How can addictive social media do so much damage?
The year 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the United States. It also marks the 20th anniversary for social media’s most popular platform, since Facebook went from a college network to a publicly available one—followed by Instagram, TikTok, and others. Little did we know that the latter would so easily undermine the former. That is, few realized how addictive social media would erode civil discourse and civic ideals.
The main reason has to do with the design of these platforms.
Social media platforms are irresistibly addictive by design
It’s no secret that various features of social media are, by design, irresistibly addictive. Enabling infinite scrolling, for instance, induces people (not surprisingly) to scroll through online feeds endlessly—aka doomscrolling. The goal of this design is to keep users’ eyes glued to screens. But it comes at a cost.
Social media platforms debilitate our social lives and mental health
Consider, for instance, the debilitation of social life and mental health. The more users scroll and stare at devices, the less they interact and talk with people in the real world. And when social life atrophies, so does mental health.
It’s no secret that rising rates of anxiety, depression, and stress are connected to, and likely caused by, addictive social media use, especially among younger people. Psychologists like Jonathan Haidt and Jean Twenge have documented these adverse effects meticulously for years.
Social media platforms amplify outrage and mendacity
Another cost of social media is the amplification of outrage and mendacity. Again, consider what these platforms are designed to do:
- Hijack your attention—say, with clickbait ads or viral content.
- Collect all data you leave traces of online, such as the time you spend scrolling and seeing ads or content.
- Sell access to your data, so that advertisers or outside parties can target you with more ads or content that will keep you scrolling … and scrolling … and scrolling …
Unfortunately, what’s likely to keep people scrolling is often what’s outrageous. And what’s outrageous isn’t necessarily incentivized to be factual (to say the least). For this reason, social media platforms remain vulnerable to bad actors who gin up rage, spread falsehoods, and provoke mobs, including for political demagoguery.
Social media platforms amplify polarization too
One clear result of all the amplified outrage and mendacity has been an “explosive transition toward strong polarization” in our society, to quote a recent PNAS study.
It seems clear that we’re seeing this polarization devolve into the politicization of public institutions and law enforcement, in which social trust is eroding. The extreme, brutal, and arguably unconstitutional ICE raids in states like Minnesota—routinely sensationalized like publicity stunts on social media—are the latest examples of this erosion. (And if I sound blunt, it’s because Minnesota is where I was born and raised, and I love it dearly.)
Generative AI may make addictive social media worse
What’s more, this outrage, mendacity, and polarization, along with debilitated social life and mental health, could get much worse from the so-called AI arms race, especially if certain Big Tech companies compromise product safety, risk management, and quality control for job-disrupting, energy-eating technologies that can flood social media with even more outrageous, mendacious, and polarizing content.
In fact, more than half of online article content nowadays is AI generated, and a lot of it is called “AI slop” for good reason. Sadly, some politicians, not excepting the 45th/47th president, choose to amplify this misleading and polarizing AI slop on social media to stir up partisan fury. If all that rage-baiting makes for great reality TV or viral online content, it’s no recipe for a healthy society.
There is an alternative, and it’s not opposing technological innovation. Rather, it involves implementing appropriate safeguards for social media and AI. There’s a strong case for personal privacy and data protection, identity verification, warning labels for addictive applications, age limits to protect minors from online risks, and smartphone-free zones in schools—to name a few practical measures.
Granted, these measures are no panacea. But they’re a start. And seriously, how much longer are we going to allow unregulated tech to rip our society apart?
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Good post! Of course, till that change does happen, the most viable solution seems to be simply to abstain from using them. Not an easy task today, since many people have been addicted to them already.
I think I’ve said this before in another writing of this blog, but the way social media (basically, just Facebook) were designed around 2011-2012 was pretty good, and the pros overweighted the cons. I think the big change occurred with the introduction of the Feed.
Thanks, and double thanks for your observation about the ‘feed,’ which definitely started to make social media more problematic—along with the ‘like’ button, autoplay, etc. I also agree that people would likely find life without social media a much better and socially richer life.
Having said that, something I also try to be careful about is not putting the full onus on consumers, because, as you say, it’s difficult for people to quit something that they’re addicted to.
But when companies design and market an addictive product to get people ‘hooked’ to that product, the corporate excuse of caveat emptor is, I think, irresponsible. Comparing Big Tech to Big Tabacco in this sense is accurate. Something that gives me hope is the fact that phone-free zones in education are starting to pick up. That’s just a start, but it’s a good start at least.