In Praise of Social Media

It's impossible to read a newspaper or online magazine these days without finding an article blasting social media for its ill will toward mankind. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg seems to be testifying in U.S. Congress constantly. Everyone from academics to presidential candidates are calling for Zuckerberg to be burned at the stake. Facebook co-founder and Zuckerberg's former roommate at Harvard, Chris Hughes, suggested the government force the break-up of Facebook in an essay he published in The New York Times in May. Even the most ardent supporters of capitalism are questioning how a company controlled by one man-boy of 35 has become so powerful. Zuckerberg has a net worth of $68 billion. In 1890 in the U.S., the Sherman Anti-trust Act outlawed monopolistic business practices. Facebook now has 2.37 billion active users, not to mention owning WhatsApp and Instagram.

The criticism of social media companies isn't confined to the economics of monopolies. In our global internet environment that has obliterated national borders, we should be experiencing a greater connection to others, but instead it may be increasing alienation rather than alleviating it.

Grammarians hate Twitter for the way it's altering the rules of spelling and inventing words that don't exist. Teachers think social media is destroying our ability to write in complete sentences or read anything longer than a paragraph. Psychologists fear social media is creating false safety nets, building networks of friends we've never met or haven't seen in years.

Linguistic scholars note the use of abbreviations in internet writing is not only convenient for the ease in communicating, but also this new language is a return to one of the earliest forms of reading – the scroll. Similarly, the oldest type of writing, the ideogram, has been reincarnated in the emoji. These days, reading a book is more modern than texting.

A healthy democratic society depends on access to information. People need to be informed of what is going on locally and around the world. The internet provides this, but it has also morphed into a quasi-political machine perfectly enabled to spread fake news. Additionally, affordable access to the internet means that 50 percent of Americans now say they are using Facebook as their main source of news. The danger of social media as a news source is these companies have no responsibility to verify the accuracy of the posted information. Websites like Facebook and apps like Instagram and WhatsApp and Snapchat exist with user-generated material, not articles generated by the company. The companies are not culpable for mistakes or false information under current U.S. laws.

With no restrictions on what is being posted on the internet, we are free to access whatever information or misinformation we choose. As a result, some startling data has emerged on what people are accessing. For example, in the past year a billion people have used the Instagram platform filters that mimic plastic surgery.

We can all agree that social media has many drawbacks, but instead I would like to focus on two very positive aspects.

First, social media has played a critical role in mass political movements around the world. Everywhere from Hong Kong to the Middle East to South America mass protests have been aided by social media. For the first time in history, major transformations are reshaping countries thanks to public pressure from political movements that lack any clear leadership, either from individuals or organized groups. Before the creation of the internet, this was never possible. Social media prompts from celebrities, for example, have been instrumental in organizing mass support for animal rights, environmental protection, voter registration, etc.

Most recently, the Prime Minister and his Cabinet resigned in Lebanon after mass protests. The President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, after being re-elected to a fourth term, resigned and left Bolivia.

Whether one's sympathies are on the Left or the Right politically, in the annals of democracy, mass protests represent an essential dialogue between the people and their elected representatives. Mass movements don't always have positive results, but they are an essential element worth protecting within the domain of free speech.

Second, social media is addictive. While this is also a criticism, it means people quickly come to rely on what it has to offer, and by analyzing users' habits we can learn about human nature the same way we can evaluate TV habits.

Television is addictive. When TV first became popular in the U.S. in the 1960s, there was widespread criticism of its dangers. People claimed color TVs caused cancer after excessive exposure.

As a boy, my parents warned me not to sit too close to the TV, a warning necessary as remote controls hadn't yet been invented, and TVs were much smaller. The first color TVs made in the U.S. had 21-inch screens, smaller than my Mac desktop. We were also warned about the dangers of microwave ovens when they first appeared. However, no one is talking about getting cancer from TVs anymore or TV addiction. Now the fear is the addictive nature of social media and the internet, particularly video games.

There have been studies in Japan showing the increase of farsightedness among male adolescents, which they believe is related to excessive screen time. There are rehab centers for curing video game addiction. Apparently, my parents were right – sitting too close to a screen can be detrimental to your health.

Nevertheless, there's an important lesson we are detecting thanks to screen addiction.

It provides a window on gender breakdown. While boys are more adept and therefore more likely to be addicted to video games, social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram are more popular among girls. What's different about video games is they require a skill that improves through repetition and requiring eye/hand coordination, which boys are apparently more adapted for than girls. While many girls enjoy video games, it's an activity dominated by boys, many of whom continue to play into adulthood.

What is illustrated by this gender divide is the ways in which internet diversions serve different purposes. In other words, boys and girls are addicted to the internet for different reasons. Boys utilize a network of video game friends that are often virtual friends, similar to girls' friends on Facebook. However, boys enjoy the virtual (or real) company of their game pals without the need for talking, whereas girls' internet activities are centered around platforms that require talking and writing, endeavors destined for sharing thoughts and feelings.

Along with sharing on Facebook and Instagram, girls are using their communication skills with other apps, particularly in the U.S like Snapchat, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. There are teenage girls with thousands of YouTube subscribers from producing monologues by and about themselves. Why have only a few girlfriends when you can make friends with the entire world through free international websites like Conversation Exchange. Young women in their twenties accumulate a thousand Friends on Facebook, and ambitious women in their thirties can gather a hundred thousand followers on Instagram.

In Deborah Tannen's seminal work, You Just Don't Understand, a book on the social differences between men and women, she quotes research verifying that during the course of a typical day, females speak more words than males.

Teenagers want to express themselves on the internet because the screen is interactive, making it antithetical to TV. “You don't think in one constant line of thought,” as an adolescent girl who has hundreds of thousands of YouTube subscribers was quoted in The New York Times. For adolescents, TV is made by old people for old people.

Females are born to be communicators. It's how they survive. Since the dawn of civilization, they have learned to use words instead of fists to navigate the labyrinth of social challenges. Women are facilitators and negotiators because they are better listeners and more empathetic than men. Girls read and write better than boys in grade school.

Women survive and contribute to society thanks to their social connections. They are often the glue that holds a family together. That's why social media is so important and so addictive for girls. Social media provides connections. Girls spend more time on their phones than boys, even if they are only leaving messages for each other on WhatsApp.

It's not only the interpersonal relations and communication opportunities that draw girls to social media. The immediacy of instant recognition through Comments and Likes on Facebook is thrilling, especially for shy adolescent girls. Coincidentally, with the explosion of the popularity of Facebook, the technology revolution has supplied girls with excellent cameras on their cellphones, providing an easy and fast route for receiving recognition. Here are the ice-cream sundaes, the new shoes, and the trip to Trevi Fountain in Rome. Those Likes morph into Followers; enough Followers and you have an Influencer and the route for recognition begins to earn income.

For teenage girls who are introverted and lack close friends, Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp are their strongest connection to companionship. When parents divorce, as half of them do in the U.S., children may be forced to move away from their friends. Without friends who are nearby, the world can become a cold and isolated place. It's no surprise that loneliness and alienation are so prevalent among the young.

We all seek acknowledgment. We want desperately to be assured that, 'I'm a good person. I obey the laws. I don't cheat or steal even when I have the opportunity. I do my best at whatever I'm doing. Don't I deserve recognition?'

My point is we all deserve recognition, and who is more in need of recognition than females? Males have been dominating females since the dawn of time. We know the earliest societies were controlled by men because we can still observe them living in the Amazon jungle. These tribes have leaders who are men. The second in command is also a man, the shaman.

Fast forward to the early 20th century, and small tribal clans have exploded into cities that are organized by civil groups and social institutions into a society. Meanwhile, women are fighting for the right to vote.

Much has improved for women in the past one hundred years, but as the #MeToo movement has shown, there's still a lot to accomplish when it comes to empowering women.

Can it be any surprise that girls and young women are drawn to the gratification of the internet? We can only speculate how different the world will be in twenty years when today's young women become tomorrow's adult leaders.

According to psychologists, our physiological needs (food, water and shelter) form the foundation of our existential pyramid, which then moves upward to safety, social belonging, and self-esteem, i.e. status and importance. Social media utilizes the skills where females naturally excel, and thereby provides self-esteem and connections and acknowledgment. Social media empowers females.