The rise of a series of technologies in the past decades has provided us with the possibility to stay connected with anyone at any point in time. First, the internet connected computers all around the world. Then, computers started shrinking, the cable made place for wireless technology. Since about a decade it is possible to carry a computer in your pocket, connected to world. This revolution has sparked a paradox: where one would expect more social behaviour, it might cause the opposite. This blog outlines three reasons why social media may spark antisocial behaviour.
First, the most obvious occurrence is the difficulty of putting your phone down (Andrew-Gee, 2019). Social media such as WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook are continuously pushing notifications in an attempt to draw your attention. Facebook for example has not been shy at using algorithms that calculate exactly what to feed you, thus increasing the chance of falling for calls of attention from the app. This dependence has moved to a subconscious level, as the average American opens their phone 47 times a day according to a study conducted by Time (Price, 2019). This does not only happen when on your own, but also at parties, dinners and social situations alike. The smartphone swallows the attention that could otherwise be given to the ones surrounding you.
Second, the same algorithms that yell for your attention and feed the user exactly what they want to see is increasingly fragmenting or pillarizing the society (Bright, 2018). A new Facebook account will be unbiased towards the selection of timeline posts. Yet, as you start using the timeline, clicking on some posts, scrolling past others, the algorithm will monitor your interests and start pushing posts that match these interests. Since the posts that are being shown, clicked and read match the already established interests, therefore enforcing the effect the effect. This may seem innocent, yet it can have large consequences. As social media is maturing, politics is increasingly using social media as a medium of campaigning. Someone slightly attracted to one political view, can outgrow into a fanatic of such ideas as social media keeps on feeding more and more information fortifying this political view. As this happens to multiple political views on the political spectrum, collisions are on the rise due to the increased extremity of views.
Lastly, an increasing issue is the rise of loneliness among youth. A study by the Independent (2019) revealed that young people feel lonelier than any other age group. According to this study, 42% of people aged 16-24 mentioned feeling lonely often to very often. Something that could potentially be an underlying cause to this feeling is the fear of missing out while scrolling through near perfect images posted on social media (Economist, 2018).
Despite the increasing connectedness, social cohesion has seen a fall. As smartphones are demanding your attention more and more, the urge to dive into a smartphone is growing, meanwhile blocking out your surroundings. Hereafter, the algorithms on your smartphone make a selection of posts especially matching your interests. In the end, this leads to collisions across different views and more dramatically, loneliness. Would it help to ban algorithms that generate exactly what you see? Will this decrease the urge to look on your phone? Will this counteract the increased fragmentation of society?
