One in eight humans globally are using Facebook on a daily basis. Initially, Facebook was initially created to connect people at colleges and a few schools. Nowadays, it is still a medium to stay connected with family, friends, network groups, and organizations. You can post text, photos or videos to express your ideas or whatever you are going through. And other users can like, comment or share your post. The more people to react to your post, the more dopamine, a.k.a. the “pleasure chemical”, is produced in your brain. The platform has also shifted to the entertainment spectrum, where, for example, you can read news articles, play games, and watch funny videos. Browsing through social media feeds gives the users an euphoric feeling, also due to a dopamine spike, whenever they see an amusing or interesting post.
Customers of Facebook are getting addicted to the social media platform. But who’s fault is it, the customers or Facebook? Are the users just narcissistic? Was It unethical of Facebook to design it’s business model to a scalable attention-based platform? I think, it is a mixture of both, whereas external factors (i.e. individualization, digitalization, etc.) strengthen both sides of the question.
One could argue, that humans have gotten more narcissistic over the years. Some scientists think narcissism is a post-industrial ‘modern epidemic’. One where the individual became bigger than the society. This was initiated by a movement that determined the essence of self-esteem. A generation grew up with the idea that success in life is related to self-esteem rather than hard work. This weakened the social fabric. It became harder to have a meaningful connection. This created a “empty self, shorn of social meaning”. A social media platform, like Facebook, has empowered the individualization. They provided a channel where people measure the quantity of connections to society, rather than the quality. A platform where people share their happy feelings, even if it is a façade. Or a platform, where users can entertain themselves by reading their feed, watching videos and playing games. The users strive it maximize the number of connections, likes, and comments. Whenever a user post something new, they care about the reactions of their connections, so they will keep checking this. Furthermore, Facebook have added the option for users to compete in games with their connections. E.g. a game like Candy Crush. The players (mostly users of Facebook) play this game as a form of entertainment and to have a higher level or more points in a certain level than their connections. Actually, Facebook as a business filled in the needs of the market.
If Facebook only followed the market’s needs, why would it be unethical? Well, they did not just follow the market’s needs. They have tried to exploit their customers by maximizing our in-app attention. And they have succeeded as one of the best in the industry. The first industry where the secret formula to attention was found is the casino industry. This was achieved by correctly designing its own business model. One where multiple tricks are used to keep customers as long as possible inside the casino (i.e. no windows, no clocks, bathrooms in the back of the casino). Also customers liked the uncertainty of playing the casino games. Therefore, by decreasing the chance of winning and reducing the rewards, the time spent inside a casino was stretched. In order to copy some of the tricks of the casinos, Facebook spent a lot of money on attention engineers. They build an algorithm where users would receive message about all kinds of new posts they missed. The directly triggers a creates a dopamine rush when it gives the users a notification of new feed posts. The fear of missing out and the uncertainty of reward of the new feed attracts the customers to open the app or remain on the app.
Whenever you want to fight the addictive aspects of a social media platform like Facebook, imposing changes and restrictions in the algorithm is not enough. I think changing the algorithm will not be an effective solution at all, due to the fact that there is a fundamental problem within society. In order to effectively decrease social media addiction, society has to find a disruptive way to fight individualization and thus narcissistic behaviour.
