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Social media turns everyone into an entertainer.
I'm going to put this in all caps so nobody can miss it.
IF YOU HAVE ABANDONED SOCIAL MEDIA, YOU ARE NOT ANY BETTER THAN SOMEBODY THAT HASN'T.
I include this disclaimer because I think conversations like this can become ego-fuel for smallnet enthusiasts. (I'm speaking to myself here.) It's easy to think that because you abandoned social media, you're smarter and more insightful, deeper and more discerning, than people that haven't.
Find that part of your brain and choke it out.
Social media is a dumpster fire, yes, but it's *the dominant force* in communications right now, with tons of resources keeping it in that position. Most people are aware that it's bad. But you simply can't escape it if you want to have anything resembling a social life. Social media is just how people keep in touch these days. I myself haven't truly *abandoned* social media, but just drastically reduced my exposure to it, because I have friends I want to stay in touch with.
Yes, social media sucks. Yes we'd all be better off without it. Yes, you, who left it, are better off now. But "better off" doesn't mean "better than". Go deflate your ego.
Social media operates on a fairly simple premise: keep users on the site for as long as possible to show them as many ads as possible. This is, of course, best accomplished with a nearly infinite source of content. By and large, social media sites achieve this infinite feed through user-generated content. I've already talked in "Digital Hygiene" about the sad effects this has on users as consumers. Today I want to talk about what it does to users as creators. (Note I'll be using terms like "creator" or "content creator" not because I think they're good terms -- they're disgustingly reductive capitalist-eye-view words -- but because they're very general and apply to all social media.)
Every user on social media is encouraged to become a content creator. The idea is straightforward -- you're connected to your friends in a social network, you can post things that are on your mind for them to see, and maybe you'll go viral and make a really popular post that lots of people like! And the promise isn't *false*, exactly -- but then you get your first semi-viral post.
Lots has been said already about the Skinner box mechanisms that drive social media (as well as lots of mobile games). An unpredictable reward schedule tends to drive repeated behavior. So you post, and it only does well sometimes -- and that actually makes you post more often than if it did well every time. I won't elaborate on the exact mechanism. Instead, here's the article on Skinner boxes in case you're unfamiliar with the science.
The really interesting thing to me is the effect that this has on content creators. This external reward structure in the forms of likes and comments hijacks a user's motivations for posting. Ostensibly, a creator makes something they like, because they like making it or think it should exist, and then posts it to share their work. In practice, however, creators end up making stuff they think will get "engagement" (yet another disgusting corporate term for "keeping people on the site as long as possible"). In some cases, this drive to make "engaging" content is monetarily reinforced through ad-share revenue, the TikTok Creator Fund, etc. But even without that, the incentive structure created by social media turns unwitting users into entertainers chasing an audience.
And this is exceedingly valuable from a business standpoint -- not that it was designed that way, I think it was more of an unhappy accident. You make money by showing ads to users. You show ads to users by keeping them on the site as long as possible. People come to your site to see things that other people have made. The more "engaging" the content people make is, the longer users stay on your site. So any changes that boost the visibility of "engaging" content will also incentivize content creators to make their content more "engaging." Of course, content that keeps eyes on it is not the same thing as good content. In fact, the most visible stuff on social media seems to be generally quite bad. So any social network naturally trends toward a group of people making and viewing large quantities of engaging garbage.
Compare that to the experience on the smallnet. You post something, because you like it, or want to write it. Sure, you're hoping other people like it too. That part of human psychology doesn't just magically go away. Nor do I think it should -- the desire to be useful and valued in our communities is a valuable impulse. But you don't get the instant feedback, the instant likes and comments and shares. You post -- and then nothing happens. Maybe over the course of a few days you get a few emails saying they like what you made. Maybe someone posts a reply article and it pops up in a feed aggregator. In other words, you might get some validation, but you don't get the Skinner box.
The fact that the smallnet is kinda boring is one of its chief virtues. Life, in the absence of artificial entertainment, is boring sometimes. Be bored. It's good for you.
