Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida recently signed into law legislation which prohibits children under the age of 14 from having social media accounts, allows 14- and 15-year-olds to have such accounts only with parental consent, and requires age verification for pornographic and sexually explicit websites. Supporters of the legislation cited the need to protect young children from potential harms associated with social media; detractors opposed it due to First Amendment concerns or the feared usurpation by the state of parental oversight.
[L]ifting the veil of privacy reveals aspects of the human condition we might prefer not to see.
Subsequently, the Congress last week passed legislation (later signed by President Biden) forcing a sale or ban of TikTok, a wildly popular social media platform owned by China-based ByteDance.
Despite varying views of the role of the public sector in regulating social media, a consensus has emerged that social media can be harmful to children. Yet despite heightened attention, one rarely hears the question asked: what are social media’s effects on adults?
Much of the discussion of social media focuses on two characteristics: its frequently aberrant content, and the “algorithm.” Damaging content can be delivered in myriad ways (and has been, for centuries); what is distinctive about social media is the manner in which it amplifies this content, maximizing its reach. (READ MORE from Richard Shinder: Capitalists Who Believe In Capitalism Are The Good Guys)
Relatedly, the algorithm is the dynamic manner in which content — whether benign or harmful — is served up to consumers in order to create “engagement,” including micro-targeting and other techniques potentially harmful in their own right. The symbiosis of the algorithm and harmful content is akin to the composition of cigarettes — the algorithm as the addictive nicotine, conveying harmful content to its users. Indeed, The Spectator recently reported that more than 40 percent of American children spent 120 minutes on TikTok every day last year — a sure sign of addiction.
Before considering social media’s impact more generally, an aside on TikTok, as it is in a class of its own.
While one can aver the amorality of Instagram, Facebook, and X, they at least have credible “neutral platform” defenses that, whatever the consequence, they don’t set out to harm users (whether harm results is a different question). To believe that TikTok doesn’t steal user data, spy on its users, and purposefully transmit noxious content to its American consumers (notably, the Chinese version of TikTok is almost pristine by the standards of social media) defies credulity. Holding that (American) TikTok is anything other than a front for the Chinese Communist Party disqualifies one from a serious discussion of social media. That Congress has only acted now is a testament to the unseriousness and dysfunction of our current politics.
A third, and often overlooked, facet of social media (ex-TikTok) is its voluntary circumvention of privacy. To participate in online public forums like Facebook or X is to offer far more information about oneself to friends and strangers than would have been conceivable even a generation ago. To which my more libertarian-minded friends might respond: “Who cares? I have nothing to hide! And I don’t disclose anything I don’t want to.” Even at face value, such assertions miss the point that privacy, in the context of social media, is arguably a public good.
While the past twenty years have witnessed the rise of “personal brands,” “influencers,” and other phenomena enabled by (and often unique to) social media, the obverse of the features which make it useful for these ends are often unappreciated.
For example, low-cost, easily distributed content has resulted in a lowest common denominator of YouTubers and other viral personalities engaging in boorish and stupid behavior. Similarly, the technological distance and anonymity of more conversational platforms like Facebook and X give rise to exchanges of a tone rarely observed in the real world. The coarseness and solipsism of social media aren’t a bug — they’re a feature essential to succeeding in the arm’s race for clicks, eyeballs and engagement. As with traditional media, where “if it bleeds, it leads,” social media satisfies a visceral demand for spectacle. (READ MORE: The New Collectivism of Big Government Elites)
That social media can be ugly is generally understood, as lifting the veil of privacy reveals aspects of the human condition we might prefer not to see. But this ugliness extends beyond flame wars and crude content, in a way corrosive to social cohesion.
The privacy ceded through social media participation erodes critical evolutionary aspects of the human experience, including “complicit ignorance,” ambiguity, and mystery. Complicit ignorance — a willful failure to apprehend the condition of others outside of one’s immediate sphere — suppresses envy and prevents petty resentments from spiraling out of control, as it is difficult to hate something (or someone) we know nothing about. Social media broadcasts far more about that with which we have little direct experience than ever before (even if one was/is an avid consumer of traditional media and the internet); social media brings the lives of billionaires, ideological adversaries, and countless others directly to your smartphone. It is unsurprising that the term “nepo baby” (flung at the progeny of celebrities and the rich for their unearned “privilege”) arose in the social media era.
The concept of ambiguity has to do with the unknowns existing in the larger world and the individuals comprising it, but about which we can draw inferences. Inferences are naturally imperfect: as we are subtly aware of this, we lack absolute conviction in drawing them. Ambiguity in life, war and business leads to caution, which is mostly positive in human interactions as it cools passions and slows a rush to judgment.
The revelations available through social media participation narrow the scope of ambiguity; with additional information about others’ likely beliefs, motivations, and intentions, our confidence interval increases and we proceed accordingly. Who among us hasn’t reacted badly to a social media post on a friend’s Facebook page or Instagram story expressing a sentiment with which we disagree, and drawn a conclusion about that person’s character or politics? The problem is that more information isn’t always perfect (or even useful) information, and increased confidence may not be warranted.
Lastly, mystery is one of the great unacknowledged joys of the human experience. Like ambiguity, it arises from limited information, but its effects and loss are felt differently. Mystery causes us to seek, to learn, to investigate what we don’t already know and grow through a process of discovery. Mystery about others propels romance, friendship, intellectual rivalry, and more — I may not know what you’re thinking, what you care about, or what your dreams are, but I’d like to find out. Social media’s filling in of certain blanks removes a measure of healthy mystery in human interactions, making life less interesting.
Coarseness, envy, and stupidity will always be with us, with or without Facebook. And as social media is very likely here to stay, we should acknowledge its impact beyond the very young. I’m old enough to remember when I knew nothing of my friends’ politics, which seems to have been a better time. As I am sympathetic to the libertarian position, if nothing else individual self-regulation over one’s use of social media can perhaps limit its negative consequences, as spirited debate and more detailed research on its broader societal impact continue.
Richard J. Shinder is the founder and managing partner of Theatine Partners, a financial consultancy.
