A cost-benefit analysis: To delete or not delete Facebook?
I joined Facebook in 2009. By 2018, I deleted my account. After a decade observing how it affected our culture, I realized the costs outweighed any benefits. Taking advantage of the “Delete Facebook” movement, I seized the hashtag #deletefacebook and freed myself from the matrix.
Some friends regarded it as a drastic move, and I recognize “Delete Facebook” was initially a backlash to the proliferation of fake news and data scandals like Cambridge Analytica. Still, before these data disasters, I was questioning the value of Facebook after a cost-benefit analysis. I also learned from conversations since that many struggle with the same question: To delete, or not to delete?
Though I can’t answer this question for others, I can show a way to approach the problem. What follows are several thoughts about the pros and cons of social media and how they led me to question Facebook’s value. To be clear, my goal isn’t to persuade anyone to delete Facebook (although my hunch is most people would be better off without it). Rather, it’s to offer a philosophical approach to social media—in the spirit of a philosophy of technology—as one way to decide whether or not to quit these platforms.
So let’s begin with a cost-benefit analysis. While not exhaustive, it will, in the spirit of technology education, capture some of the good, bad, and ugly tradeoffs of social media.
The good
We’ll start with the good. As Clay Shirky argues in Here Comes Everybody and Cognitive Surplus, social media are great technologies for organizing groups and creating networks. They help us keep in touch and stay in the loop. In a way, they promote a culture of sharing—of photos, articles, opinions, etc. These platforms are also highly customizable: Every ‘like’ and comment helps online algorithms determine what like-minded users want to see or click next.
To wit, here are the benefits.
- Organizing groups/events
- Creating social networks
- Sharing photos, articles, opinions, etc.
- Customizing information
The bad
Alas, those benefits have a dark side. Because they’re great for organizing groups and creating networks, social media tend to devolve into echo chambers. By connecting the likeminded, these groups and networks selectively expose users to opinions they’re prone to agree with and shelter them from unfamiliar ideas (what psychologists call “selective exposure”). In this way, social media reinforce user biases (what psychologists call “confirmation bias”).
What about the culture of sharing and customizing information? Let’s be honest: Most shared content is ‘noise’—superficial memes, gossip, and irrelevant info. Such noise brings little value to our lives. However, it’s valuable to Facebook. The name of the game is data mining and targeted marketing. Thus, customizing information serves a commercial agenda: selling access to personal data to pay for ads. A lot of users aren’t aware of this fact, which raises plenty of privacy issues.
In sum, here are the costs.
- Echo chambers of selective exposure
- Confirmation bias
- Noise or irrelevant info
- Consumer privacy issues
The ugly
The picture gets ugly when we consider the psychological effects of social media. As online echo chambers feed us information appealing to our confirmation bias, very little of that content challenges our thinking. That’s evident during elections: Liberals see super-liberal feed, conservatives see ultra-conservative feed, and thought-provoking conversations dwindle. As Nicholas Carr argues in The Shallows, shallow thinking seems to prosper in this brave new digital world.
The online noise gets ugly too. The more people share online, the more they’re inundated with notifications, likes, comments, etc. The information overload is inexorable. As detailed in books like Maggie Jackson’s Distracted, Sherry Turkle’s Alone Together, and Jean Twenge’s iGen, seeking incessant stimulation on screens has detrimental cognitive effects, including mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, and Internet addition.
On that note, a few former Facebook executives—for example, Sean Parker and Chamath Palihapitiya—have explained how social media are designed to exploit psychological vulnerabilities and make users spend as much time online as possible. After all, the more you’re on social media, the more of your personal data big tech companies are able to harvest and sell. Unfortunately, this unethical design conditions our brains to impulsively crave unhealthy amounts of screen time, which aggravates anxiety, depression, and Internet addiction.
Here, then, is an ‘Ugly’ list.
- Closed mindedness
- Shallow thinking
- Information overload and over-stimulation
- Mental health issues (anxiety, depression, and Internet addiction)
Certainly, there are other trends—good (crowdsourcing), bad (cyberbullying), and ugly (from trolling to phubbing). Again, I’m not making an exhaustive list but capturing some of social media’s tradeoffs.
A question about value
Weighing the tradeoffs convinced me that most social media isn’t worth my time. In saying so, my goal isn’t to persuade others to delete Facebook. Rather, it’s to encourage a philosophical question: Given a cost-benefit analysis, do social media bring value to my life? That is, do the pros outweigh the cons? With Facebook, the answer was no, so I deleted it and refused to join Twitter, Instagram, etc.
I did, however, make a couple exceptions when I could answer yes.
Exception #1: LinkedIn, since it’s a useful career-related networking service.
Exception #2: Blog and web services such as WordPress and Google, because they support my creative hobbies (e.g., this site).
Measuring time investment
Another way to ask the question is quantitatively: Does the time I spend on social media add net value to my life? Take this measure: Spending only 5 to 10 minutes a day on Facebook equals 30 to 60 hours a year, or approximately a workweek. (Hitting the 50-minute-a-day average totals 304 hours, or almost 8 workweeks, yearly!) Is the time investment worth it?
Much of the time, the answer probably will be no. But sometimes the answer may be yes. For example, some friends of mine run a swing dancing business, and Facebook is a popular, cost-effective way to promote dance events. In cases like this, it makes sense to use Facebook. Just make sure the time investment is worth it. If not, I’d recommend quitting social media.
Know other exceptions? Leave a comment, or explore more TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE articles on this site.
The truth is that at the beginning facebook was a good idea. The benefits outweighed the cost. Today, it offers mostly noise and irrelevant to you information. How much of the total material in the news feed are posts from your friends, and how much is sponsored posts, suggested posts, your friends’ comments to things you couldn’t care less and so on and so on. All these things did not exist in the past, and now I think the sense of community has been lost. I do think that before had many benefits and offered some convenience. Now it’s the other way around.
I’d also like to ask you what’s your view on the difference between reading a book and reading something online, like this post for instance, granted that the content is exactly the same. Do you think that there is a difference in the essence of the mediums or not?
One more thing… It’s been a year now ever since you deleted your account, have you noticed any difference? Do you still praise your decision?
Cheers!
Yes, I think you hit the nail on the head as to the problem with Facebook and most social media (or “anti-social media,” as Siva Vaidhyanathan says). When we first joined FB, it was more or less an online directory. As algorithms like News Feed started to define it more, it became clear the underlying business model was about serving a commercial agenda.
That is, these online platforms are designed to hijack attention, selectively expose users to posts, memes, and ads that appeal to confirmation bias, and incentivize spending as much time as possible clicking. This design, in turn, lets big tech collect and sell personal data to advertisers, who then target everyone nonstop, thereby reinforcing a downward spiral of attention hijacking, selective exposure, confirmation bias, time sucking, and privacy erosion. (Tim Wu, in his book The Attention Merchants, refers to this vicious cycle as a “race to the bottom.”)
Hence, there’s a saying that, when it comes to social media, you’re the product, not the client. Unfortunately, the result is what Eli Pariser calls a “filter bubble”: algorithms reward what receives more emotional reactions and clicks, because the goal is to keep you online. Of course, what gets more reactions and clicks ends up being extreme beliefs, disinformation, and online outrage. That’s where we are today. (I’ve written a bit on this online outrage problem: mindfultechnics.com/online-outrage.)
So, to answer your second question first, I feel great about my decision to delete FB. It really does seem to bring out the worst in people, and the incessant cesspool of online noise was something I didn’t want to stomach. Believe it or not, my social life improved. Friends realized that, if they wanted to be in touch, they’d have to call or meet me in person (as opposed to clicking ‘like’ buttons). Consequently I’ve found deleting social media led to more deep conversation and less superficial messaging.
As to your first question, yes, there’s a difference, cognitively speaking, between reading a book (as in physical print media) versus reading online (that is, digital screen media). There’s much to be said on this topic, but the main difference is, for physiological and psychological reasons, print media incentivize focus and reflection, while screen media incentivize scanning and seeking.
For example, it’s easer to focus on print books, because the light is indirect and reflected off the page, so it doesn’t strain the eyes. In contrast, it’s more natural to scan digital screens, because the light is direct and emits right from the display, which can lead to digital eye strain if received in high doses. Thus, books are better for deep reading, while screens are better for seeking or visualizing patterns (Maryanne Wolf has done excellent research here: mindfultechnics.com/proust-and-the-squid-book-review).
Stay tuned, because I plan to write more about both these issues (social media and screen vs. print) in upcoming articles over the next few months. Thanks for your astute questions, and wishing you all the best.
I thank you back for your long reply.
Of course I agree with the crux of what you wrote. As you said, soon or later it became clear that it was about serving a commercial agenda. But most of the cases it is just like that. And “free market” doesn’t seem to provide the best solution to this. How easy would it be for instance, granted that users have got used to facebook and other social media, to move to another network the moment facebook began serving a commercial agenda. Not very easy and convenient.
I would like to mention that I also found very interesting your article about Heidegger on technology. This is something that should definitely concern us.
I’ll stay tuned for other articles.
Cheers!