Social media has swept across modern culture, but are we really in control? Behaviourist psychology says otherwise.
Psychologists and scientists confidently say there are processes in our body and minds that we have no real control over; of which, actually have control over us. It’s these processes which can be commandeered, hacked or worked upon.Behaviourist psychology presides on a simple truth: we are drawn to pleasant things, and withdraw from unpleasant things. It could be argued then that all sentient things seek pleasure, and avoid pain.
The act of being drawn or withdrawing from a thing is called a response; and the sensation is called the stimulus.
Our brains have stores of self-produced neurochemicals that mollify the struggles and unpleasantries in life—turning these into pleasure, or at least making the brain register it that way. As a direct result of evolution, biology dictates that everything necessary for our survival makes us feel good and that life inside the human body is designed to be harmonious.
For many the notification symbol that so readily features in our daily lives seems harmless. Today, a modern person’s device will undoubtedly feature a range of apps, easily downloadable and acquired within an instant. But stop for a moment and think about how many thousands of hours have gone into the conception and development of these apps.
Social media activates the reward centres in our brains, directly affecting the release of dopamine — the neurochemical which regulates feelings of pleasure and desire. This process is why social media arrests our consciousness and feels so utterly irresistible.
The stimulus of social media is the experience we take from using an app. The response is our interaction with the app, in other words, our attention.
It’s important to establish social media’s influence on its users as something voluntary; it’s an act of will to use social media. But this by no means softens the pernicious effect social media has on many users. Thus prompting the stimulation-response hook we’re unable to resist.
Over time our relationship with the app deepens, its stimulants become more impactful in our daily lives. Thereafter our gravitation toward the app is soon replaced by a cloak and dagger bubble of supposed interests; and herein is where the learning part of behaviourism psychology takes place; each time you interact with the app, you are learning to expect a certain kind of experience or reaction from the app.
Upon tuning into social media, the little red notification circle is being associated with those enticing, irresistible, reward emotions that you have conditioned yourself to require above all else.
A telling point in this symbiotic relationship is when the user no longer views the arbitrary notification associated with rewarding stimulus as important enough to sustain this conditioned habit. Put simply: you will continue using social media, regardless of notifications or lack of. All for
the despairingly fleeting serotonin high. In time, whether consciously or not, you may start believing that the notification symbol, imperfectly arbitrary, truly did create real emotions inside you. Charlie Brooker has pulled on social media’s pernicious and unnatural influence on humans in Black Mirror; it’s not difficult to see why.
The behavioural allure of social media is pigeonholed in three categories: the reward, the response, and the arbitrary trigger; of course addiction is much more complicated in reality.
Subsequently addiction to apps has proven problematic in our complex modern world, and like anything, runs deeper than loosely categorising how we feel. How accessible or usable an app is; how emotionally rewarding the content proves; and how poignant the information is all have an impact. Additionally, to what degree an app fights for our attention in an economy of attention-grabbing technology, and how far the app is willing to go are unsettling factors inherent in social media addiction. Perhaps the most salient is how far we are willing to go for the pseudo-emotional rewards.
Suicide rates among teenagers have doubled in the last eight years according to research; and data compiled by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show suicide rates in children and young people aged 15-19 have increased. ONS published data show that 1,413 self-inflicted deaths were recorded in the last three months of 2019. Studies show that suicide attempts in young people less than 19 years can be directly linked to heavy social media or internet use. Causality as ever remains complex and variegated in our growing modern world. More sobering yet the fact suicide is the second leading cause of death in youth aged 10-24 years old globally.
Current evidence in psychiatry says heavy or problematic use of social media does impact suicide risk in young people, sadly increasing the risk of suicide attempts.
Should psychological techniques be employed on the public to influence in ways they might not want to be influenced — is a question many are concerned about; regrettably, these techniques are universal in modern culture today.
Many have raised specific questions on freedom, agency, attention, psychological (and physical) health, and limits to free capitalism.
In capitalist-driven societies the techniques used for greater influence, sales, and engagement have been in motion for quite some time. But the biting problems lie in what new technologies, like social media, have on our health mid to longterm — particularly in unprecedented ways. Specific interventions will be needed more than ever as apps and internet platforms jostle for our attention and consciousness.
As of July 2020, there are 3.98 billion social media users worldwide which equates to over half of the total global population, as researched by datareportal. Every day new users of social media are increasing at frightful speeds. Our most-loved social media apps claim more than 1 billion monthly active users. Facebook has 2.603 billion monthly users; Youtube has 2 billion; and Instagram has 1.082 billion. Yikes.
Dopamine is namely responsible for reward-driven behaviour and pleasure-seeking, to which all social media has a direct impact upon. Many of today’s drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamine trigger responses of dopamine chemicals in the brain.
When society was addicted to drink driving, global campaigns battled to full effect on how best to eradicate the problem, and have been largely successful. Similarly the same happened with smoking, albeit with the help of Coronavirus. Governments must acknowledge the addictive prowess of social media and the health, and indeed lives, of young people at risk from over-use.
We as a culture are distracted by the dazzling, waltzing portraits billions contrive via social media; when in reality we are subordinating ourselves to a dopamine prison of FOMO (fear of missing out), vanity, and notification rewards which do little other than feed our egos. Social media spins fantasy out of reality, whipping up untold power and influence; moving the masses like putty.
Best to unfollow.
