Fighting Back Against Weaponized FOMO

by Daniel Klaus (President)

I’m afraid we’re in for the fight of our lives.

Last month, I had the pleasure of hosting a panel at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival to discuss the subject of digital addiction and subsequent loneliness. With a stellar lineup of panelists, each bringing a distinct perspective to the table, we delved into the heart of this issue to tackle it from all angles.

I was surprised to hear how frankly Aza Raskin, panelist and co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, spoke about the ways in which social networks manipulate people, particularly teens. Furthermore, he explained that these systems are deliberately built to be addictive, and that emotions such as loneliness are exploited to increase usage.

As a crucial contributor to the infinite scroll technology at Mozilla, Raskin understands the intricacies of these platforms’ algorithms. The fact that you can’t stop looking at your feeds is “not by accident,” he told the crowd in Austin.

Now, think about how you often get a prompt from Facebook that you’ve been tagged in a photo. Not only does that get you to log back in, but to question how you looked and who was or wasn’t included at that particular event. Cue the FOMO.

Raskin estimated that the infinite scroll wastes the equivalent of 200,000 human lifetimes per day, and for every visit to a social feed, there are 100–1,000 engineers paid to make you stick around.

“There is behavioral cocaine all over these interfaces,”

—Aza Raskin.

Those are strong words, but in my opinion, not extreme. We are indeed facing an epidemic as explosive and as important as the war on drugs. While we will attack in a different way, we will do so with the same level of severity, and with the same intention in mind: to create a healthy state of mind for all, both physically and mentally.

As a father of a three year old, I’m worried about mental manipulation and what it means for our kids’ future. Truth be told, I’m glad I’m not raising a teenager right now. From just the first five minutes of this panel, I realized that this topic is more extreme than anyone has mentioned before. It’s not just a problem: it’s a worldwide health epidemic.

This means that we, as a society, must treat social media like we would any other mental health crisis, utilizing every bit of prevention and treatment available.

So now you might ask, how do we move forward from here?

Parents have to recognize this is not just a phase in their children’s development; it is only the beginning of an ongoing issue. Kids are suffering, and in most cases, probably more than they lead on. We must recognize and verbally acknowledge that this is NOT an overreaction. With an underdeveloped brain, teens affected by this epidemic must be led by example. Parents: grappling with social media-induced problems just became an integral part of parenting.

“We’re handing them a device that’s very powerful with buttons and controls… You learn how to add contacts and all of those things, but are we properly teaching them the right behaviors?” said Cynthia Germanotta, panelist and President of Born This Way Foundation.

“You know that eventually your child will be near water, so we want to teach them how to swim. But are we teaching them those other skills?”

Yes, kids need to be taught how to properly approach social media, and they may need access to therapy on a regular basis before they dive head first into the social media pool. After all, we’ve already lost an entire generation of teens to this epidemic.

“It’s here to stay,” said Germonatta. She’s right. We can’t just say “no” to technology. We can’t just quit. We can’t just ban it until the age of 21. It is the culmination of these facts that lead us to ask ourselves, what now?

It was then that I came to realize something else during my SXSW conversation: we’re in a war with social media that we cannot win, and we are foolish to assume that these networks are built with their ethical implications at top-of-mind. At the end of the day, we must remember that these are still businesses requiring usage and revenue.

If you still think I’m exaggerating the scope of the problem, consider what Gabby Frost, panelist, 21-year-old founder, and CEO of Buddy Project said.

“A lot of teens, their lives revolve around social media…I think it’s really damaging to teens’ mental health…Unfortunately it’s become a norm in our society to feel like you’re not wanted, or not worthy.”

Truth be told, this is not going to be easy. Frost spoke about how hard it is for parents to understand what kids go through these days. It’s equally as hard for parents to issue warning messages without coming off as socially clueless.

As a parent, as a founder and as a member of today’s society, I’m taking strides to do my part. At SXSW, I announced that Airtime has plans to collaborate with Born This Way Foundation on a major project harnessing the power of technology to truly connect those in mental health crises. While I believe this is a step in the right direction, it simply is not enough; this epidemic is spreading and we need all the help we can get. We have some of the greatest minds on the planet scrambling to build the next hot entertainment app, mobile game or data-collecting platform.

Now, I call on all of us to use this brainpower to build technologies that not only connect people, but work to improve (or maintain) the user’s mental state.

In the meantime, we all need to keep this conversation going and harness the power of technology for better social connectivity. “People need to know it’s okay to go through times where you not in the best mental health state,” said Frost.

When we talk, we foster togetherness. Talking helps us focus on being present, having fun and forming real connections. Why work on keeping up appearances, when all you really have to be is yourself? Talk to your children, talk to your peers, talk to anyone that will listen.

It’s time to take this weaponized FOMO and finally fight back.