We Built a Social Media (Infinite Scrolling But Better)
Welcome, and thank you for coming to this week’s instalment of how I’m continuing to procrastinate on my master’s dissertation. Instead of analyzing my data and writing a literature review, I designed a better social media. My only regret is not renting a place with a garage. Anyways, I left last week’s article on a rather depressing note- where I analyzed one of many things wrong with social media. I promise, this week is entirely positive- as I’ve put together a few ideas on how to make the likes of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram better by building a design for a social media platform from scratch using psychology. Enjoy.
Before I dismantle social media, I’d like to point out that I think it started with the right intentions. I don’t think Mark Zuckerberg (arguably) began Facebook to sell consumer data or Twitter took off because it’s Donald Trump’s chosen cyber-bullying platform. Social media is successful because Homo Sapiens is an incredibly social species. If you’ve ever read the brilliant book Sapiens, you know that our inherent success as a species came from our ability to gossip, network, and collaborate. Among many buzzwords in the business community, Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is often touted as “better” than old-school intelligence (IQ) precisely because it implies one’s enhanced ability to collaborate (Mayer, Salvoney & Caruso, 2004). No matter how intelligent you are, combining a group’s brain powers is far more lucrative. And let’s face it- no one wanted to work with Sheldon Cooper for a reason.
There’s something very noble and definitive of humankind to project our social desires onto technology. Perhaps the founders of social media companies believed they were curing loneliness by simulating social interaction. That would make sense, no? Scrolling through an old friend’s timeline could almost pass for catching up with them in real life. Almost. Instead of mimicking a real catch-up, social media is a dense, hierarchical platform dominated by celebrities, people pretending to be celebrities and bizarrely enough, companies pretending to be celebrities. Sure, the messaging functions enable you to reach out to old friends, but features like infinite scroooooolllllll are far more effective at holding your attention hostage.
My question is: how has a platform initially meant to connect people, and still claiming to according to Facebook’s Twitter bio, has defined a generation’s depression, anxiety, lower self-esteem, and poorer sleep quality (Mammoser, 2018)? It’s rare for a successful “solution” to accelerate the problem and be valued at nearly $700 billion. Though, I have to give social media some credit. They’ve been excellent about breaking toxic social norms and taboos by advancing global conversations (think BLM, #MeToo- both amplified by social media). But what about the original purpose of social media- connecting people? What about connecting people during the most isolating time in modern history? How do we cut the narcissistic noise within social media and design a platform that enables genuine human connection? Here are some proposals in building better social media based on behavioral insights:
1. Limit the number of connections one can have. First off, our minds are not designed to psychologically sustain the hundreds (or thousands) of followers, friends, connections we currently experience on social media. In the 1990s, an anthropologist named Robin Dunbar found that humans can only sustain about 150 meaningful social relationships (Dunbar, 1992). He calculated this specific number by correlating primates’ neocortices with the average number of members in their respective social groups. The number pops up in some surprising places: Facebook friends, offices, Christmas card lists, and military organizations (Ro, 2019). Despite some criticism over the methodology of determining the 150 number, the idea our brains only have the bandwidth to sustain a limited number of meaningful relationships has gained traction in the organizational and scientific communities. Many Facebook users set limits for themselves. “Facebook friend cleansing” is a popular activity for those who have a lot of time on their hands. I could never be bothered. In any case, developing an ecosystem where users are encouraged to think about their close acquaintances emphasizes the “quality over quantity” aspect missing in a lot of social media platforms. The point is, rather than collecting as many followers or friends as possible; this site would have users prioritize the connections to whom we’d bother saying happy birthday.
2. Regular Connections: Building upon the “quality over quantity” aspect of this proposed social media, this platform could nudge users to regularly connect with their closest connections. For example, the system would track how often two arbitrary users are connecting and “nudge” them if they had not spoken for a while. But, that may be easier said than done. Routines are a funny thing- most people stick to them and never question them, like brushing your teeth. “The Habit Loop” is a three-part process: cue, behavior, then reward (Duhigg, 2012). After a few cycles, the brain stops relying on the cerebral cortex for the decision; it becomes an automatic habit- an auto-pilot of sorts. Imagine how much better off our mental health would be if we made a habit of speaking to our close friends? The site would nudge users to organize one-on-one interactions, either in-person or over VOIP. I’ll use an example of the semi-regular Zoom pub quizzes my friend group has been organizing since corona began. We shell out an evening a week to catch up and test our knowledge in various pointless topics, and we almost always feel better afterwards.
3. No celebrities or brands allowed!: Homo Sapiens ability to navigate complex, hierarchical social structures is probably why we won the species lottery. Though, we aren’t living in 150 member hunter-gatherer tribes anymore. We have to create artificial social structures that best adapt to our evolved capabilities. Social media is a false social hierarchy where the “tribe leaders” have the highest number of followers. Inherently, we are programmed to work to succeed, and in social media, our success is measured by an arbitrary number of “likes” or followers. Thus, the efforts a user puts into social media are not driven by the desire of real social connection. Removing access to “successful” individuals will re-focus users on making themselves happy, rather than tallying as many likes as possible.
4. No infinite scroll: If you haven’t already gotten it, infinite scroll is bottomless void of procrastination and despair. It frees the user from deciding which content to pursue when they log-in. Thus, I don’t think it would be wise to drown users into this hypothetical platform. But, how would the site look instead? One alternative to infinite scroll could be designing the website like an online newspaper site where users can click and choose which content they are most interested in pursuing. However, this method must somehow avoid “over choice;” when users are overwhelmed by the amount of choice they have. Likewise, the site may limit users to one or two meaningful “interactions” per day- whether it be a VOIP call or a game- to prevent users from becoming reliant on the site.
There you have it. While I’m all for user freedom on social media, adding some social limitations could actually improve user experience. Many technology companies are already doing it- i.e. the dating app “Bumble” that tackled the lack of female participation by having women message first. While social media platforms like Facebook entice users by providing a wealth of entertainment, social interactions, and validation, it does not nudge users to spend any meaningful time on the application. Many times, I don’t feel better after visiting Facebook; and if I do, the feeling doesn’t last very long.
If you haven’t already noticed, this proposed social media is not going to be a massive money-making machine through advertisement revenue. In theory, this platform would better suit how our minds evolved to process social relationships- but it may struggle to gain traction from initial reactions lamenting the social restrictions. But, I hope more of us recognize the value of authentic social connections over social validation, advertisement revenue, and market share.
References:
Duhigg, C. (2014). The power of habit: Why we do what we do in life and business. Anchor Canada.
Dunbar, R. (1992). Neocortex size as a constraint on group size in primates. Journal of Human Evolution, 22(6), 469–493. https://doi.org/10.1016/0047-2484(92)90081-j
Mammoser, G. (2018, December 10). Social media increases depression and loneliness. Healthline. https://www.healthline.com/health-news/social-media-use-increases-depression-and-loneliness
Mayer, J. D., Salovey, P., & Caruso, D. R. (2004). TARGET articles: “Emotional intelligence: Theory, findings, and implications”. Psychological Inquiry, 15(3), 197–215. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327965pli1503_02
Ro, C. (2019, October 9). Dunbar’s number: Why we can only maintain 150 relationships. BBCpage. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191001-dunbars-number-why-we-can-only-maintain-150-relationships