The difference between an ordinary man and an extra ordinary man lies in his ability to concentrate – Swami Vivekananda
On the day of penning this article, YouTube, the world’s largest platform for viewing videos, has rolled out it’s latest update. The latest update has incorporated more social media like features such as photo sharing, posting short videos into the platform. Wikipedia now describes YouTube as an “online video sharing and social media platform”. So what’s the problem with such updates you may ask? In the following article I address the grave dangers, social media platforms bring to our happiness and wellbeing.
Recently I watched a documentary called ‘The Social Dilemma’. This documentary is based on the interviews of ex-engineers of social media giants such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube. The interesting part about those interviews was that, these engineers were speaking against the technologies, that they themselves had created. One can imagine how dangerous these technologies can be, if there creators are speaking against them. With someone who is involved in AI research, this caught my attention.
So what makes these social media platforms potential threats to our wellbeing? We should first understand how the algorithms behind such technologies work. By the way, when we say algorithm, we mean a set of instructions which we feed to a computer to accomplish a specified task. You may have noticed that when you log onto a social media platform, how you lose track of time. This is because of a sub-class of algorithms, know as recommendation systems, which these social media platforms use. For these algorithms to run, you need to feed the computer two things. Your past activity on that platform which is the input. The output is your corresponding reaction to those inputs. The task of the algorithms is to recommend posts on your feed, such that your attention span can be retained for the longest amount of time as possible. Thus, these platforms are specifically built to be addictive.
“If you’re not paying for the product, you’re the product”
In 2012, social media giant Facebook, purchased a nascent company, with 12 employees, called Instagram, for a whopping $1 Billion. At the time I asked myself that why is a company that offers it’s services for free, being bought for such a large sum. What do they even sell ? Alas it took me years to figure out that we are the products that are being sold by these social media companies. By astute use of algorithms, they retain your attention for as long as possible, so that they can sell you as many advertisements as possible.
Now you may say, it’s understandable that they sell me advertisements, they aren’t running a charity after all. I do understand that too. However I have a few problems with the AI algorithms that are run under the hood, in these social media platforms.
Firstly, prolonged usage of social media severely impedes our ability to concentrate. In a study done on the affects of social media on our work efficiency and well being, the author found that ,“social media usage is associated with lower task performance, increased technostress, and lower happiness“. In order to complete a complex ,thus satisfying task, we need to focus on it for a considerable amount of time to make progress. However, social media diminishes our ability to focus.
Swami Vivekananda once said ,”The main difference between men and the animals is the difference in their power of concentration. All success in any line of work is the result of this. Everybody knows something about concentration. We see its results every day. High achievements in art, music, etc., are the results of concentration. An animal has very little power of concentration. Those who have trained animals find much difficulty in the fact that the animal is constantly forgetting what is told to him. He cannot concentrate his mind long upon anything at a time. Herein is the difference between man and the animals — man has the greater power of concentration. The difference in heir power of concentration also constitutes the difference between man and man. Compare the lowest with the highest man. The difference is in the degree of concentration. This is the only difference. “
Secondly, AI algorithms recommend us posts on the basis of our past activity. So for example, if we have reacted to a post adhering to a certain ideology, the algorithms will keep on recommending us similar posts based on the same ideology. Thus it will strengthen our belief on that ideology and make us look down upon anyone that opposes ‘our’ ideology. This approach stops us from developing a holistic approach in life and fuels our hatred for others.
Thirdly, social media is an outlet where people generally portray the best version of themselves. This makes us discontented. It makes us feel that no matter how hard one works, there’s always someone way better than us. Which brings a sense of incompetence and self loathing.
In this article I discussed about what makes the social media platforms so addictive. Also I discussed about the way social media platforms severely hamper our happiness and wellbeing. I now hope that the next time you use social media, you are more aware of the way social media is affecting your life.
How did you find the article ? How do you think social media has positively/negatively affected your life ? I would love to know in the comments below 🙂
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