Just four years ago, I was a cheerleader. Social media was supposed to be the great hope for democracy. I know because I told the world so. I said in 2014 that no one could predict where this revolution would take us. My conclusion was dusted with optimism: A better connected human race would find a way to better itself.
I was half right: Nobody could have predicted where we have ended up. Yet my optimistic prognosis was utterly misguided. Social media has led to less human interaction, not more. It has suppressed human development, not stimulated it. As Big Tech has marched onward, we have regressed.
Look at the evidence. Research shows that social media may well be making many of us unhappy, jealous and -- paradoxically - antisocial. Even Facebook gets it. An academic study that Facebook cited in a blog post revealed that when people spend a lot of time passively consuming information, they wind up feeling worse. Just 10 minutes on Facebook is enough to depress - clicking and liking a multitude of posts and links seems to have a negative effect on mental health.
Meantime, the green-eyed monster thrives on the social network: Reading rosy stories and/or carefully controlled images about the social and love lives of others leads to poor comparisons with one's own existence. Getting out in the warts-and-all real world and having proper conversations would provide a powerful antidote. Some chance! Humans have convinced themselves that "catching up" online is a viable alternative to in-person socializing.
And what of consumer choice? Former Google design ethicist Tristan Harris noted in an essay about how technology hijacks people's minds that it is actually designed to give us fewer choices, not more. When you do a Google search for a restaurant, for example, you are presented with a limited set of choices with advertisers appearing at the top of a list. We rarely browse to the second page of search results. Harris likened this to what magicians do: "Give people the illusion of free choice while architecting the menu so that they win, no matter what you choose."
We are becoming unthinkingly reliant - addicted - to ease of use at the expense of quality. We are walking dumpsters for Internet content that we don't need and that might actively damage our brains.
Perhaps we should go back to our smartphones and, instead of playing Netflix or sending texts on WhatsApp, use their core function. Call our friends and family and have a chat or -- better -- arrange to meet them.
Commentary on 04/18/2018