Only Human

Armon Owlia: Coming up on “This American Divide…”

Owlia: Social media, like many successful products, plays on both to keep and add customers.

Kara Fox: Social media is, like, designed to hold our attention and it's kind of in these quick blips.

Sharon McMahon: Critical thinking is a challenge in America right now.

Owlia: The most difficult thing we must do is the blame we must place upon ourselves…

Owlia: Have you seen the state of the nation lately? Do you like what you see?

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Michael Smerconish: Is social media harmful? That’s the question being raised and debated.

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Joe Fryer: We’ve got families all over the country who are dealing with this.

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Tom Costello: As anti-Semitic content has surged on Twitter after Elon Musk, who emphasized free speech, took full control. Use of the N-word also jumped 500 percent.

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Jo Ling Kent: After close reviews of the President’s recent tweets, it banned him, “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”

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President Joe Biden: It was an enraged mob that had been whipped up into a frenzy.

Alisyn Camerota: The alleged attacker posted conspiracy theories on Facebook.

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Brian Latimer: The social media business is evolving a lot these days.

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Alisyn Camerota: “Spider-Man” star Tom Holland announcing he’s taking a break from social media for the sake of his mental health.

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Jake Tapper: Cherished ideals of free speech are in the hands of erratic billionaires.

Owlia: It’s time to examine “This American Divide.”

 Owlia: I’ve found that, in life, it’s much easier to criticize the people around us rather than ourselves. From the days of the ancients, it seems as if this universal fact rings true– that as strong, smart, name your positive quality here as we are, we are not infallible. We are not perfect. And therefore, looking yourself in the eye and inviting self-criticism is not only difficult, but ultimately, brave. Throughout these last few episodes, we’ve talked about the blame of others, primarily, institutions. Very rarely have we taken the time to talk about our personal roles in the world of polarization. However, we do have a massive part to play. In this world of blame and pointing fingers, the most difficult thing we must do in terms of scale, complexity, and accountability is the blame we must place upon ourselves.

Ceally Smith: My name is Ceally Smith and I’m an entrepreneur. I would say that I was a believer of QAnon at one time. We're, we have free will, we’re humans. I don't believe blaming the social media company for creating a service or creating a platform for people to find community is their fault. I believe it's human nature for us and for what we've continued to create here on Earth. So putting the blame on one person, I mean, even QAnon did that a lot, is, for me and my belief system and how I believe, is really selfish and just not taking awareness that we each have a choice. I believe that each of us have a choice to show up how we want to, where we want to. And they are a company just like any company that we fund, whether it be using computers or whatever. Doesn't matter.

Owlia: Ceally has a point– we are the ones who keep the profit engine running and who enable the websites to maintain their practices. In effect, through profiteering, we, the people, allow the companies to continue without much motivation to stop. But, like many other facets of human nature, there are profound complexities. Not everyone who uses social media becomes radicalized or is affected by misinformation. There's no way of predicting who exactly is the most vulnerable, so either way, we have to be careful and operate under the assumption that we all are susceptible. With that fresh in our minds, it’s time to look at the one thing social media, the government, and people of influence instinctually target to keep us hooked– our minds, thoughts, and overall human nature. When looking into this, we must focus on two factors– how we learn and our overall brain chemistry. After all, social media, like many successful products, plays on both to keep and add customers. Let’s begin by discussing brain chemistry, probably the most insidious factor between the two. You’ve probably even heard the phrase “social media addiction” being used to describe it. In fact, it may not even be too far from the truth. 

Kara Fox: I'm Kara Fox. I'm a third year in the clinical psychology graduate program at UNC. I'm pursuing my Ph.D., um, and just got my Master's last fall.

Owlia: Fox's research specializes in the clinical impact of social media on adolescent development, a time when we are highly vulnerable to dependency issues.

Fox: It depends on who's using it and in what context because the project I've just been working on actually asked kids, like, “How do they feel like they're addicted to social media, and if so, how much?’” And a good amount do say so, on some level. So, it's not like kids are just blindly, you know, engaging with their phones all day long and not realizing that. They're pretty much aware that they're on their phones all the time. And it's not really their fault, because part of it is that they're literally hy– hard-wired at this point in their lives to pay the most attention to peers over everything else, and their phone just gives them constant access to that. So, like, probably addicted to some technology aspects, but definitely addicted, addicted to social interaction.

Owlia: Like any other addiction, social media has been intentionally engineered to create hits of serotonin and dopamine, the brain's "reward" chemical when you do something you like, and endorphins, which create physical dependence. You know those invisible vibrations you may get in your pockets, even when the phone isn't there? That's an example of the effects, known as "phantom vibration syndrome."

Fox: So, I think pretty much the research in adolescence in this area has just identified that some of those social inputs, like likes, notifications, comments are little hits of dopamine that are socially rewarding in the brain. Um, and what's kind of interesting about that is that stuff didn't exist before, meaning, like, when you were in an offline social interaction, like you didn't have these, like, quantifiable, like, “This many people in my life liked this about me.” Like, it was more, you processed things differently and now kids are given all these numbers and like, visible metrics of how other people are perceiving them. So, we know that that's rewarding, which makes sense that like kids are paying so much attention to it, like all of us are paying so much attention to it. But my thought is that it's rewarding in a different way.

Owlia: We’re always searching for this sensation and can find it in many different ways. In reality, what social media does is no different than Big Tobacco adding more nicotine to cigarettes. There's even a name for it in the tech industry– "brain hacking." 

Smith: We live in a world that consumes and humans have a resource of dopamine and serotonin and we're going to go towards those things because that's what we're hardwired to do. We're hardwired to get those hits of dopamine and serotonin.

Owlia: This brain hacking has already caused a visible effect on how the brain operates. Recent studies have concluded, for example, that increased screen time impacts the amount of white matter in the brains of preschool-aged children, which can negatively impact literacy skills. Additionally, frequent social media has been connected to heightened awareness of social feedback for adolescents. Interactions with others have also taken a serious shift due to hacking. 

Fox: So, I say that with the lens of, like, social media is just how that looks now, and it's probably going to look a little bit different because of all of the new elements of it. But, like, kids have always been super, like, hard-wired to value that above everything else, their social interactions, and it's interesting kind of introducing, like, all of the things that media puts in the middle of all of that, like advertising. And it's designed to be addictive. And there's, like, certain stressors and things that are, that are new for kids that didn't exist before. Like they feel pressured to talk to their friends all the time when that used to not be possible.

Owlia: The way we feel and process emotions, too, has radically changed. Studies have shown correlations between increased social media usage and higher rates of depression, anxiety, and other mental illnesses.

Fox: Girls seem to be at heightened risk for some of the, like, stressors and kind of depressive symptom-related effects of social media. But I also was just working on a study that found that boys who feel, like, pressure within their friendships to respond constantly online are seeing more negative effects than girls are. So, girls and boys might respond to those social norms differently and social norms that are new because this media landscape is new.

Owlia: However, the scariest part of this hacking lies in two crucial ways we learn or operate. First, as we become more focused on quick self-gratification with the speed of notifications, our brains increasingly become unable to handle the everyday slowness of life, which, consequentially, makes it more difficult to think clearly. 

Fox: One thing that I've been thinking a lot about lately is sort of interaction with attention because social media is, like, designed to hold our attention and it's kind of in these quick blips. And so, I think our brains might be learning that that's normal. And then that doesn't always generalize well in other areas of our lives. 

Owlia: And finally, social media and the aforementioned brain hacking have been shown to negatively impact a crucial biological process that allows us to make sense of the world around us– sleep.

Fox: Um, a big one that is coming up is sleep. So kids are, like, social media use is messing with kids' sleep, it's messing with the quality, how much they're getting. And that is, that can cause or exacerbate a whole host of other problems.

Owlia: Sleep helps us regulate our emotions, think clearer, make more rational decisions, reduce the risk of mental illnesses such as anxiety and depression, boost our creativity, and improve our memory, allowing time to process information and consolidate it. As important as it is to recognize the impact of brain chemistry and social media on our critical thinking abilities, it is equally crucial to acknowledge the role of education and media literacy in cultivating a more informed and discerning society.

Sharon McMahon: I’m Sharon McMahon. I’m a Jefferson Award winner for Outstanding Public Service By A Private Citizen. I’ve been in a variety of publications, news outlets, you know, that sort of thing.

Owlia: McMahon, also known as "America's Government Teacher," has combated against misinformation through her podcast, "Sharon Says So." 

McMahon: Critical thinking is a challenge in America right now, especially for people who did not grow up in the digital age, where it is very easy to be fooled. And the human mind, of course, likes to be comfortable. It wants to believe what it already believes. It wants to keep believing what it already believes because change is uncomfortable.

Owlia: To think critically, to take all the facts from every possible angle and boil them down to the truth is difficult, to be sure. Indeed, education nearly 60 years ago was much different from the education we have now, particularly towards critical thinking. Science, technology, engineering, and math all require critical thinking to solve complex problems and find logical solutions, especially when there is a wide variety of information to wade through. However, infamous budget cuts to STEM and the arts in the wake of numerous education reform bills, including "No Child Left Behind" and the "Common Core," have decreased any type of focus on critical thinking and more on skills such as test-taking, which, in comparison to critical thinking, is not seen as much in the real world. There is a part of critical thinking that can be taught in schools that, to a degree, is part of the curriculum– media literacy. We all use such skills every day, without realizing it, when doing simple acts such as researching, trying to determine the efficacy and accuracy of a source, and figuring out how advertisers sell us products. However, media literacy education throughout much of the country does not take into account new tools such as social media, despite numerous studies, indicating that such skills are fundamental to learn.

McMahon: Today's adults have surprisingly low media literacy levels, and I do think we're seeing changes at the, you know, elementary and high school level where people are incorporating media literacy lessons into their curriculum. But, you know, that is part of what I do on social media is try to help bring awareness to media literacy. People currently believe that a bias is the equivalent of a lie. That if you are biased towards a certain person or away from another person, that all you are saying are lies. They believe “bias” and “lie” are synonyms. I've spent literal years debunking the idea that “bias” and “lie” are, mean the same thing, that you can be truthful and biased. You can be both of those things.

Owlia: Such critical thinking, in this era, can also be challenging because of the echo chamber culture we live in. This is, in no small part, due to the extreme amounts of sorting that social media and political discourse encourage. 

McMahon: What social media algorithms do is they continue to feed you the information that feels good to you. They, and that means that we don't have the same opportunity to critically examine our viewpoints because doing so feels bad.

Owlia: When added to the impacts of social media on the brain, it can open the door to manipulation, hopelessness, and some level of desperation to seize a level of control. Like other addictive substances, it can leave us on the metaphorical hamster wheel, going around and around with only two options to stop it– either change the behavior or be consumed by darkness. Once again, QAnon survivor and entrepreneur Ceally Smith. 

Smith: Yeah, I would say that, prior, I had some mental stability. I wouldn't say I was fully mentally stable beforehand. Further getting into QAnon and digging deeper and spending time researching and taking that time away from my business, most importantly, my family, and above all, my, my own health, I started mentally breaking under the pressures of exhaustion, whether it be through research or talking to people, conversing with my partner at the time. It became very clear that I didn't have control over what was going on and, I felt like I was losing myself, losing the ability to keep my children safe, losing the ability to really have a voice as a voter. And I felt very small, so, getting deeper into the beliefs, getting deeper into the conversations with people, it just became very clear to me that this is, this is not stable for me. And the people in my life at the time that I was conversing with, it was showing signs that it was not stable for them either.

Owlia: Social media has a lot of darkness, and in more ways than one, these platforms have revealed the tremendous power and influence they have on our lives. We have been manipulated psychologically and emotionally, with very little done to stop it. In fact, most of the intervention that’s been done has contributed to such manipulation. Deficiencies in accountability, the will to change, education, and our personal weaknesses have made this a nightmare. But that isn't to say there isn't a way out. It's always darkest before the dawn, they say. Well, are you ready to see the sunrise?