Michael Fanuele, Julie Scelfo, Jeanine Liburd, Dario Spina, Heidi Boisvert, Anne Nelson, Lisa Baird, and David Pogue at the National Institute’s “Power & Perils of Social Media Forum”
Social media has the power to save the world—and shrink our brains. That sums up the vast spectrum of views expressed by industry experts at the Power & Perils of Social Media Forum sponsored by the National Institute of Social Sciences (NISS), held on October 17 at Viacom’s White Box event space at its midtown Manhattan headquarters.
The statistics are staggering: “More than 3.5 billion people are on social media, with a new user coming online roughly every four seconds,” noted Dario Spina, chief marketing officer at Viacom Velocity. “1.3 billion people are on YouTube alone, where 300 hours of video are uploaded each minute and 5 billion videos are viewed daily. And 40% of current U.S. couples met on the internet.”
And yet, he added, a recent Pew study found that while 81% of respondents said social media made them feel more connected, 45% felt overwhelmed. Rates of anxiety and depression are also on the rise, and suicide as well as suicide attempts are more prevalent at ever-younger ages. “Technology can be used in ways that are helpful or destructive,” said Julie Scelfo, a writer, journalist and former TED Resident in New York. “And Facebook and other platforms have been unwilling to examine the research that shows the effects of social media, how breaking down barriers and removing gatekeepers can cut both ways.”
“In many ways tech is the opposite of social sciences,” added Anne Nelson, a journalist and consultant specializing in international media development, whose most recent work is Shadow Network: Media, Money and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right. “The tech folks are all about how to make things happen. They don’t look at outcomes and don’t want to. They are engaged in process wedded to profit, and they almost feel betrayed when people look at the consequences. Untrammeled process can lead to bad results, and that’s where social sciences have to come in from the rear.”
Such reflection is essential amid all the noise. “You can’t put the genie back in the bottle, so we need a lot of self-filtering,” said David Pogue, a former tech columnist at The New York Times who now writes the “Crowdwise” feature for the Smarter Living section. “For most of human history, we didn’t deal with too many people or travel very far. And now we’re connected to millions of people immediately and being hit with a firehose of information.”
How good are we at weeding out the real from the fake? Early indications aren’t exactly promising. A 2016 study by the Stanford History Education Group (SHEG) found that students found it very difficult to distinguish among news, ads, misinformation and deliberate disinformation. For example, in a study of content on Slate.com, more than 80% of students believed an advertisement was actual news, even though it was labeled Sponsored Content.
These blurry lines are especially perilous in the political realm, where disinformation is rampant—and can now be spread more quickly and efficiently than ever. “I’ve been working with the Urban League to battle falsehoods online, where people are being told they can vote by text and don’t need to show up at the polls, and falling prey to other voter-suppression techniques,” said Jeanine Liburd, the chief social impact and communications officer for the BET Networks division of Viacom. “We’re battling this in the real world. Our current focus is a push to encourage people to fill out their Census forms when they arrive, to cut through any false rumors they’ve heard about why they shouldn’t do that.”
Clearly a lot of work remains to be done. “All the research we’ve seen, and what we’re seeing online, highlights the need to teach social media literacy classes at every level, and do much better generally at getting the public up to speed to recognize this stuff,” added Lisa Baird, chief marketing officer at New York Public Radio.
Even media professionals are still feeling their way through the landmines. “Social media advertising is much more intimate than other forms of promotion,” noted Michael Fanuele, president of Assembly Media and former chief creative officer at General Mills. “If you think people got cranky when you interrupted their TV shows, it’s nothing compared to invading their timelines. If you show up there, the message had better be personal and human.
“The problem is that a lot of social media advertising is programmatic—literally ads placed by bots,” he added. “So a lot of companies don’t even know where they’re advertising.”
This has led to the rise of organizations like Sleeping Giant, a social media activist group that tracks bulk media buys and seeks to persuade companies not to advertise on outlets that might be offensive to their potential customers.
Similarly, many major political and social movements have sprung directly from social media, including the Arab Spring uprising, Black Lives Matter, March for Our Lives, the worldwide Climate Strike and the recent Hong Kong protests. Pogue also pointed to consumer-based efforts such as the #CutOutCutlery campaign, urging food-delivery services to allow customers to opt out of plastic serveware—40 billion pieces of which clutter landfills each year, often without ever being used.
And as climate change fuels the frequency and intensity of natural disasters, many people turn to social media for information first. “Your phone or laptop is where you go to get news, find people, tell everyone you’re safe, and reach out to help,” said Lisa.
But on more ordinary days, how much social media is too much?
“Staring at our screens all day is literally changing our brains, for instance eroding the areas responsible for memory consolidation and regulation of emotions,” said Heidi Boisvert, founder and CEO creative director of futurePerfect lab, which works with nonprofit, cultural and educational institutions to develop integrative media applications. “And cognitive overload causes cortisol levels to rise, triggering the ‘fight or flight’ syndrome. I recently spent about a year pretty much off the grid and actually saw differences in how my brain was wired.”
But for most of us, even a grid-free week seems unlikely. So the challenge is to dull the destructive side of the double-edged social-media sword while honing the benefits. “Raising the kinds of questions we’ve talked about today is exactly the kind of thing we love to do,” concluded National Institute President Fred Larsen. “Now more than ever, we need to take time to reflect on the opportunities we have before us, and on the consequences of our choices.”
Established in 1912, the National Institute of Social Sciences (www.socialsciencesinstitute.org) is one of the nation’s oldest honorary societies, exploring issues of urgent and lasting concern. The National Institute sponsors speeches, discussions, and events that encourage balanced, non-partisan debate and discussion; celebrates distinguished Americans and world leaders who have contributed at the highest level to the welfare and improvement of society; and provides financial support to emerging scholars who are conducting research in the social sciences.