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The Ethicality and Impact of Social Media

Many of you may have thought and discussed the ethicality and the impact of social media on society. We continue to be bombarded with news article and blogs stating that rates of depression, suicide, anxiety, loneliness and self-harm have been increasing, predominantly in the young adults and preadolescence. There’s a paradoxical nature to social media it connects people together, but results in loneliness, it wants people to express themselves, but results in either low self-esteem or self-absorption. Of course, these are purely generalisation and if you think that I can answer this question completely in under 1500 word when some “experts” failed to do in book form, I apologise in advance, this is meant to supplement your understanding surrounding the ethics and impact of social media.

Of course, like all technologies the are pros and cons, one can say that the pros of social media are the increased capabilities to interact and collaborate with individuals from the other side of the globe and those closer to home, provides new avenues of income, discover sources of valuable information and learning. However, the cons of social media can be that some users can view the life and or appearance negatively, provided the rock bed for cyber bullying and self-absorption and exacerbate what is known as FOMO (Fear of Missing Out).  

If you read the mission statements of the top social media corporation you’re likely to read, “Social media was created so that individuals have a vehicle to communicate between on another”, many have argued social media has been hijacked and to a degree their arguments are valid. In the past two years alone, we have observed social media as a vehicle of aggressive marketing, political misinformation and general misinformation. Much of these issues have yet to be resolved but, how, do we need legislative action or do the companies themselves have to resolve these issues.  

What many people tend to forget is the ALL social media corporation; Facebook (+Instagram), YouTube, Twitter, Tik Tok and Snap Chat; hire psychologists, anthropologist and sociologist. To some this is obvious, its so that everyone that uses their service remains on their service for as long as possible. If you are regular social media user for any of these services, you are a subject in their experiments myself included, this is not some kind of conspiracy theory, Google and Facebook state it on their job descriptions for a User Experience (UX) Researcher.

If you have even used YouTube, you may fall into a rabbit hole, you click and watch one or two video that are within your purview, then the algorithm kicks in, recommending you with some obscure video something completely out of your purview. During me writing this paragraph I conducted a pseudo-experiment, I clicked random tech videos about the new iPhone, then on the suggested tab one of the videos was title “Mark Zuckerberg Says He is Not a Lizard Person”, I have never in my life thought let put the video title in the search bar. I almost certain that I’m not the only one that this happens to, since in the comment section they’re talking about how this was recommended to them. This experience is likely to be true with other social media services

Informed consent – Have we unknowingly consented to be participant to social media-based research, the simple answer is yes. Traditionally, in scientific research such as, clinical trial, the participant has sign consent forms however, in this new age your consent is hidden in the terms and conditions. I’m certain all of you have never actually read the terms and conditions when signing up to social media, we have basically allowed them to take “our data” even data that you deem to be private. With data they can create models on everything, your political views, the number of sexual partners you’ve had, anything really, you name it they have already modelled it.

This particularly true when the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica Data Scandal broke, when Facebook users’ personal data was harvested without consent resulting in only certain groups of Facebook users were receiving targeted political ads. We now understand the Cambridge Analytica were hired by the Trump administration, the Conservative Party (UK), the Royal Family, and the British military.

This goes together with anonymity in research ethics, this is most important factor in all research, particularly in qualitative or collaborative research when data is shared between outside groups. Social media corporation tend to store meta-data on their databases for several years with little consideration for anonymity, since the meta-data can already identify individuals in their network.

Some 50 psychologist sent a letter to the American Psychological Association to take an ethical stand against psychologist working at social media corporation using “manipulative psychological techniques”.

From a neurological perspective, social media function is a unique way, it floods it users with a combination of stimuli that trigger different pathways in the brain. The major pathway that is exploited is the reward-motivation system or more commonly known the Dopamine pathway. When a person receives Likes it fires off dopamine receptors, the neurological reaction is almost symmetrical with things like narcotic use and gambling. As previous stated this both a combination of features released by social media corporations using psychologists to make their service attractable as well as human nature. The capacity to communicate shared with all organisms, whether it’s for the purpose of pleasure (Sex, Finding a mate, enjoyable activities, comedy etc.)or to assert dominance (argue, fight, cyberbully etc), we as humans have forgone the tradition of face-to-face communication for digital public communication.   

At the end of the day these corporations operate for one reason and one reason alone, money, and there’s nothing wrong with that, however, when one weighs the ethical cost of procuring money in this way, we rarely are able to understand it during its implementation. Like technologies in the past we only can comprehend the cost when it too late, but there is room for improvement judging what to improve and how is another rabbit hole, I wish not to explore.

I recommend you to watch this Jaron Lanier interview its around 20 minutes and he provide insider insight, since he worked in Silicon Valley as well as sold a company to Google. He has a superior understanding on how the algorithms that Facebook and Google use to manipulate and is featured on the Netflix “docudrama” film – The Social Dilemma.