Gretchen Millhouse

Professor Lisa Tyler

English 1201.505

15 November 2020

Social Media and Our Country

From 2012 to 2018, social media use among teenagers has increased dramatically. The

number of teens with smartphones have increased 48% and a new study by Common Sense

Media discovered that, “the number of teens who use social media multiple times a day has

doubled,” (“Concerned”). It’s not just teenagers who have seen an increase in social media use,

but adults too. In March of 2005, only 5% of adults said they use at least one social media site.

However, in February of 2019 that number rose to a staggering 72% of adults using at least one

social media platform (“Social Media”). And that number is still on the rise as the U.S. is in the

middle of a global pandemic and is turning to social media sites more than ever before in an

attempt to stay connected while being socially distant. Is all this social media use good for our

well-being as a country? When social media platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat,

YouTube, Instagram, and Tik Tok first came out, they were intended to bring people together

and to be a tool for old friends and family to connect and new friendships to form, but is it still

that way? Now that social media has been out for numerous years, what are the benefits and

dangers of it in our country, and how can we highlight the positive and omit the negative aspects

of it? The answer to this question is one that could keep social media platforms accountable in

how they make us think and feel about both ourselves and other topics, as well as strengthen our

relationships with each other and vitalize our country. The current business model of social
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media companies creates many dangers, such as developing addictions, increasing mental health

problems, and promoting division within our country that the government, as well as citizens,

need to be aware of and regulate through blocks on your personal device and accountability for

major tech companies.

When social media first came out, the benefits of it were praised and the negatives were

either overlooked or not yet known. However, as time has passed and more studies have been

conducted, researchers are finding that social media can be addictive, and this is partly due to the

current business model of the companies. For many, the effect of online networking has

progressed from being an engaging addition to an entirely integrated piece of virtually all aspects

of day to day life, all in somewhat more than a decade (“The Impact”). This is exemplified in

addictions, as people cannot give up or delete the sites, but have to constantly be scrolling to see

what new posts they can look at, like, or comment on. Sean Parker, Facebook’s founding

president, addressed social media addictions and the current business model when he said,

“During the creation of Facebook, the goal was to figure out how to consume as much of the

user’s time and conscious attention as possible,” (The Social Dilemma). Wharton University

writes that social media adjusts based on our behaviors and preferences, and that this aspect is

what makes social media engaging and interesting, but also more addicting (“The Impact”).

But how exactly does it adjust to our preferences? The documentary titled The Social

Dilemma outlines how addiction and security breaches are highlights, not bugs, of social

networking platforms (Girish). Anna Lembke, an addiction specialist at Stanford College,

explains that, “These organizations take advantage of the brain’s developmental need for

relational contact,” (Girish). She, along with Tristan Harris, a previous plan ethicist at Google,

and Roger McNamee, an early financial specialist in Facebook, reveal that the control of human
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conduct for benefit is embedded into these organizations with extreme accuracy (The Social

Dilemma). They aren’t selling their site to advertisers, but rather they are selling our

information. Infinite scrolling and message pop-ups keep users continually locked in.

Customized recommendations use user information to foresee as well as influence our activities,

transforming users into simple prey for sponsors and propagandists (Girish). The more time we

spend on social media, the more money these sites make by selling our information to

advertisers. Therefore, the job for social media platforms is to figure out how to make their sites

the most addicting, so they can make the most money.

Fig. 1. This image is an illustration of how tech companies want people to be addicted to

their phones and tied to it at all times (Taylor).

One answer they’ve come up with is with the creation of the “like” button, which gives

the user a little hit of dopamine to urge them to post more content. Dopamine is a substance

created in our brains that rewards us for helpful practices and rouses us to repeat them (Haynes).
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Sean Parker, Facebook’s former president, explains this point by saying, “It’s a social-validation

feedback loop... exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology,” (Deveraux). He goes on to say

that the intensity of the dopamine framework to adjust habits is natural to smokers and drug

addicts. He furthers this point by saying that each habit-forming drug, from cocaine to

amphetamines, from liquor to nicotine, impacts the dopamine framework by scattering a lot more

dopamine than expected (Deveraux). In knowing this information better, the importance of self-

regulating one’s social media accounts becomes more urgent. Setting aside a specific amount of

time to use social media is one way to combat the addiction by ensuring that one doesn’t end up

mindlessly scrolling for hours on end.

Social media also affects finding and maintaining jobs. It helps build digital literacy,

which will aid in making one more marketable for jobs. However, a study done for MIS

Quarterly suggests that job seekers should be mindful of how their social media content may

draw inspection from hiring managers and could potentially create positive or negative biases

(Wade, et al). For example, posting a lot of political content will either create a positive bias if

the hiring manager agrees with and supports your political views, or a negative bias if they don’t

share the same views. It goes on to suggest that organizations should create policies that

encourage raters to be mindful of how social media assessments may create biases that impact

the hireability ratings of job applicants (Wade, et al). When looking at social media profiles,

companies should look only for inappropriate or harmful content that could affect the job the

person is applying for, not looking at what political party they’re a part of or what athletic team

they like best. Furthermore, even once one has a job, they still need to be mindful of what they

post on social media. For example, the police department in Philadelphia decided to fire over

twelve officers after their racist remarks on their online networking sites were uncovered (“The
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Impact”). Although one may have a job, their posts on social media may still be watched and

inspected to determine how long they stay at their job.

One of the benefits of social media is that news can travel fast and everyone has access to

it, but this too has its downfalls. Wharton University marketing professor, Pinar Yildirim, says

that social media critics are predominantly worried about two things: misusing of buyer

information and ineffectively overseeing admittance to it by outsider suppliers; and the degree of

disinformation spreading on it ("The Impact"). The impact of online networking on the last

presidential race and similar issues may have disintegrated public trust. Jaron Lanier, author of

Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now, believes that with social

media, there is a decline in free will. He states that social media has eroded truth, destroyed

empathy, and is “making politics impossible,” (“The Impact”). One might ask how that is

happening, and the answer is the same for why social media is so addictive: by adjusting to our

behaviors and preferences. As mentioned before, social media sites sell our information to

advertisement companies in order to create personalized ads that are geared toward the things we

like, want, or need, but it also uses our information to create personalized recommendations for

what we should watch or view next. This is how they keep us hooked on scrolling through their

platform for hours on end, and it is also how misinformation and fake news spread like wildfires,

and causes people to be hostile towards one another (The Social Dilemma). Social media sites

learn what one’s likes and dislikes are, what political party they’re a part of, and what their

stance is on a wide variety of topics. Using this information, the sites feed the user personalized

recommendations that support the user’s interests, whether it is true or not. This causes the user

to only view posts and articles that agree with them, making them more set in their ways and

more strongly convinced that others who disagree with them are wrong. People don’t care
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anymore about hearing out other people’s views and having an open mind about topics. They

don’t want to understand concepts and ideas more fully or get all sides of the story before they

make their decision because they are convinced that they are already right because their social

media feed shows only those who agree with them. This is why people get into heated debates

rather than calm conversations and why it seems like kindness is hard to be found these days.

One misconception about social media is that it directly causes mental health issues.

Cyber-bullying, comparison, and the dangers of online predators are just some of the things on

social media that can impact one’s mental health. While some research has discovered

connections between social media use and issues in mental health, these connections don’t

directly mean that social media is at fault (Allen). Jeffrey Hall, head of the Relationships and

Technology Lab at the University of Kansas discovered that more often than not, individuals

who are discouraged, desolate, and have low quality of life go to online media to resolve those

prior needs in their social world, than the case individuals who utilize web-based media are

causally getting more unsatisfied with their life (Allen). It is true that social media causes people

to be depressed and unhappy with themselves, but it doesn’t affect people as much as we once

thought. One is affected more by social media if they already struggle with those things prior to

getting on it. In addition, Doctor Kaveri Subrahmanyam, educator at Cal State LA, directed a

short-term investigation that studied the associations between negative connections on social

media and overall mental health. She discovered a secondary connection between individuals

that had been victimized by people on social media at the start of the research and admitting to

be less satisfied with life when the investigation was finished. However, the more grounded

impact was that people who were depressed at the start of the investigation were bound to be

victimized later on (Allen). Kaveri states that while people tend to think they all experience the
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same social media effects, it turns out that they seem to truly rely on how one utilizes social

media platforms, as well as their unique mix of qualities and difficulties (Allen). This could

affect how we teach students about social media. With this in mind, we should steer away from

a “one size fits all” approach and recognize that people struggle with different things on social

media based on their own unique set of challenges, and therefore, the way we teach students to

handle social media should be unique to them as well.

Although social media helps families who live far away to connect, it can also be harmful

to the family unit. Families who spend all their time on social media lose interaction and

investment in each other’s lives. Some affairs happen as people’s significant others meet and

interact with new people online. Nonetheless, an examination found that parents’ positive

discernments about the effect of web-based media on social collaborations and connections

inside their family framework can have an impact in cultivating a decent family functioning and

open correspondence among members of the family (Procentese, et al). It’s not about not using

social media, but using it in a way that is wise and beneficial to the family. If all parents think

that social media is bad, then it will drive their teens away and make them resent their parents,

but if parents understand that social media has its benefits, then families can openly

communicate and connect with their kids through the use of social media.

In light of the negatives of social media, it is important to note the positive effects it has

had on our country as well as the good that has come out of the creation of these sites. People

can meet new people as well as stay in contact with peers and distant loved ones, and it serves as

an essential outlet for creativity for adults and teens alike (Allen). As people connect with others

through shared challenges, interests, and/or passions, social media sites offer a feeling of

community. Also, online media permits one to show competency and authority to their circle of
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impact. By allowing autonomy, people can engage in conversations about topics they care about

and offer their thoughts and ideas to others. Also, digital literacy, a skill needed for the majority

of jobs today, is built through the use of social media, and people can learn almost anything they

want from online tutorials and discussion groups (Deveraux). Because of the technological

advancements in our society, one is more likely to get a job if they are able to work a

smartphone, computer, or several different sites and apps. From photography to music to

engineering to math, people can learn whatever skill they wish, which saves money and might

make them more marketable for jobs if they know how to do useful skills. Many people’s lives

have also been saved through the creation of social media as they have been able to find organ

donors and set up GoFundMe accounts to raise money for a specific person, family, or

organization in need.

Taking into account the information of how social media actually works, the question

people should be asking is: Are we at a point where the exercises of online media associations

ought to be controlled by the government for the good of the consumer? Some might answer this

with a firm “no” as they believe it is a direct violation of the freedom of speech all Americans

have. Others acknowledge the issues social media is causing, but they believe that there are few

ways to fix it without violating the Constitution (Samples). They fear that government

intervention will cause more evil than good by corrupt government officials attempting to

compel tech companies to block speech that is in disfavor of them. Therefore, they believe that

private content mediators must be able to overlook explicit or implicit dangers to their freedom

from government authorities by regulating social media themselves (Samples). They say that it

is Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, not the President or Congress, that have the authority to

remove the speech of websites that are harmful to society, or to change their business models to
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create a healthier country (Samples). Although they are against government regulation, they are

not against regulation itself. In fact, they admit that this job cannot be avoided. They believe

that no one else can or ought to do the task except for the social media companies themselves.

Others answer the question by saying that the government should regulate social media

companies and that there are steps the user can take to assist in regulating their personal social

media accounts. If the social media companies themselves are solely in charge of regulating

their own sites, then not much change is going to take place. The companies may do well in

regulating what people post on it, but they have no motivation to change their current business

model because it is making them so much money. As mentioned earlier, these companies make

money by selling our information to advertisers. The endless scrolling and personalized

recommendations are what keeps people on the site longer, and therefore, makes the companies

more money at the expense of the user developing addictions and furthering mental health issues

and political division. If left up to them, they will not risk losing money in order to help our

country.

This is why the combined self-regulation and government regulation of social media

platforms is the best option in trying to fix this problem because it can help to highlight the

positive aspects, while omitting the negative aspects. In regards to self-regulation, perhaps the

best way to make sure social media is being used in the right way is to be conscious about the

time spent on it, and active when you are on it. Being conscious about the time spends on online

media sources means setting aside a specific amount of time to use social media, and being

disciplined about getting off of social media when the time is up. Being active on social media

means engaging with other people when you are on it, rather than passively scrolling. Both of

these ideas are shown to help reduce the risk of becoming addicted (Allen). In addition,
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educating oneself on the dangers of social media is a great way to make sure people set the right

blocks up in order to keep their use of it beneficial (The Social Dilemma). Checking one’s

privacy settings and “locking down” your account will help keep it more secure. Furthermore,

purposefully following sites that support an opposing viewpoint from one’s own is very

beneficial in keeping an open mind about topics, hearing and understanding people who don’t

agree with you, and getting a more reliable, well-rounded news feed. Government intervention

and regulation is another way to keep social media platforms grounded and accountable to the

information they compile on the users and how they use that information. Instead of regulating

the posts on social media, as some are fearful of the government doing, it would be better if the

government put regulations on the social media companies themselves. The government could

put blocks on the way that social media companies sell user’s information to advertisers to make

money as well as limit the personal recommendations users get based on their interests. If the

personal recommendations on one’s account were somewhat random, it could improve the

division in America by not having people surrounded by their own beliefs and interests all the

time. By doing this, it would help decrease the number of people that are addicted to their sites

as well as expose users to a variety of things that are different from their personal interests. This

would create a society where people are more unified because they understand and respect those

who think differently than them.

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Works Cited

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Association, 20 Sept. 2019, www.apa.org/members/content/social-media-research.

Accessed 18 Oct. 2020.

“Concerned That Teens Are Constantly on Social Media?” Thriveglobal.com, 13 Sept. 2018,

thriveglobal.com/stories/9-key-findings-from-research-of-teen-social-media-use/.

Accessed 4 Dec. 2020.

Deveraux, McKay. “The Dangers of Social Media for Teens - Outback Therapeutic

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2020.

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Oct. 2020.

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Accessed 13 Nov. 2020.

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