The Price of Connection

Sometime in the mid-2010s, there was a chorus of researchers who began to seriously consider the long-term effects of modern, digital social media on our personalities. At this point everyone with a mic, pen, and laptop had already waxed lyrical about the positive and negative impacts of online networks invading every corner of our daily lives. The foundation of the dual life – of your actual person and your profiles on digital platforms – had long been consolidated. Facebook was the dominant player (and remains for now as the most utilized site for connecting), essentially ubiquitous among younger demographics who had grown up with technology at their fingertips. Even youth who were living in poverty could afford simple flip phones where they could access the basic Facebook mobile interface and messaging services – something I witnessed working with children in rural Uganda back in 2013.

These researchers may have been motivated by the unexpected and anecdotal rise in social isolation, especially among youth (early adopters and heavy users of large social media sites). MySpace had been an experimental precursor where the potentially harmful effects of social media may not have made themselves apparent. The rise of Facebook, a digital party for all your acquaintances, with a constantly updating feed, and Reddit, which allowed a window into the general zeitgeist and its flowering subcultures, led to increased critical scrutiny of the underlying infrastructure that was fast forming our new social connective tissue.

Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Youtube, Whatsapp and over in China, WeChat and QQ, were also fast becoming relevant in the workplace. Links to each began to be embedded not just on webpages designed for entertainment and fun, but also for professional use. There are still vast swathes of industry in East Asia where an email or mobile text may not be exchanged during an entire workday; instead, interactions on a single platform like WeChat may be all that is needed to accomplish daily tasks.

These researchers did surveys, looked at all publicly available data, and spoke to industry experts, users, promotors, and critics of social media platforms. They quoted twentieth century intellectuals such as B.F. Skinner, Bertrand Russell, Alan Turing, and Norbert Wiener in their search for an answer to the question: should we be worried? Of course, the answers were uncertain. Appeals to caution caveated with optimistic declarations on the value of maintaining the platforms at the heart of rising social movements. After all, how much of the momentum around the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, Idle No More, or Black Lives Matter could have been fostered in absence of digital spaces that allowed the rapid sharing of injustices in real-time? How much longer would these causes have taken to organize? The great debate about these growing monoliths, profit-driven enterprises that were treated like public utilities in every arena except legislation, was only beginning. Many social media companies would come and go. Yours truly had accounts on several sites throughout the years, some of those sites no longer active (anyone remember Google Plus?).

Since that time and over the last decade or so, we have learned a fair amount. I will not quote the statistics here, but almost everyone is aware of the deeply negative impacts that social media sites foster – increased isolation and suicide ideation, decreased perceptions of self-worth, polarization of ideologies and opinions, oversimplification of complex issues and stunted discourse, etc. The numbers, by the way, are only getting worse. Trends in teen suicides tied to cyberbullying and online engagement with peers, for example, have only risen. There is a general feeling, too, that we are all more aware of the negative impacts.

I should pause and here and define what I am referring to as ‘social media’. Primarily – an interactive platform where you and others are able to cultivate your digital profiles, sharing various updates, messages, and interests. An online space that you use to follow figures or causes you deem important, one that lets you engage with others via a transactional interface, with the key currency being your data.

With all this in mind, it is tough to square our improved collective awareness of what these sites mean for our social health with a lack of decline in their use. The negative impacts described above are not only a potential outcome – they are certain. No one is immune. A key trait of behavior modification systems is unnoticeable, incremental change. One may not notice that they are lashing out quicker than they were several years ago, that their political window has decreased, or that their sadness is attributable to the feeds they browse, yet testing the tipping point is hardly prudent.

But why suddenly bring up behavior modification systems?

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Observe, Reward, Manipulate

Around the same time that interest in research on our favorite time-wasting sites was ramping up, a few dared to call out the inevitable. One of those was Jaron Lanier, a computer scientist who was intimately familiar with the digital infrastructure of social media sites and its key stakeholders. Long before Netflix was making documentaries and a plethora of books were published on the subject, Lanier was giving lectures on public access television, radio, and cable news, speaking to the existential threat of these platforms. And ‘existential’ is not too alarmist an invocation.

He would eventually articulate his views and paraphrase the evidence at hand in a 2018 read titled Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now. Forgive the ironic title; difficult to predict what influence an eager publisher might have had. The book is very accessible, but in case you are not into reading, you can hear an overview in the following video:

 

Lanier’s work lays out the skeleton of the beast. The breakdown of each social interaction, of the viewable content, advertisements, recommendations, and notification that one receives. The book’s core argument stemming from the role that the invisible, paying third party plays. The advertiser, political lobbyist, or online merchant vying for your attention and time by offering up digestible content in an eternal feedback loop meant to engage you endlessly. And the unfortunate efficacy of inflammatory subject matter drawn from non-representative sources.

For such a mild-mannered individual, Lanier pleads to the populace with uncompromising volume. Social media are “destroying your free will”, powered by “behavior modification empires for rent”. Quitting social media “is the most finely targeted way to resist the insanity of our times”. It “undermines truth” by promoting “unhealthy interactions”. Everything you say on social media is “meaningless” in its snippet form, losing its context with brevity and aiding in the destruction of your empathy. Social media “makes you less happy” and “doesn’t want you to have economic dignity”. It is a corrosive religion, its corporate gods the technology giants that have seeped into the center of our existence.

You may find the above appeals heavy-handed. Sadly, several have been confirmed in time. Many of Lanier’s earlier works were also prescient in nature and I would echo some of his harsher screams from outside the false digital square in which most of us seemingly reside. For as long as the price of connection is our data, and as long as the transactions between us and the world are filtered through algorithms that value hate and reactionism above all else, we degrade ourselves to little benefit.

I am in agreement that current social media are among the most effective behavior modification systems ever devised. They have polarized political discourse, emboldened fascist trends globally, allowed corporate stewards to coopt well-meaning social movements, and starved us of true, meaningful relationships. It is a solemn state when the only technology that may allow us to reach a loved one in times of emergency (there are many rural areas of the world where satellite internet service for mobile phones is accessible while cellular coverage remains a lofty ambition) is also slowly tearing at the bonds of that social fabric.

Our species remains in its digital infancy. Adults who did not have the experience bemoan the problems children face with smartphones or tablets in their hands or their heightened familiarity with complex digital systems from an early age. Rather than having a free and open culture of sharing, we are currently in an ‘unholy communion’ as Lanier calls it, of profiteers and online assemblies. Those who moderate and manipulate our every online transaction for monetary or political gain continue to cash in without much regulation, often delegating this task to evolving systems that are designed to make you dependent on the unreal. However, and no matter how distant, the ideal of a socialist, utopian internet is still attainable.

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Existing Outside the Timeline

It has been a long time since I engaged with social media. Aside from a brief foray onto LinkedIn for a few months in late 2022 to expand the channels towards new employment, I have happily left the modification bubble. This has predictably meant the maintenance of fewer connections. Once your digital avatar disappears, so do you; a phone number or email an impossible match for a curated virtual presence. It has also meant not being privy to the numerous shibboleths of the popular milieu – the latest jargon and trends measured by their viral reach.

Notably, not having to filter through the social media bedrock of short, provocative content devoid of nuance has been beneficial. I do sometimes reflect on the friends and acquaintances in all parts of the world who are now just vague memories. But the price of maintaining those connections – my privacy, sanity, and self – too high to forego. I would rather cultivate a personality outside of toxic spaces.

A little unfortunate too, the incessant influence of the little computers we carry around. Unlike many who are not so enamored with walking through a public with its head down and earbuds in, I do not particularly mind that condition. A person can choose to engage or not engage on their commute or in their leisure time with whoever they like. The true kernel of what irks me, then, is the fact that the majority with their heads down and earbuds in do so drawn to the never-ending feed on their social app of choice, following algorithm willingly. It is difficult to blame individuals – we are talking about social networks embedded into our entire way of being, from keeping friendships alive to finding jobs. The quantity of links sometimes determining our very real value to those around us.

A final thought: the timeline and its inhabitants are a false approximation of the world. The latter the true home of our ethical and moral collective, of real faces and people being harmed through this constant engagement with fantasy. I wonder how much more pervasive these systems masquerading as our only avenue to each other can last. We deserve better.