Social Media Harms
2022: The Year Ahead: New_Public’s Civic Signals, A Framework for Evaluating Social Media Technologies
2021 in Review: Enlightening Revelations, Fervent Discussions, No Technological Metamorphoses
Hopes ran high for 2022. COVID-19 would be finally tamed, new social media technology would be developed that would cure most of its ills. Social Media Harms would have to be renamed to reflect safer, less harmful social media platforms. That vision did not become reality in 2021. It is still far too early in the transformation process to declare victory.
With the publication of the Wall Street Journal’s Facebook Files, U.S. Senate hearings, U. K. Parliament hearings and stories written by the consortium of 17 media outlets with access to the Facebook Papers, mainstream media’s attitudes appeared to be changing in 2021 regarding the accuracy of disputed downsides of social media use. Controversial issues included mental health effects (increased anxiety and depression), addictive use and the facilitation of civic unrest, among other ills, especially in the case of Facebook and Instagram.
Facebook Users Respond With A Collective “Meh”
Facebook users seem to be discounting this news. Business of Apps reported that daily active users increased from 1.78 billion in 2020 to 1.91 billion in 2021. Additionally, Facebook reported 2021 Third Quarter profits as increasing by 35% year over year.
Perhaps users share the opinion of Andrew Bosworth, Chief Technology Officer of the company formerly known as Facebook (Meta) who wrote in an infamous 2019 company memo that Facebook use should be compared to sugar consumption — a desired treat that causes no harm unless consumed to excess. He continued on, stating that it is the user’s responsibility alone to moderate their use of the platform. University of Texas, Austin researchers, Yalin Sun and Yan Zhang disagree. In their October 2020 meta-analysis of 25 different theories regarding social media addiction, tested in 55 empirical studies, they conclude:
“With the increasing use of social media, the addictive use of this new technology also grows. Previous studies found that addictive social media use is associated with negative consequences such as reduced productivity, unhealthy social relationships, and reduced life-satisfaction. However, a holistic theoretical understanding of how social media addiction develops is still lacking….”
Change Is Needed, but What and How?
Kailya Young and Micah Sifry co-convened an on-line conference hosted by Planetwork entitled “Logging Off Facebook- What Comes Next?” on November 12, 2021. Micah Sifry writes:
“The purpose of this event is to bring together three groups of people who want to do something with the information we have: 1) people building alternatives to Facebook’s dominant social platforms; 2) policy-makers and analysts with ideas about how to either break up, constrain or fix Facebook; and 3) organizers seeking to refine their strategies for dealing with Facebook.”
The conference included 99 people from a wide variety of backgrounds who participated in three discussion sessions divided by topics generated by the attendees. All were engaged, knowledgeable people, but the discussions often had trouble finding common ground. A large part of the problem was the lack of a common framework. It was similar to a group that wanted to plan a trip but one sub-group had a topography map, another a listing of vehicles available for use, and third had a destination, but no one knew where the roads and waterways were. Frustrating for all, few measurable results, but hopefully some attendees made helpful connections.
Could the New_Public Civic Signals Framework be a Language Bridge between Technologists and Users?
Tamar Wilner, Talia Stroud, and Eli Pariser from New_Public, a collaboration between the National Conference on Citizenship and the Center for Media Engagement at the University of Texas at Austin, spent two years interviewing experts across a wide variety of fields and international viewpoints in the social sciences, philosophy, communications theory, technology, product management, and journalism. They also interviewed members of user groups, philanthropists, and advocates across the political spectrum to develop a framework or “signals” for designing digital public spaces.
In 2019, they used this framework as the basis for the Civic Signals research project consisting of a questionnaire given to 22,112 adults located in 20 countries, between November 27 and December 17, 2019. The questionnaire asked users about their thoughts regarding their social media experience, divided into four major categories: Welcome, Connect, Understand and Act. There are 14 signals or properties of thriving digital spaces that fall under one of the above categories. While the Civic Signals project asked about users’ experience on widely used platforms, this framework can be used to evaluate new platforms and give non-technologists ideas for changes they would like to have made in current platforms.
The 14 Signals
Welcome
- Invite Everyone to Participate- digital community participation regardless of economic/political status or geography
- Encourage humanization of others
- Ensure People’s Safety — protection of digital participants from harm or danger ranging from malware, identity theft, and harassment to sexual victimization and exposure to violent material.
- Keep People’s Information Secure — The preservation of the integrity and confidentiality of people’s private information.
Connect
5. Cultivate belonging — finding others with similar life circumstances and providing support.
6. Build Bridges between Groups -formation of social connections that allow information, resources, and opportunities to travel between groups that might not ordinarily connect.
7. Strengthen local ties — encourage connections that people have with the physical places and communities in which they live.
8. Make power accessible — The degree to which the public is heard by those in power, whether in government, business, or other institutions.
Understand
9. Elevate Shared Concerns-The extent to which issues that are important can be elevated for consideration by society at large, whether by the news media, legislators, interest groups, or other actors.
10. Show Reliable Information-The amount of information shown that is verified based on the best available evidence, and for which the production process is transparently disclosed.
11. Build Civic Competence-The awareness of how to perform one’s particular roles in a democracy, such as the roles of a citizen or a voter.
12. Promote Thoughtful Conversation- The interactions among people with differing views that shed light on why people believe what they do, and involve the consideration of others’ perspectives.
Act
13. Boost Community Resilience- The ability of a community to recover from significant stress or adversity, such as natural disasters, public health emergencies, or violence.
14. Support Civic Action-Action to address issues of public concern from volunteering to attending community meetings to co-creating new spaces and institutions.
It will be fascinating to see what kinds of technologies are developed using this framework and to see if and how this framework informs development of new governmental regulations. Certainly the technologies, discussions and proposed regulations will be very different from those in prior years. Social Media Harms will be here to inform its readers of any new developments and will use the Civic Signals framework as part of reviews regarding any new or proposed technologies.
Social Media Harms provides a listing of peer-reviewed studies, books and articles from authoritative sources that document the negative effects of social media use. The website also includes links to organizations that promote safe social media and internet use.
