It’s easy to fall for it and I’ve been guilty of it for more than a decade. But now it’s become even more concerning and, in my humble opinion, detrimental to the health of our society. It’s become so ubiquitous in many of our lives and those who don’t participate are sometimes looked at in a mocking way. The invention has been a godsend in many ways, providing connections that previously were incredibly difficult to maintain. And like many things, it’s morphed into something not a part of its original design. What the hell am I talking about? Social media.
Full disclosure – I’ve become very disenchanted with social media in recent months. I’ve always had sort of a love/hate relationship with it, but lately it’s leaned more towards hate. I’m now to the point of being close to deleting my social media apps in an attempt to improve my mental health. As has been widely reported over the years, social media algorithms are designed to keep us scrolling. The algorithms are so smart that they’ve been individually customized to keep us scrolling as long as possible. How many times have you said you were going to spend 5-10 minutes on Instagram just to see “what’s going on” and before you know it, 30 minutes have passed? It happened to me all the time. And if I had to categorize the content, it was 50% political, 30% ads, 10% sports, and 10% actual posts from friends. Is that what I signed up for? A few weeks ago, I purchased some hair product online. One week later, my Instagram and Facebook feeds were loaded with various posts selling – wait for it – hair products.
Here’s my darker take – social media is exacerbating our divide. Yes, we live in a politically divided country. However, I do not believe we are as divided as the media and social media companies want us to think. It is in these media companies best (financial) interests to keep us thinking we are divided. They want us to take sides. They want us to be angry. Because that keeps us engaged. And for me, it was working. It was particularly difficult in the ensuing weeks after the Charlie Kirk murder and was an inflection point for me. I saw my feed change dramatically, with posts on top of my feed that I KNOW were put there by the algorithm to purposefully make me feel angry. It was working.
Finally, after a number of days of scrolling and feeling particularly angry, I had had enough. I was tired of feeling angry and resentful against people on the opposite “political side” of me just because of what I had seen on social media. Our country is politically divided, to a degree, but we still have WAAAAAAYYY more in common with one another than not. Social media and media companies need us engaged, and what better way to keep us engaged than keeping us angry. Keep us clicking links, seeing ads, spending more time scrolling, etc. It’s their business model and I’ve finally reached my limit. I will consume my news from the trusted sources I know report fairly, and I’ll connect with the people I want to connect with in whatever ways I can outside of social media.
Social media is not the root of all evil. But my take is that it has become detrimental to the health of our society by intentionally creating division. I’m done with it.
I’ve Had Enough
Hey Jason, it was great to meet you on the virtual walk on 9/20. I had a few thoughts about your article. For the most part, I’m in agreement with you. I feel social media has so much potential for good, but it’s done a piss poor job overall, except in creating anger and selling ads. I initially joined (this is going way back) Facebook, Twitter (now X), Snapchat, and Instagram. The latter three I abandoned very quickly. I’ve never been on TikTok. For Facebook, As an Independent centrist, I seem to have avoided getting sucked deeply into algorithms from either extreme, as I mostly avoid politics. I have never unfriended anyone from either side of the aisle, as I want to know what they’d thinking. I only commented twice on anything politcal to friends to try and get them so look at a very partisan post from another side. One refuted me, the other ghosted me, so I’m not likely to do that again, at least for a while. I still continue to find some rays of light on Facebook, like finding out about life events of old friends, etc., but it really shouldn’t be that difficult to sort through the muck. For a technology with so much promise, I’d give it a “D” overall. Thanks for listening. Tom
Hey Todd and men here,
I applaud your discernment about how you relate to social media. I have come to similar conclusions. And there is a growing mountain of evidence to support our personal instincts and perceptions. It has been hurting our mental health, making us feel more seperate and at times inadequate (emphasizing distorted comparisons between us)… I think of it as an enchanted mirror that is so tempting to look into… like a “free” crystal ball that shows you the world outside ourselves… but to forget that the secret price is that the mirror or crystal ball is not neutral of clear. It is tilted towards whatever distorted ways of seeing make us want to spend more time there.
Gulp. When I think about how sophisticated that distortion field is becoming and more so embodied by AI agents who can talk to us in voices and with words that seem to align with our own perspectives and values only to be subtly manipulating us… I am so grateful to know that spaces of authentic relating and empowerment exist in the embodied world such as MenLiving and the small long term men’s community I am committed to be tending till my dying days.
Thank goodness we have the antidote… we are the medicine to break free from these spells… and come back to our sense and a shared reality of co-creating a world for all of us to grow and thrive in together.
With you all the way, Jason. Social Media is a net negative for humanity. 😔