It’s a phenomenon we’re probably all familiar with, time we are supposed to be spending productively on either study, work, social or sports activities is filled in with social media. After spending an hour on our Instagram timeline or Twitter feed, we usually blame ourselves for wasting our time, but what causes us to spend time like we do and is it reasonable to blame ourselves?
The quality of a magician which enables him/her to trick children, surgeons, lawyers as well as professors is their knowledge about this minor weakness in the human brain they can perform tricks on to confuse us. Algorithm developers have comparable knowledge, which as a result leads to platforms which draw our attention for more and more minutes a day and we really desire to fill our empty time by returning to the highly addictive social media platforms. The problem is that the business model of companies drawing our attention is to demand as much time as possible from us on their websites and therefore train the algorithms to gain advantage of our weak spot in the brain.
As social media platforms were originally created for connecting human and enabling tighter connections with people all around the world, the negative impact on our attention and cognition are becoming increasingly clear. According to Pang (2013) the average American citizen spends 1 hour per day dealing with distraction and then getting back to work again, which is equal to 5 entire weeks per year! Another experimental study showed that the ability to solve new problems as well working memory drastically reduced when phones were on their desk but turned off compared to being in another room. Even the smartphone itself acts as a high priority stimuli which unconsciously drains significant attention when we’re ignoring it consciously (Adrian F. Ward, 2017). Another study shows that 75% of the screen content we consume is viewed for less than a minute. Biological analysis on this study showed that participant experienced a neurological ‘high’ when switching content. This explains why we feel urged to switch content and underscores how easy we are to be manipulated by attention-demanding economies (Leo Yeykelis, 2014).
Ironically, several former early stage-employees, board members of firms like Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook and Google, including Tristan Harris, former design ethicus at Google feel concerned about the negative effects of algorithms. After his period at Google, Tristan founded the Center of Humane Technology where he tries to raise awareness and drive change by reaching millions of people using campaigns, presentations and public testimony to policy makers. The goal is to shift the mindset from which persuasive technologies are built and use it to support parallel shifts in our larger social system. Another example is the Tim Kendall, former president of Pinterest who caught himself using Pinterest after a long day of working and feeling unable to prevent him doing this instead of time with his family purely on willpower. Therefore he founded the application Moment which helps to break screen and social media addiction through several tweaks in your habits.
After seeing all these initiatives come from the ground by former contributors of the platforms it made me think a lot. I noticed that it worked the same for me, when distracted in my mind I could just open Facebook, scroll for a minute or so and get back to work. It took me three days to decide to just delete my Facebook profile, which might be the extreme solution. But the point I’m trying to make is the importance to protect our brains from losing our attention and cognitive capabilities we developed and to be aware of how social media algorithms affect us and find a way to deal with it.
References
Adrian F. Ward, K. D. (2017). Brain Drain: The Mere Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity. Journal of the Association for Consumer Research Volume 2, Number 2, 140-154.
Leo Yeykelis, J. J. (2014). Multitasking on a Single Device: Arousal and the Frequency, Anticipation, and Prediction of Switching Between Media Content on a Computer. Journal of Communication, Volume 64, Issue 1, 167–192.
Pang, A. S.-K., 2013. The Distraction Addiction
Hi Gijs,
Thank you for the interesting read! The sad truth of growing up in our time and age is the fact that we are consistently exposed to triggers. When you place a child in front of a toy or an iPad with games, they will most likely take the toy. We are essentially training our brains to want instant gratification. This is a theory that is also commonly explored (if you have not heard of it, you should google it). Just like the applications you mentioned, like Moment, there are many courses out there that allow you to work on instant gratification, so that you will pick up a book next time you want to be distracted rather than Instagram. It is mentally very challenging to fight these urges, but raising awareness on the effects on our brains is crucial!