Serendipity35

Following my last post about how social media is bad for your health - an idea that I think most people would agree with  - I also feel that social media has undeniably transformed communication and society in numerous ways. If you assume that is true, then you should ask why and when social media went wrong. This is a cross-post from my Weekends in Paradelle blog.

Despite lots of media attention about the negative effects of social media. it is still widely used. I started thinking about when social media became unhealthy. Any answer is subjective and complex and probably depends on individual factors such as personal experiences, societal norms, and technological advancements.While it offers many benefits, there have been turning points that have contributed to negative perceptions of social media.

Here’s my list of some turning points:

Privacy Concerns: As social media platforms evolved and became more integrated into people’s lives, concerns about privacy and data security emerged. High-profile incidents, such as the Cambridge Analytica scandal involving Facebook, raised awareness about the potential misuse of personal data collected by social media companies. This eroded trust among users and led to increased scrutiny of social media platforms’ privacy practices.

Spread of Misinformation and Fake News: Social media has facilitated the rapid spread of misinformation, rumors, and fake news. The ease of sharing content on platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and WhatsApp has made it challenging to verify the accuracy of information, leading to the proliferation of false narratives and conspiracy theories. This phenomenon has had serious consequences, including the exacerbation of social divisions, political polarization, and public health misinformation.

Cyberbullying and Online Harassment: Social media platforms have provided avenues for cyberbullying, harassment, and online abuse. The relative anonymity afforded by the internet, combined with the viral nature of social media, has enabled individuals to target others with hurtful or threatening behavior. This has had particularly harmful effects on young people, leading to mental health issues, social withdrawal, and even suicide in some cases.

Impact on Mental Health: Research has highlighted the negative effects of excessive social media use on mental health, including increased feelings of loneliness, depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem. Factors such as social comparison, cyberbullying, and the pressure to present a curated and idealized version of one’s life contribute to these negative outcomes. Additionally, the addictive nature of social media platforms, characterized by endless scrolling and notifications, can exacerbate feelings of stress and overwhelm.

Erosion of Civil Discourse: Social media was once seen as one way to “democratize” the web. But it has been criticized for contributing to the erosion of civil discourse and the rise of polarized and hostile online environments. Echo chambers and filter bubbles, where users are exposed primarily to viewpoints that align with their own, can reinforce existing biases and prevent constructive dialogue across ideological divides. This has implications for democracy, as it hampers informed decision-making and compromises the ability to find common ground on important societal issues.

So, when and why did social go wrong?

When I was teaching a graduate course in social media, we talked about its timeline history. That was 2016 and we were only talking about the negative effects as a fairly new point on that timeline. If I were teaching that today, I would need to add developments in the history of social media that mark shifts toward negative effects:

Here is a start on that list:
Proliferation of Platforms: Social media platforms began to gain popularity in the early 2000s with sites like MySpace and Friendster. As more platforms emerged and gained widespread adoption, the sheer volume of social interactions online increased dramatically.

Introduction of News Feeds: The introduction of news feeds, where users could see updates from friends and pages they followed in real-time, marked a significant shift in how people consumed content on social media. This change led to increased time spent on platforms and potentially unhealthy comparison behaviors.

Rise of Smartphones: The widespread adoption of smartphones made access to social media constant and ubiquitous. People could now engage with social media anytime, anywhere, blurring the boundaries between online and offline life.

Algorithmic Changes: Social media platforms began to implement algorithms to curate users’ feeds based on their interests and behaviors. While these algorithms aimed to increase engagement, they also contributed to echo chambers, filter bubbles, and the spread of misinformation.

Data Privacy Concerns: High-profile data breaches and scandals, such as the Cambridge Analytica scandal involving Facebook, highlighted how social media platforms could compromise users’ privacy and security. These revelations eroded trust in social media companies and raised concerns about the ethical implications of their practices.

Overall, while social media has brought about numerous positive advancements in communication and connectivity, its negative effects have become increasingly apparent over time. The exact point at which it became “unhealthy” is difficult to pinpoint, but these developments have collectively contributed to growing concerns about the impact of social media on individuals and society.

"Too much social media is bad for your health," wrote Amber MacArthur recently in her newsletter. "This is true for adults and especially true for kids. Almost a decade ago I wrote a book exclusively on this topic, endlessly worried about how tech companies saw young users (including my son) as a goldmine for data and dollars. My 2016 book (don't buy it, it's out of date) focused on how tweens and teens were spending time on social media apps - and how parents could help them stay safe."

I used her book in 2016 for a graduate course I was teaching in social media design. Not even a decade later and almost everything I used in that course is out of date. Amber notes that a recent survey of thousands of people in 142 countries and territories found that one in four people are lonely (Source: Statista). Perhaps, fewer face-to-face relationships are to blame?

on another blog    One area I addressed is the impact on mental health: Research has highlighted the negative effects of excessive social media use on mental health, including increased feelings of loneliness, depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem. Factors such as social comparison, cyberbullying, and the pressure to present a curated and idealized version of one's life contribute to these negative outcomes. Additionally, the addictive nature of social media platforms, characterized by endless scrolling and notifications, can exacerbate feelings of stress and overwhelm.

Are there any possible solutions or at least some ways to improve social media use - especially with younger people?

Many suggestions are controversial from age verification to smartphone bans. Take age verification, which seems reasonable but opens up privacy issues.  In the book The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt suggests that there should be no phones before high school, no social media before 16, and no phones in school. Sounds good but they are all very difficult to enforce, at home or in school. I was always told that kids shouldn't be watching screens until age 3. Good luck with that.

A social psychologist, Haidt lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how the “play-based childhood” began to decline in the 1980s, and how it was finally wiped out by the arrival of the “phone-based childhood” in the early 2010s. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this “great rewiring of childhood” has interfered with children’s social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism. He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and their societies.

In my next post, I'll try to figure out when social media went wrong.

 

Since my dating days were before dating became an online thing and literally before online was a thing, I haven't really kept up with dating and technology. 

I have friends who got divorced and dipped back into dating and used online dating apps. Over 300 million people use dating apps worldwide, according to a 2023 report by Business of Apps. To visualize this figure, it’s almost the entire population of the U.S. or half of Europe’s population.

Tinder is an online dating and geosocial networking application launched in 2012. On Tinder, users “swipe right” to like or “swipe left” to dislike other users’ profiles. A profile has their photos, a short bio, and some of their interests. Tinder uses a “double opt-in” system, also called “matching”, where two users must like each other before they can exchange messages. In 2022, Tinder had 10.9 million subscribers and 75 million monthly active users.

Renate Nyborg was Tinder’s first female CEO, but she recently left the popular dating app and launched Meeno which is described as relationship advice rather than dating. For example, you might ask for advice about dealing with your boss. The Meeno app uses artificial intelligence (AI) to help solve relationship problems. She predicts that the future will be less about online dating and more about real-life encounters.

The numbers for online dating are huge but Nyborg and others see a trend (with Gen Z in particular – 18 to 25-year-olds) that they are more interested in meeting people organically.

When she left Tinder, she had said she wanted to use tech to “help people feel less lonely” and dating is only a part of that. According to a 2023 report on loneliness commissioned by the European Commission, at least 10% of European Union residents feel lonely most of the time. A Pew Research study revealed that 42% of adults surveyed in the US said they had felt lonely during the COVID-19 pandemic. So, Meeno is intended to be your mentor, distinct from a virtual girlfriend, boyfriend, clinical therapist, or coach.

What can AI do in all this? Broadly, AI can speed up the processing of all these apps. It can analyze very quickly user behavior patterns and datasets to identify potential matches based on shared interests, values, and preferences. AI can filter profiles for inappropriate content, such as nudity or hate speech. It can analyze a user’s swiping patterns, interests, answers to questions, and personality results to introduce them to tailored recommendations.

There are other apps, like Blush, Aimm, Rizz, and Teaser AI, that use personality tests and physical type analysis to train AI-powered systems. Some apps use machine learning algorithms to scan for attraction and then suggest images of real people that the app thinks the user might find attractive. these are more for “dating” than everyday relationships which is Meeno’s current target.

This post first appeared in a different format on Weekends in Paradelle

2023 was certainly a year for AI. In education, some teachers avoided it and some embraced it, perhaps reluctantly at first. Some educators have reacted, partially to AI that can write essays Some schools, some teachers, some school districts some colleges some departments have tried to ban it issues. Of course, that is impossible, just as it was impossible to ban the use of Wikipedia or going back to the previous century, the use of a word processor, or a calculator in a math class, or use the Internet to copy and paste information.

What happened when an entire class of college students were told to use ChatGPT to write their essays?

Chris Howell, an adjunct assistant professor of religious studies at Elon University, noticed more and more suspiciously chatbot-esque prose popping up in student papers. So rather than trying to police the tech, he embraced it. He assigned students to generate an essay entirely with ChatGPT and then critique it themselves.

When I first caught students attempting to use ChatGPT to write their essays, it felt like an inevitability. My initial reaction was frustration and irritation—not to mention gloom and doom about the slow collapse of higher education—and I suspect most educators feel the same way. But as I thought about how to respond, I realized there could be a teaching opportunity. Many of these essays used sources incorrectly, either quoting from books that did not exist or misrepresenting those that did. When students were starting to use ChatGPT, they seemed to have no idea that it could be wrong.

I decided to have each student in my religion studies class at Elon University use ChatGPT to generate an essay based on a prompt I gave them and then “grade” it. I had anticipated that many of the essays would have errors, but I did not expect that all of them would. Many students expressed shock and dismay upon learning the AI could fabricate bogus information, including page numbers for nonexistent books and articles. Some were confused, simultaneously awed and disappointed. Others expressed concern about the way overreliance on such technology could induce laziness or spur disinformation and fake news. Closer to the bone were fears that this technology could take people’s jobs. Students were alarmed that major tech companies had pushed out AI technology without ensuring that the general population understands its drawbacks.

The assignment satisfied my goal, which was to teach them that ChatGPT is neither a functional search engine nor an infallible writing tool.

Source  wired.com/story/dont-want-students-to-rely-on-chatgpt-have-them-use-it/