Addictive Social Media

I have no personal social media. I insist on it for sales and marketing teams in companies, but for me as an individual it holds zero interest or value. I have no Facebook, never used Twitter, and despite being a corporate executive, am not on LinkedIn. I do not even understand what TikTok is.

Social media in general perplexes me. Everywhere I go, I see people with their faces in their iPhones or iPads. I used to wonder what I am missing, Is some earthshattering event happening that I am the only person missing out on? It was impossible for me to understand what everyone is glued to. Nothing in my life seemed empty or vacuous, everything seemed to be running along as normal and okay. So whatever I was missing out on escaped me. And no one I observed appeared to be racing ahead in their lives or careers, so it was an enigma. Is still an enigma.

It troubled me to see someone walking across the street with a mini screen blocking their view, or a couple at a dinner table engrossed in something on their screens ignoring each other. I laughed at a scene in a movie where a pair of friends had a conversation with each other by phone, while sitting at the same restaurant table.

It is worse. I do not have a cell phone. That is impossible for most people to believe. I love a landline, cheap, effective, instant, secure, and capable of two functions, making and receiving calls. There is the recent disconnect movement. When a person has a cell phone that effectively lives on their body, they are always available. And companies leverage off that. Such a problem now that there is backlash and a growing concern for mental health from not being able to disengage from work. And that a person’s time taking and responding to a call from a supervisor afterhours is unpaid. I do usually have a cell phone supplied by the companies I work for. But even that is not essential because I work in an office and an office has a land line. I work long hours and am one of those executives who is open and approachable, so access is readily available.

Then I stop work, go home and have dinner, watch TV or read a book, a paper one, not an electronic one, or play music, a CD usually, but YouTube often. In other words I compartmentalise my work and private lives. I go home and play.

Famed social psychologist Jonathan Haidt says, “We lost the play-based childhood and we got a phone-based childhood.” He is quoted in a recent 60 Minutes article by Adam Hegarty & Anne Worthington discussing what they call “Harrowing new evidence of the harm social media is having on our children.” They say, ‘Social media and the smartphone have triggered a “great rewiring of childhood”, creating an “international epidemic” of depression, anxiety and suicide among children.’

And it is not just Australia. He said teen mental health worsened dramatically – and simultaneously – around the early 2010s in the United States, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, northern Europe and in Scandinavian countries. 60 Minutes has spoken to three families whose children have died – or have been severely harmed – and who claim social media is to blame, after their kids were exposed to harmful content pushed by algorithms.

As the Australian government considers banning social media for teenagers, Haidt has explained why it should. He blames the introduction of the smartphone equipped with addictive social media apps.

This addictive phenomenon is a problem. In the USA “More than a dozen states and the District of Columbia filed lawsuits against TikTok, alleging the popular short-form video app is damaging children’s mental health with a product designed to be used compulsively and excessively,” according to the Guardian.

In the previous blog, discussing the Max Bennett book A Brief History of Intelligence, it was interesting to me and others I know to read about the roles of dopamine and serotonin on learning and in particular on addiction. The so called experiments on the pleasure centre of the brain, where hitting a button causes the experimental subject to have an artificial burst of dopamine. The shot of this neurotransmitter causes the sense of reaching a climax, but is addictive because it never quite gets there. Even with human test subjects who are aware of the nature of the experiment, they push the button forever.

The USA claim alleges that “TikTok’s algorithm is especially dangerous given the platform’s widespread use among young people and its ability to deliver quick hits of dopamine. Design choices such as infinite scrolling, push notifications and in-app purchases prey on youth and create addictive habits among users.”

So I finally know what I am missing out on. It is hits of dopamine and the unfulfilled, unsatiated effect it produces. In other words I am missing out on nothing.

People asked me what I do without a cell phone. I say, I plan. I go shopping and I make a list. I do not get there and ring back home for a reminder of why I am there. I arrive at an airport and my friend is there to pick me up as planned.

People asked me how I communicate and I say by email. That is getting harder though, not because email does not work, or that it is less effective than a telephone call, but because services are moving away from email. I tried to get into my Qantas frequent flyer account this week, and had forgotten my PIN, which I can only renew by giving them a cell phone number to send it to. A decade ago when I forgot my PIN they sent it to my email address and a minute or so later I was in. They do not send it to email addresses anymore. So I cannot get into my account. They say emails are less secure than phones. Not mine. My memory is that it has been Vodafone and Telstra who were hacked, not my email provider.