Upset About The Facebook Papers/Social Dilemma Revelations?
It's time to fight back by 'getting a life'!
I scrolled through the CNN stories and shook my head in utter disbelief.
Frances Haugen's Facebook Papers had just busted the world's most popular social media platform. She alleged that Facebook, its sister company Instagram, and particularly their resting-clueless-faced CEO Mark Zuckerberg reliably put company profits ahead of social good. It would be one thing if the platforms were only accused of pushing mindless consumerism on users, upon which we would say, It's our choice whether to drive ourselves into debt buying dumb crap we don't need, innit? but the allegations are far more serious, and some of it is old news.
We know from the Papers and Netflix's widely-viewed documentary The Social Dilemma that Facebook's algorithms, primed to give the user what they want while scrollingscrollingscrolling, pushed toxic narratives at potentially amenable users, aided indirectly by overseas hackers. It's strongly linked to pushing the 2016 election toward Donald Trump.
We know certain social media platforms were pressured to remove mis/disinformation last year regarding COVID and the forthcoming federal election. The Facebook Papers note many within the organization have voiced repeated concerns about the effects of their content on users and the larger society. Even as senior management parroted their concerns, they rushed en masse to do nothing about it.
Engagement is king at Facebook.
Now we know how post-election 'Stop The Steal' propaganda, misinformation and falsehoods resulted in the January 6th attack, which was freely planned and shared on several social media outlets. We know other types of disturbing content get pushed more to some users than others; Instagram's algorithms pushed pro-anorexia content to the 'right' teenage girls. Facebook's internal research noted 'vulnerable communities' targeted with disturbing content included senior citizens, blacks, and low-income users, and that one-quarter to one-third of their global community lacks the digital skills to critically analyze their content's factualism.
Facebook's CEO doesn't exactly come across as knowing what the hell is going on in his own empire. He famously blew it in a House hearing grilling by Congressional pit bull US Representative Katie Porter a few years ago about user privacy, content moderation working conditions and Facebook's lobbying efforts.
It's widely believed the only torture worse than being interrogated by Katie Porter is crucifixion, or maybe being eaten alive by zombies.
When Netflix released The Social Dilemma earlier this year, people reacted with horror, realizing how easily they were played by Facebook's and Instagram's social media algorithms, even for 'normal' users not looking to get triggered by the Instastorm du jour.
Now they were outraged to learn how easily manipulated was their outrage, or simply induced to spend more time scrolling through feeds to keep Mark's advertisers in automobile elevators and rotating garage floors.
When I watched the doc with a friend a few weeks ago, we had somewhat different reactions. He felt more 'played' than I did. I guess he spends more time on social media than I do.
"The only one really in a position to 'play me'," I remarked, "is YouTube. I do use it to escape. But I consciously know it's what I'm doing and remind myself I could be using my time more productively."
The only social media platform I use more is LinkedIn, but I'm in sales. You can't work effectively without it, and I never scroll the feed. It's strictly business.
So no, not feeling played by LinkedIn.
I can honestly say I spend less than an hour a week on Facebook. Every once in awhile, when I'm depressed or bored, I'll lie on the couch and scroll through the feed. But it's like a sugar binge. It feels good at the time, but makes me feel useless afterward.
Scrolling depresses me, since one of Facebook's and other platforms' many 'services', include self-debilitating anxieties induced by others' carefully-curated lives showing only the positive aspects.
Before I decided to write novels, I could easily spend, back then, an hour or more a night on Facebook and Twitter. My Twitter activity increased as Twitter was considered a good channel for self-promotion, which it was, but today it's a firehose of author spam.
Today I spend maybe 20 minutes total on Twitter daily, checking it for the latest-breaking news. I mostly tweet my latest articles. I don't engage much; I perceive it as a cesspool of hate and bigotry. I'm glad they purged the most toxic elements of the far right, now I wish they'd 'cancel' the far left.
Whose life is it anyway?
Social media is a more recent addition to our long list of toxic distractions, most of which aren't toxic in moderation. We may eat too much, drink too much, purple-haze ourselves into a stupor, shop too much, shag too much, or binge-watch Netflix, but no one is forcing us.
Manipulating, sure.
Let's be real: We're trying to escape being alone with our least favorite person. Ourselves.
When we don't distract ourselves, the Bad Thoughts come. Ruminations. Anxieties. Depression.
Even productivity--whether it's work or our side hustles and pet projects--can become toxic distractions if we avoid ourselves.
But taking the long view, isn't it better to work toward a goal than to kill a bottle of Merlot while stewing about your boss in front of Netflix?
The diff between doing something meaningful in your spare time and most other distractions is that at bedtime, you feel a sense of accomplishment rather than that you're pissing your life away with the underlying feeling of being, on some level, a personal failure.
Social media, as we already know, feeds our worst anxieties by encouraging us to compare ourselves with others who always look happier. Their job probably doesn't suck. Their partner or spouse probably doesn't put them down at every opportunity. Their car probably doesn't deliver a new anxiety-provoking ding or rattle every week.
Mindless scrolling to avoid The Bad Thoughts is a choice. Rather than contemplate what we need to do to improve our lives, we doomscroll and check to see if anyone has responded yet to our latest gem of wisdumb.
It's our life, and we can do better than this.
I come not to damn social media, but to praise it. What would it look like if we took control of our own attention and directed our most valuable asset elsewhere, using social media as mere tools rather than escape?
When I got serious about novel writing, I cut down my off-time Facebook and Twitter pursuits. Posting. Commenting. Occasionally participating in or starting flame wars. It juiced a lot of sick emotional needs, and I realized it had to go. Not completely, but I cut way down and spent my evenings researching, writing, editing, looking for an agent, exploring self-publishing as a possible path, trying to keep up with the warp speed evolution of the publishing world.
I reclaimed my life from social media.
I'm not terribly aggravated to learn that, at least at one time, social media manipulated my attention and shoveled Nicole-optimized content my way. It was my choice to spend that much time on it. I had no clue others received content to juice their darkest bigotries and phobias. I don't remember what I saw, but it definitely wasn't terrorism, anorexia or conspiracy theories.
It was my time, and my life. It was my attention span.
We forget we have choices, since almost everyone else engages in toxic distractions, including all those Photoshop-pretty wealthy influencers, all of whom are struggling with their own internal anxieties and self-doubt. Or worrying about whether or when they're going to lose whatever they have.
What if we all found side projects toward which to direct our precious attention rather than to toxic advertisers and platforms who don't have our best interests at heart, who drive us to want and buy stupid crap we don't need or really want, or worse, use us as free lab rats to experiment on how to psychologically control and manipulate us better?
We can learn a language, embark on reading Russian literature, start up a side hustle, write, paint, create. We can still scroll social media, enjoy a glass of wine, or the occasional dessert. We can choose not to engage in the multi-partisan hatefests around us and consciously withdraw from contributing to the endless volley of insults and abuse.
We can then pat ourselves on the back that we've stopped ceding control to platforms bringing out the worst in us or at the very least turn us into mobile zombies. We can stop getting triggered by learning John Wayne was a sexist, racist pig in less-woke prior decades (CANCEL HIS CORPSE!!!).
I don't feel 'played' by YouTube. I check out its recommendations for when I have only limited time, like eating a quick snack or just before bedtime. Mostly I use it consciously, for information. This past week I listened to YouTube panel discussions on gender identity ideology while performing mindless tasks.
It's all a choice. We don't have to get played by anything. If The Facebook Papers and The Social Dilemma horrify you, then resolve to stop letting them play you. Decide how much time you'll spend on social media, what you agree to consume, and analyze how much FOMO there really is. What exactly are you missing out on? Your friend's latest rant about the metric system or whichever politician triggers her the most?
Lab Rat, retire. Find better cheese. Something that makes you feel good about yourself when you go to bed, not worse.
Get a life! It'll annoy the snot out of Zuckerberg.
When I'm not resisting the urge to tell off some COVIDiot on Twitter every time Dr. Fauci trends, I help women take back their power on my website Grow Some Labia.