Social Media &

Environmentalism
ENV 361

We’ll get started at 10:10am


In the meantime, make yourself comfortable 

and review your notes from the readings
Social Media &
Environmentalism
ENV 361
Questions about the homework?
 Course Overview
Foundations

Class Overview

Introduction to Social Computing and Design Research

Causes for Concern


Environmental Consequences of Computing

Polarization and Disinformation

From Persuasion to Addiction

Sources of Hope

Sharing Knowledge

Collaboration

Activism

Ways Forward

Designing Pro-Social Media

Governing the Internet Commons

Dismantling and Withdrawal
From Persuasion to Addiction
Persuasive Design
 Fogg’s Model of Behavior

B=MAT

(behavior = motivation + ability + trigger)

 So how was this brought to Social Media?
• Persuasive design courses at Stanford

• “Facebook class” in 2007

• Books

• Ted Talks

• “Persuasion Bootcamps”
From Persuasion to Addiction
The Invention of Facebook’s Like Button
Intermittent positive reinforcement - “the vegas effect”
The Facebook Emotion Experiments
 Social Media Addiction?
Do you spend a lot of time thinking about social
media or planning to use social media?

Do you feel urges to use social media more and

more?

Do you use social media to forget about personal

problems?

Do you often try to reduce your use of social media

without success?

Do you become restless or troubled if you are unable

to use social media?

Do you use social media so much that it has had a

negative impact on your job or studies?

https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/in-excess/201805/addicted-social-media
Overall Mental Health Consequences?
The Attention Economy
5 Minute Break

Sqiushmallows by Haley Vicek and roommate

 Can we persuade people to be green?

B=MAT

(behavior = motivation + ability + trigger)

 Persuasive Design for Sustainability
• Provide people more information about the environmental impacts of their
decisions (may increase motivation).

• Example: home energy consumption

• Make sustainable choices more convenient or less expensive (increase ability)

• Example: Google public transit maps

• Alert people when more sustainable choices are available to them (provide
triggers)

• Example: Vegetarian substitutes in the meat aisle of grocery stores

 Nudges
there is a gap between our intentions
and our actions

small prompts, or nudges, can guide

people to make more sustainable
choices that they already want to
make

“no decision setting is neutral”

 Cri:ques & Concerns

• Overly narrow vision of sustainability

• Too focused on individual behaviors

• Assumption of rational behavior (that will be swayed through the right

information)

• Focus on material objects rather than systems and processes

• Trouble predicting second and third order effects

Brynjarsdottir, H., Håkansson, M., Pierce, J., Baumer, E., DiSalvo, C. and
Sengers, P., 2012, May. Sustainably unpersuaded: how persuasion narrows
our vision of sustainability. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on
Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 947-956).

2 minute break

Neymar - Nuki Giorgadze

Social Media “Detox” Activity
Where do we go from here?
Further Reading
Course Feedback
 Next Class
• Reading Week!

• Course Feedback Form

• Assignment 1 Final due next class (2/26)

• Guest Speaker - Emily Jacobi of Digital Democracy

• No Tutorial
Social Media &
Environmentalism
ENV 361