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Audrey Michael

Heidi Gregory

AP lang

17 March 2021

Ethical Design: How We Can Improve Social Media and the Internet

“It is simultaneous utopia and dystopia” (​Rhodes​). Social media has brought so much

good into the world. It has allowed family and friends to stay connected even at long distances. It

allows people to share photos, videos and messages instantly with the rest of the world. But they

have also caused many problems including, increased polarisation, politically and personally.

They have caused an increase in teen depression and anxiety and they have increased society's

vanity and increased the already impossible standards of beauty. These platforms have changed

the way we live our lives for better and for worse, and as a way to help make sense of how social

media is built and why it has had such an impact, director Jeff Orlowski created the Netflix

Documentary film entitled, ​The Social Dilemma​. This film showcases testimonials from some of

the original creators of today’s most popular social media platforms as they explain how social

media is affecting us. They describe the algorithm, how social media is designed to be addictive

and that it may know more about you then you know about yourself. They explain that just

another code won’t fix this issue, because it is about the fundamental design of the sites

themselves. Thus Tristan Harris, a former Google Design Ethicist and Co-Founder & President

of The Center for Humane Technology, describes a solution, an ethical redesign of social media.

And he is correct, Social media has more problems than benefits and an ethical design and better

regulations could begin to help solve those problems.

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Firstly, as described in ​The Social Dilemma​, social media is addictive and it is designed

to be that way. As Edward O. Wilson, a Harvard professor and renowned father of sociobiology,

would put it, “we have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology,”

(​Harris). Our minds are only able to adapt to small changes over time, but technology has

increased in its abilities at an almost exponential rate. Simply put, we are out matched. These

tech companies have created this way to manipulate humanity in an almost imperceptible fashion

in order to make more money by selling their users attention. One of the more shocking points

that ​The Social Dilemma​ makes is, “There are only two industries that call their customers

‘users’, illegal drugs and software,” stated by Edward Tufte, American statistician and professor

emeritus of political science, statistics, and computer science at Yale University, (Rhodes). The

most terrifying part of this statement is that the users don’t even know they are being

manipulated. A Gale Academic study, conducted at the University of Ankara showcased

people’s perception of social media addiction and, "Of the college students included in the

current study, about 50% of them perceived themselves as addicted to social media between

75%-100% and about 20% of them perceived themselves as addicted to social media 100%,"

(Findings on Psychology). This statistic is still relatively low, because the fact that only 50 to 20

percent of social media users at this college understand that they are addicted to social media is a

troubling thought, because in reality much more than 95% of users are addicted to some sort of

social media platform, whether that be Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, gmail, YouTube, etcetera.

This shows that the public needs to be more informed about what social media is doing and how

it is affecting them. “With the advent of social media and smartphones, those vulnerable to

addictive behavior now have a socially acceptable form of addiction that they're socially

obligated to carry with them whether they're already addicted or not. Social media finds you lost
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in the woods and takes you even further from the beaten path” (Dunbar). This shows that tech

companies have taken advantage of their power over humanity and that it needs to be put in

check.

Secondly, ​Social media’s many addictive features and qualities stem from two basic

human emotions, the need for communication and validation. When social media was introduced

it was this place where people from all over the world could go to connect and communicate

with one another. “The collaborative nature of social media makes it a unique and dynamic

method of communication” (Snyder). This idea of connection that social media brings is both a

blessing and a curse. Yes, it has allowed people to stay in touch from distances but it has also

brought a new need for constant validation from others. “How many likes did I get on my last

post?”, “What are people commenting?”, are common thoughts that run through people’s heads

on a daily basis. But everything is only temporary, one may get more likes on their latest post

and this may bring them joy for a time but it's only temporary because they are then thinking,

“what can I do to keep making that happen? What is the next thing I have to do to get more

likes?”. It's an unhealthy mindset that to many people, particularly teens are trapped in.

Depression and anxiety has increased at an exponential rate since the start of social media, and it

is particularly affecting gen-z. Collectively, Gen-z has become more anxious, fragile and

depressed. They take less risk and they are less likely to have the proper skills for good social

interaction. Gen-Z is the first generation to be introduced to technology and social media in

middle and high school, the most fragile and fundamental ages for developing social and

communication skills. But they have now been provided a digital pacifier for when they are

uncomfortable or afraid. They now have this phone, this computer, this screen, that they can turn

to and it will provide them with whatever comfort they need, and it has ruined their ability to
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properly deal with difficult situations, (Rhodes). This is a problem that seems to have no one

solution, but Tristan Harris, the developer of The Center for Humane Technology has thought of

a few fixes, he suggests “instead of joining free social media platforms that benefit from turning

us into addicted, narcissistic extremists, we could agree to pay subscription fees to services that

shun “likes” for features that empower our lives offscreen, making these services, in essence,

fiduciaries acting in the best interests of humanity,” (Harris). This solution would help put an end

to the addictive vanity portion of social media and it could help lead the way towards a more

ethical design of the internet.

Conclusively, social media has led to a battle over the human mind. Some people believe

that it is a force for good and it improves communication, while looking past the addictive

tendencies that leads to. As others believe that social media is dangerous and that it has had only

negative consequences, choosing to ignore the advancements that it has helped to bring. Either

way one chooses to look at it, social media has ups and downs. Social media is here to stay, that

at least is a fact that everyone can agree on, thus we need a way to have more safety for its users.

More regulations based on information that can be shared, to help others discern truth from

fiction, and help to spread messages of positivity more than messages of hate. The algorithm

running these programs doesn't know the difference between truth and lies, or between good and

bad, it only sees numbers and data, and it is programmed to show what has the biggest numbers.

That means it is up to the people to make a conscious change to what they are putting on the

internet. The needed changes, regulations and restrictions, will take time to develop and create,

but with a collaborative effort from those that choose to help will be helping to make the world a

better place, one site at a time.

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Works Cited

Dunbar, Mark. "I​F SOCIAL MEDIA IS MAKING US WORSE: Can We Make It Better?" ​The

Humanist,​ vol. 79, no. 1, Jan.-Feb. 2019, p. 12+. ​Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints​,

link.gale.com/apps/doc/A568569762/GPS?u=travcty&sid=GPS&xid=4ea5e5bc.

Accessed 11 Mar. 2021.

"Findings on Psychology Detailed by Investigators at University of Ankara (The Relationship

Between the Items of the Social Media Disorder Scale and Perceived Social Media

Addiction)." ​Psychology & Psychiatry Journal​, 13 Feb. 2021, p. 260. ​Gale Academic

OneFile​,

link.gale.com/apps/doc/A651012206/GPS?u=travcty&sid=GPS&xid=783a5589.

Accessed 10 Mar. 2021.

Harris, Tristan. “Our Brains Are No Match for Our Technology.” ​The New York Times,​ The New

York Times, 5 Dec. 2019,

www.nytimes.com/2019/12/05/opinion/digital-technology-brain.html.

Rhodes, Larissa. ​The Social Dilemma.​ ​Netflix,​ 26 Jan. 2020, www.netflix.com/title/81254224.

Snyder, Lisa Gueldenzoph. "Social Media in Business." ​Encyclopedia of Business and Finance​,

3rd ed., vol. 2, Macmillan Reference USA, 2014, pp. 680-683. ​Gale eBooks,​

link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3727500287/GPS?u=travcty&sid=GPS&xid=56d9559c.

Accessed 12 Mar. 2021.