Behavior Change in an Age of Online Socializing

COURTENEY MALIN – I have no social media accounts and I never have. For a decade, I have watched from a distance as my family and friends started creating and sculpting these accounts. I have always had a choice to start a Facebook page, to spend hours acquiring an Instagram following, and to allow TikTok to curate a video feed to my liking, but I decided against it. I have a unique perspective that most people in my generation cannot claim to have. I am not anti-social media, but through the years, I have noticed large changes in the people whom I know, leading me to investigate how social media is affecting what we do and how we behave.

I assume that most of us have seen articles describing how social media (SM) may contribute to depression and anxiety. Many studies show a correlation with feelings of depression and SM; however, since this research is correlational, there is debate on whether social media use is the driving factor or if there are other behaviors often coupled with SM use that contribute to an increased risk of depression. While this research is how social media can impact the mental well being of its users, I am more interested in how minor  behaviors have been altered  due to the introduction, ease of use, and growing popularity of SM over the last decade.

The ease of accessing social media has resulted in more users and more time spent on social platforms. Ten years ago, people had to turn on their computers and log on to their accounts to access SM. MySpace and Facebook were popular, but we did not have access to handheld, portable computers every second of the day. The emergence  of smartphones and easy-to-use interfaces (in the form of apps) provided us with the ability to rapidly access SM accounts. At any time of day, 70 to 75% of us do not even have to move our feet to reach our phones, gifting  us with an undemanding opportunity to open SM. With every spare second, busy or not,  people open their SM accounts and scour through their feeds to find anything of interest.

Behavioral addiction is when an individual is dependent upon the completion and engagement in a non-substance related behavior. Just a few decades ago, behavioral addiction was not recognized as a form of addiction. Scientists postulated that there had to be a change in the release of a neurotransmitter in the brain caused by the introduction of a chemical, such as a drug, into the body in order for a true addiction to develop. In Irresistible, Adam Alter, a professor of social psychology and marketing at New York University, discusses how the science of behavioral addiction has developed through studies on smartphone use. Alter claims that technology is so “efficient and addictive” that it constantly influences our unconscious behavior. We often pick up our phones without thinking about it, and we go to SM without actively pursuing it. Research into behavioral addiction has shown that dopamine and opioid transmitters are released when we complete these cyclic behaviors. Even though we are not actively ingesting or injecting a drug, our brains’ response to opening SM and using our phones has a similar neurological mechanism to that of non-behavioral drug addictions.

Researchers at Cornell University followed the “99 Days of Freedom” challenge where Facebook users pledged to not use social media for 99 days. Anticipating the difficulty of the experiment and a subsequently high drop-out rate, researchers enrolled a total of 40,000 subjects for the study. Most participants reported feelings of withdrawal, sadness, and low-self control. Participants that displayed negative behaviors in daily life were much more likely to revert to social media than people who had a generally positive outlook. Social media, like an addictive drug, was shown to be used as a means to escape reality, even for a brief moment. Anecdotally, many people would agree that SM provides this ability to escape which is why SM often interrupts work and prevents the completion of more valuable tasks.

Social media may lead to short-term memory failures. Social activity usually increases cognitive function, and social media can actually increase recall for posted events or life moments; however, social interactions on SM are faster-paced and more similar to other SM interactions than those of real-life. Therefore, social media use does not result in increased cognitive function like normal social activity. Social media use is associated with present-day and next-day memory failures regardless of a person’s age. Researchers at the University of Michigan determined that participants reported more memory failures on days where they used social media and on the next day after social media was used. There are several possible mechanisms behind this drop in memory. One proposed mechanism is that social media results in “offloading,” which is the process where individuals unconsciously reduce their responsibility for remembering information. This often occurs while using the internet. We do not need to memorize conversions, recipes, and scientific facts. We might even unlock our phones to look at the time and not remember the time a second later because our technology will provide this information quickly, and our brains are wired to offload easily accessible information. Social media provides an external source of memory for past events, future events, and people which causes us to remember where we see the information rather than the content of the information (i.e. remembering you can look up a close relative’s birthday on Facebook but never being able to remember the birthday). Frequent use of social media may cause dependence on SM for certain information, reducing our capacity for short-term memory.

Self-esteem has become more complex. Social media algorithms are crafted  around a single user — yourself, promoting narcissistic behavior and frequent self-evaluation. For active users, SM may increase self-esteem by creating a compliment platform. However, most users of social media are passive, preferring not to post personal images every day. For these users, social media generally decreases self-esteem. The environment of social media provides a platform to constantly compare and assess ourselves which complicates our already continuously-changing perception of the value of our achievements. The ability of social media to create a bubble of constant self-evaluation may result in increased jealousy or wrongful observation of our own mental, emotional, and physical traits.

Possibly the most impactful behavioral change from social media is how we spend our time. Pew Research Center reported that in 2019, 74% of the 70% of Americans on social media used Facebook daily. Worldwide, people spend an average of 144 minutes per day on social media while in the U.S. people spend an average of 123 minutes on social media. Less time is spent with families and friends every year, declining about 2-3 minutes per day each year, while social media use increases between 2-10 minutes per day each year. Social media increases access to information and communication, but the use of social media also leads to a feeling of a lack of productivity, distraction, and less time spent with people face-to-face.

The research into social media and its impact on behavioral change is in its infancy. Most studies can only be conducted on healthy participants and in specific age groups, limiting the range of results that scientists can collect. While several changes in behavior have been identified, scientists can only predict how our behaviors will change as social media use becomes even more popular and widespread. Most behavioral changes are unconscious and unnoticeable, but awareness and mindfulness about the impact of social media on our everyday lives can prevent distraction, loss of time with family, dependency, and memory failure while still allowing SM to provide the benefits of easy communication and information.

Copy Editor: Ahmad Nisar

Photographer: Bianca Patel