“Does the time we spend in digital life bring us closer or further away from what we want to experience?
This question remains on the screen at the end of a video in which Andrea Nuzzo, founder and coordinator of Unfluencers, talks about her “abstinence” from social networks. A period of distancing from platforms due to what he calls “digital fatigue”, a sensation that he says is also due to the transformation of digital social spaces into a kind of new television.
These are words that last. And they will stay that way longer because the topic seems to be discussed more and more. Also merit – or guilt? – from Fedez, who spoke about social networks in his first public appearance after announcing his alleged separation from Chiara Ferragni. “I have this idea that this generation has served as a kind of guinea pig in terms of a lot of tools, means, platforms and media,” he said. The social networks themselves need to be examined as well as the psychological, psychiatric, social and cultural aspects. Impact that they have in many countries because we are a bit like guinea pigs when it comes to these things. »
Individual experiences – in the case of Fedez in the search for repositioning and the often questionable use of social networks, probably questionable – but which are part of a global trend. In January, New York City Mayor Eric Adams called social platforms an “environmental toxin,” a public health problem in the city. The decision of the small town of Seine-Port south of Paris is even more drastic: after a referendum, the city banned the use of smartphones in public places.
Stories, anecdotes, useful to tell a trend, a weariness towards the object – the smartphone – and digital spaces – social networks – that have changed our lives more than anything else in the last 10 to 15 years.
However, there is an important question that needs to be answered to understand what is going on: Is social media really bad?
Is social media bad?
In addition to Fedez's comments, there is a lot of research on this topic and an academic debate that has been going on for several years. The studies focus primarily on young people, who are statistically likely to be most affected by the use of digital platforms. Just a few years ago the answer would have been quite simple: No, there is no scientific evidence for this. One of the best-known studies is the study published in the journal Nature Human Behavior by Orben & Przybylski (2019) entitled “The connection between adolescent well-being and digital use”. A study that sought to identify associations between psychological well-being and digital media use using three large datasets of data from adolescents in the United States and the United Kingdom. In this work, researchers found a minimal connection. A famous saying goes that the potential negative effects of social media on mental health have been proven to be so small that they are comparable to those associated with “eating potatoes” or “wearing glasses.”
The study was gradually overtaken by a number of other researches. An American researcher, Jonathan Haidt, maintains a valuable open and shared Google Doc that summarizes all of the scientific literature on the topic. Literature that shows clear connections: the use of social networks seems to be associated with the development of anxiety and depression, especially among girls. This fact is also evident from the statement of Frances Haugen: the former Facebook whistleblower revealed that Instagram knew about the impact of the platform on young women, but chose to keep it private.
It is important to emphasize that there is no scientific consensus on these questions. The main criticism is that studies link mental well-being and social media use without establishing a causal relationship. In other words, it's possible that those who spend more time on Instagram are more anxious, but it's not certain that Instagram is the cause. Additionally, a recent report from the American Psychological Association shows that the impact of social media changes depending on who uses it. They are therefore influenced by social context, geographical origin and family.
However, new studies are emerging that attempt to find causal relationships. An interesting study is that of Braghieri, Levy and Makarin, who took advantage of the fact that Facebook was initially only offered to students at a limited number of universities. As the company expanded to new colleges, researchers wondered whether mental health at those institutions changed over the next two years compared to colleges whose students didn't yet have access to Facebook. Yes, it's worse.
“We found,” the authors write, that introducing Facebook to a college worsened mental health, particularly depression, and led to greater use of mental health services. Additionally, according to student reports, worsening mental health leads to poorer academic performance. Other mechanism evidence suggests that the results are due to Facebook encouraging unfavorable social comparisons.
Have smartphones destroyed a generation?
There is a book called Generations that came out in the United States last year. The author is the psychologist Jean Twenge. Twenge's thesis is that technology drives generational differences through two sociocultural developments. On the one hand, the tendency towards ever greater individualism; on the other hand, the slowing down of the course of life.
According to Twenge, the state of Generation Z, which is experiencing a psychological crisis in almost all Western countries, can be traced almost exclusively to smartphones. Additionally, Twenge writes, mental well-being has declined since 2012, when mobile devices exceeded the 50 percent threshold for global penetration. And the data doesn't matter: the impact is so big that it can't even be measured.
“Smartphones – as we read in the book – are communication devices: They influence not only the individual user, but their entire social network: everyone is involved, regardless of direct use.” The entire social dynamic has changed as communication becomes increasingly more widespread has moved online, away from face-to-face meetings and phone calls.
Well, there's probably a broader societal trend underlying the changes driven by smartphones. There is a groundbreaking 2019 article in the history of online journalism written by Anne Helen Petersen for Buzzfeed News that tells the story of how Millennials (born between 1980 and 1996) became the burnout generation. The article speaks of a generation trained for the workplace and optimized for risk reduction and profit maximization. From the transition from an unstructured childhood to a supervised childhood, characterized by precise schedules and methods (school, homework, gym, piano lessons, etc.). Here, in this trend towards security, towards optimizing life, smartphones have arrived, offering a safe space for socialization and probably interpreting a need, a necessity. Reinforce a process towards atomization that is already underway and accelerated by the pandemic.
Because technology is often based on a vision of the world. Perhaps this vision is (also) the question that needs to be clarified.