When I was teaching psychology in Bangkok, Thailand over 10 years ago, I attended a classical concert there. Before the show I purchased some food at a café inside the concert hall. To my surprise I observed several couples more engrossed with their cell phones paying little attention to whomever may have been their partner. The smart phone. along with its extensive overuse, had spread to Asia.
The smart phone and social media are the consequences of the progress in technology. Most products of technology have benefited us all. Everyday life would not be the same if we were without electricity or automobiles at our disposal, once the case over a few centuries ago. But unbridled use of technological innovations, such as the smart phone and social media, can lead to deleterious outcomes. Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist and professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business, has conducted several studies that have shown the ill effects of social media on Generation Z (Gen Z), the age cohort born between 1997 and 2012. Social media, such as TikTok and Instagram, emerged around 2010 when those born during that time frame became adolescents.
Haidt’s investigations have shown an increase in anxiety, depression and social withdrawn, first in 2010, with this trend continuing in subsequent years. Some critics of his research have complained that he is merely showing a correlation between the increase in mental health issues and the onset of social media. However, his studies have revealed that other age cohorts have not manifested this sudden increase in psychiatric symptoms. Moreover, the data Haidt displays in his book illustrate a sudden precipitous rise of these symptoms in the year 2010 and afterwards. He has done multiple studies of different groups and different locations with similar results that suggest the widespread nature of the negative impact of social media on teenagers.
Haidt’s work has demonstrated how female adolescents, especially, can suffer from social media when they compare their looks to other females their age that have posted photos on these platforms. There is a self-imposed competition these adolescent females engage in based on physical appearance. Often these teenagers do not realize that their peers “doctor” their photos to falsely improve their appearance. Young females are more conscious of the way they appear vis-á-vis their peers than male teenagers are. This leaves them more susceptible to this type of disinformation often found on algorithmic social media.
Attempts to mitigate the ill effects of social media are now being considered in the United States and other countries. Australia already has enacted a law disallowing youth under the age of 16 from creating or keeping an account with social media. This is probably not a coincidence in that this is the same age suggested by Haidt to prohibit the use of social media by youth. America, unlike Australia, has not enacted national laws forbidding the use of social media by adolescents until they reach a certain age in part due to the 1st Amendment. This Amendment prohibits government from censorship; also limiting the federal government’s reach on this matter is the propensity to allow individual states to make these decisions on their own. Accordingly, with the help of parental backing, different states have begun to adopt measures limiting social media use to adolescents in educational settings. Thirty-five states have implemented smart phone bans in schools with some of these schools not allowing students to have access to their smart phones the entire school day.
The rate of change caused by technology has never been as fast as it is currently. The advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) will only accelerate the rate of change societies will face throughout the world. This is why it is imperative that the leaders of these countries begin to address the consequences of AI before it becomes a technology gone amok. We waited too long to rein in social media. Hopefully, we will not make the same mistake with AI, a technology that can offer a vast amount of improvement in our daily lives but also has the potential to be ruinous.
Dr. Bernard F. Natelson 