How the Instinctual Fulfillment of Social Media Algorithms Have Led to a Loss of Self-Control Among Humanity
By: Keegan Lee, Author of “60 Days of Disconnect”
In the midst of the pandemic, I found myself constantly gravitating toward my phone. Humanity was already in a state of social isolation, and I turned to social media as a means of connection. I was spending more time engaging with bots online and had forgotten the importance of creating real, in-person, authentic relationships. I was comparing myself to the highlight reels and superficial realities of social media and associating my worth with the number of likes, comments, and followers. It was an instant distraction in moments where I could have been productive focusing on academics or the self-goals I had pictured for myself.
The pinnacle of my self-awareness initiated during COVID-19 when I realized that my obsession with social media was not personal - it was universal. Tech addiction is something that is affecting all generations on a global scale. Knowing this, I decided to delete social media for 60 days to experience life without something so prevalent among my generation. The decision to delete social media for two months seemed somewhat irrational during a time of isolation, however I wanted to use my time in more healthy and productive ways rather than constantly being consumed by a screen.
During the cleanse, I experienced a wide range of emotions from fear of missing out to periods of withdrawal. With any addiction, withdrawal can be understood as a simple reminder that the brain is in need of some particular stimuli. This could be cigarettes, sugar, or drugs - anything that has the power of creating the dopamine rush. For me, I had a constant “craving” for social media. I wanted to see the likes, the red hearts, and the comments. I wanted the anticipation of questioning what was behind a notification. Social media was so powerful that it could force me to stop any task just to check a notification.
I felt as if there was such a large void in my life and time was standing still. I could not just sit and live in the present. I couldn’t see the true elements of beauty that life was presenting me with. I was blind to the world around me because I needed to occupy time with the stimulation that came from social media. I felt like I had so much time on my hands, and nothing else, no other activity or interaction, could fill this void.
This is how I knew I was addicted to social media. Prior to my 60 days of disconnection, every moment I felt bored, unstimulated, or in need of a distraction, I would turn to the platforms to make me content. Little did I know that this repeated action of going back to my phone to find happiness was creating the foundation for an endless cycle of constant dissatisfaction.
From understanding and controlling my own addiction to social media, my fascination with human behavior and mental processes grew. I wanted to find ways that I could help others create healthy tech-life balance methods in a way that didn’t cause a habitual dependence for social media. From what I have learned about the psychology of addiction, the root of our behaviors originates from a stimulus that causes a reaction which conditions us to lose self-control. We enter a state of cognitive dissonance where we know our actions are bad-habits, but we continue to do them anyway because we simply cannot resist.
The social media algorithm is particularly unique in that it fulfills our instinctive needs as human beings and causes a neurobiological reaction similar to that of a drug. In 1943, Psychologist Abraham Maslow published a journal called A Theory of Human Motivation where he discusses a hierarchy of needs. Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs is a classic psychological model of human motivation including basic needs, psychological needs, and fulfillment needs. It is predicted that if an individual garners all of the stages of the hierarchy, they will achieve self-actualization - their full potential. In other words, they will have reached their highest capability as an individual because of their fulfillment in their most “human” and primitive desires. Not only does the model help us understand motivation, but it can also demonstrate that without having your basic needs met you cannot reach your full potential. The model reads from bottom to top where the bottom level contains the most basic needs such as food, water, and shelter, the second is safety, third is love and belonging, fourth is esteem needs, The fifth is self-actualization.
The algorithm can be assessed through the psychological lens of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs. If social media has the power to fulfill our needs and desires as humans, it has the potential to override what it means to truly connect with one another. In the following paragraphs, I will be explaining how social media fulfills each of the levels within Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to demonstrate how the social media algorithm, on several levels, is equivalent to our most primitive and evolutionary impulses.
Figure 1. Original Model of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs created by Abraham Maslow in the year of 1943.
Physiological needs - food, water, rest: Typically, when we are hungry, the main priority of the brain is to find food to eat. Our minds are then on constant alert for food. In the digital world, when we are “hungry” we turn to social media to “feed” us. We may be on constant alert for visual or auditory cues that increase our likelihood of going on social media (i.e. phone “buzzes” or when the phone lights up because of notifications). A social media algorithm closely monitors every action a person takes to create a more accurate identity of who they are. A person will see things on their feed that interest them - increasing their engagement within platforms. In addition, social media releases a powerful chemical called “dopamine”, the same chemical that is released when we eat sugar or a food that we love. However, overtime, excessive production of dopamine can create the feeling of sadness and cause the feeling of desire which causes you to go back to social media repeatedly, even though it causes feelings of dissatisfaction.
Safety needs - safety, shelter, security: From an evolutionary standpoint, humans are equipped to want to feel as if they are a part of a group. Prehistorically, if one was ostracized from the “herd” they would be more vulnerable and at a higher risk of survival. Social media makes us feel safe in several ways whether that is through a particular community, online group chats, or several comments. We feel as if we are not standing alone and there is a sense of relevance and familiarity - even through strangers. Some people may not be able to achieve this social security in person - but they may turn to social media to fulfill this safety need. In essence, social media will always provide a sense of safety because it grants three biological wishes: we will always be heard, we are always in control, and we are never alone. However, it is important to ask the question: if we are always connecting through social media, then why does humanity feel lonelier now than ever before? The answer is somewhat common sense, yet technology has entranced us to believe that constant connection is good and beneficial. However, although humans are hard-wired to connect, they cannot do so without proper time for self-reflection, creativity, and self-awareness. If we are not content with being alone, we are only ever going to feel lonely in the absence of other people.
Belonging and love needs - intimate relationships and friends: As people emerge to the important phase of life known as adolescence, they will essentially start to “leave the nest” and yearn to find individuals that will help them navigate the challenges of the teenage years. They may turn to social media as a way to connect with others their own age more often. However, a different form of language often takes on platforms in the form of numbers, likes, and comments. These measurements of social validation have the power to rewire human cognition in a way that associates numbers with self-worth. In addition, it is instinctual to want to love others and feel loved. One of the most terrifying and destructive emotions is psychological isolation. This is different from being alone - it is rather the mere inability to feel a sense of social connection. People will do anything to escape this state of powerlessness including turning to social media for connection. In other words, reactions to this desperate need to escape from isolation can lead to addiction, depression, self-harm, bullying, and violence. In an attempt to numb the feeling of isolation, people may subconsciously seek social media as their main source of connection. Although social media interactions can be meaningful, they are ephemeral and not as memorable as in-person communication. This is because humans are not hard-wired to communicate with an absence of facial cues, body language, eye contact, and physical touch.
Esteem Needs - sense of accomplishment, prestige: One of the social media algorithm tactics to suffice our needs of self-esteem or sense of accomplishment is through the well-known likes, comments, and followers. When we are flooded with these quantitative factors, we feel a sense of productivity - like we have done something “right.” In addition, our esteem needs may be fulfilled when we receive the notifications that gratify our instinctive needs of being socially accepted.
Self-actualization, achieving one’s potential: “self-actualization” may occur when we receive the expected amount of likes, comments, notifications, or followers that we had wanted for ourselves. Reaching “self-actualization” on social media is different from merely reaching “esteem needs.” Esteem is fulfilled from likes, comments, etc. the second that they occur. They give us instant gratification. The continued and repeated feeling of getting a lot of likes over time helps us reach the “self-actualizing point” of our social media usage. Self-actualization is achieved when we have accomplished the amount of quantitative incentive that we had envisioned or originally wanted for ourselves. When our status or likeability has reached a certain point that satisfies us, we may continue to turn toward social media to accentuate our place in the social world. This becomes dangerous when we create expectations in our minds of how many likes we should get, or how many followers we should have. When our expectations are not fulfilled, we receive a subtle disappointment that then causes the belief that the only way to be content is to go back to social media and receive the “correct” amount of likes, comments, or followers all over again. This is what initiates the cyclical habit of dissatisfaction.
During my cleanse, I craved stimulation from my phone and needed to find ways to fulfill the boredom I felt. I turned to healthier ways of maintaining social connection, self-worth, self-esteem, and consistent productivity. The reason I felt as if I had so much time to fill was because I was always spending my time scrolling mindlessly on social media.
A large part of my progress and healthy tech-life balance, however, was the mental skill of self-awareness. Allowing myself to obtain mental check-ins during my time on social media gave me the emotional and mental consciousness that I needed to understand that I was mindlessly scrolling. Developing the awareness to have self-control develops the foundation for having power over the platforms’ manipulative nature and developing a more humane digital world. However, for all ages, especially the younger, more vulnerable generations, acquiring the skill of self-control may just be a temporary method for a healthy tech/life balance. In other words, younger individuals may only attain self-control for so long before falling into digital addiction. This is because within the ages of birth to 25 the rational part of the brain is still developing - therefore, children and teens will oftentimes choose the instant pleasure from social media, without thinking about future consequences.
In order to protect the developing and emerging minds of my generation and those that come after mine, we must focus on engineering social media platforms in a way that is healthy, fosters human connection, limits social comparison, and emphasizes self-regulation. There are benefits to social media, however, everytime we access the platforms we become more at risk for developing addiction or poor mental health because of the algorithm. Humans are instinctively hardwired for human connection and social belonging (as shown in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs) yet we have not evolved to be reminded of our worth and value every five minutes. I truly believe that my digitally native generation will have the power and the voice to create a domino effect for education and advocacy among digital wellness. Nevertheless, we cannot do it alone. The power and influence of humanity working together accentuates the dynamic value of intergenerational force. In other words, all generations, young and old, must help to make our digital world more humane and protected so that we do not lose the value of in-person connection and communication. In order to protect the fabric from which society functions, we must remember that in a world of hashtags, followers, likes, and comments, true connection lies in the beauty we feel by physically being with one another.
