Tech giants step up to fix social media addiction
A few weeks ago, I was speaking to my colleague about social media. He suggested to me that Gen Z has a real issue with social media. He informed me his sister who was around 16 YO was so obsessed with engagement on her posts that if they didn’t have at least 30 likes she would delete her post.
The strive for engagement doesn’t just affect teenagers. Last year I was talking with an ex-colleague, she did the same. This increase in sharing means that we’re spending more time on social media apps. Apps which have been developed to be as addictive as possible. By ensuring you’re paying attention, the platforms can earn through ad revenue. As Campaign reported, 98% of Facebook’s growth for 2017 is through advertising spend.
However, unregulated ad spend in the wrong hands has led to the rise of fake news, Cambridge Analytica, and Russian troll farms. This spiralled into a social landscape of miscommunication, distrust, and political propaganda. The impact of this content is divisive political party support and a misinformed user base. In addition to this, increased social media use has been linked to mental health issues.
A national survey by Pitt’s Center for Research on Media, Technology and Health found that the use of multiple social media platforms is strongly associated with depression and anxiety. The study found that people who used more platforms had more than three times the risk of depression and anxiety than those who used fewer platforms.
It’s not surprising to find ex-Facebook heads criticising social media suggesting it is ripping apart the fabric of society. Recognising the wider societal and health issues, both Facebook and Apple have taken a step at combatting social media addiction.
Apple are launching ‘Screen Time’ an app that lets you know how much time you’re spending with apps and websites on your device. Apple hopes that by understanding device usage you’ll be able to take control of how much time you spend. The app also allows you to freely set a specific amount of time to be in each app.
Facebook are currently testing a new feature called ‘Your Time on Facebook’ which similarly lets users see how much time you spent on the Facebook app over the last seven days and your average time spent per day. The feature also lets you set a daily reminder that alerts you when you’ve reached your self-imposed limit.
But why are we so addicted to social media?
The rewards of social media (likes, shares, comments, messages) trigger a release of dopamine, the same pleasure-controlling chemical that is released in the body when addicted gamblers or substance abuse addicts get their fix. Tech giants who are keen to win the public back have performed a Damascene conversion. Flipping their beliefs from ‘share your moment’ to ‘switch off and enjoy’.
Zuckerberg recently said “Protecting our community is more important than maximizing our profits,”. Facebook don’t seem to be seeing this through as they have developed their app to be addictive as possible which, as suggested earlier, is their model for revenue. Attempting to solve the problem through limitation isn’t the answer. The cure for a gambling addiction isn’t only go to the casino for two hours a day.
The NHS suggests that psychological treatment of addiction varies from person to person. They further suggest that you need to tailor the right solution for that person. Facebook and Apple are in no way attempting to do this. Instead they are happy to be seen to be helping, not directly impacting the addictive nature of their platform/devices.
As long as social platforms rely on ad spend for their growth revenue they will require your attention. If tech giants truly cared about social addiction they would have tackled the captivating nature of their notification model a lot sooner. Fundamentally, Apple and Facebook are happy to show us how we can reduce our time spent on social media. However, they have left it up to us to recognise our social media addiction and utilise their available tools. The companies have been deliberately slapdash with their approach to ensure you still use their apps/devices and they still capitalise on your attention.
