have often been tempted to keep my sports statistics private; yet the needs of my embarrassingly small following also calls, and so I repeatedly succumb to the pressure of sharing all my athletic feats. After all, as the saying goes, ‘If it’s not on Strava it didn’t happen’. I’ll also admit that a ‘kudos’ on Strava gives me the same pleasurable boost as the equivalent Instagram ‘like’. It seems, then, that both sites are governed by the same mechanism pushing the user to seek instant validation from peers.

 

If this anecdotal conclusion bears any truth, then I predict a prosperous future for social media. Apps old and young, big and small, operate through similar systems of addictive feeds; indeed, their decentralisation will only make them more attractive to a wider audience. It seems to promise a democratisation of content creation and distribution. However, this fragmentation of the digital landscape often leads users into echo chambers, where their existing beliefs and preferences are continuously reinforced. The result could be an even more pervasive and insidious form of digital addiction, one that is tailor-made for each individual's psychological profile. I for one won’t be saying good-bye to the social network. I’ve happily criticised it here, but now feels like the right time for some mindless scrolling.

 

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