A few times a day I’ll unlock my phone, see a prominent notification bubble over the app icon for Facebook, Instagram or X, and open it up.
Minutes later, I’m watching a video about something like a Korean art installation, the subject of the notification – often a complete nothing contrived to get me to open the app.
Most of us understand that social media is more disruptive than beneficial. Indeed, wasting our time with junk notifications and interrupting our productivity with easily accessible distractions is the least of its dangers.
Billions of people are signed up for Facebook, but how many still need it? Credit: Bloomberg
Studies have suggested serious implications for mental health, the apps are likely responsible for a steady decline in the quality of public discourse, and online echo chambers distort world events into propaganda with real-life consequences.
In the wake of a pair of stabbings earlier this month, misinformation and hate on social media platforms made the fallout far worse. And yet, millions of us remain hooked. If we wanted to, could we leave it behind? From experience – and anecdotal evidence – the answer is “not easily”, but it’s worth trying.
To be clear, this isn’t about judging people who use social media, and I’m not saying there’s necessarily anything wrong with bite-sized entertainment in the form of short videos that have been algorithmically chosen for you, or photos and thoughts from your friends and brands that want to market to you.
In the wake of a pair of stabbings earlier this month, misinformation and hate on social media platforms made the fallout far worse. And yet, millions of us remain hooked.
There’s also nothing necessarily wrong with enjoying something we know isn’t the healthiest for us. A lot of us drink coffee every day, which has benefits and risks, just like social media. Sure, some of that is chemical addiction, but some of it is also because it’s pleasant, and it’s become part of our routine, rituals, and our social and family life.
Yet if you found yourself routinely on your sixth cup of coffee before noon, you’d hopefully recognise there’s a problem there. Coffee also never made itself as attractive and genuinely useful as possible for long enough to gain billions of drinkers, before declining massively in quality and wringing as much money out of its users as possible. Which is, to simplify, largely what social media companies have done.
Could we all do without social media?
21
34
19.04.2024
A few times a day I’ll unlock my phone, see a prominent notification bubble over the app icon for Facebook, Instagram or X, and open it up.
Minutes later, I’m watching a video about something like a Korean art installation, the subject of the notification – often a complete nothing contrived to get me to open the app.
Most of us understand that social media is more disruptive than beneficial. Indeed, wasting our time with junk notifications and interrupting our productivity with easily accessible distractions is the least of its dangers.
Billions of people are signed up for Facebook, but how many still........
© The Sydney Morning Herald
visit website
login
who are we?
contact us
qosheapp
Toi Staff
Gideon Levy
Belen Fernandez
Rami G Khouri
Mort Laitner
Donald Low
Ali Fathollah-Nejad
Nikkei Editorial
