Social media platforms host some of the most creative modes of youthful expression.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Snapchat cofounder Evan Spiegler explained that young people take photographs not to preserve images but to communicate.
Photography’s turn from the archival to the ephemeral highlights social media users’ willingness to convey messages in new ways. Young people learn quickly. Understanding the grammars of different social media platforms, managing unexpected contexts — a snoopy aunt commenting on pictures of Halloween debauchery — and manicuring a digital image all build an understanding of context and an intuitive sense of what is appropriate.
A context-dependent presentation of self is the essence of maturity, and social media teaches this lesson repeatedly and forcefully.
Danah Boyd, in her book “It’s Complicated,” notes the Instagram of the 2010’s rhymes with the mall of the ‘80s, acting as public space for youth after school or on the weekends. As a result, she argues the harms of social media — the bullying, the constant judgment — are the harms of young people interacting, and are not unique to the digital age.
Social media platforms offer a vibrant space for friendship and community, and teach users how to present themselves to others. I agree with Boyd that most social media moral panics are new versions of very old parental bogeymen.
However, there is one uniquely harmful element of social media: portability.
In his 1996 novel “Infinite Jest,” David Foster Wallace explains that advertising is meant to “create an anxiety relievable by purchase.” When smartphones liberated advertising from the television, they turned that anxiety into a spatially unbound nervous hum — is this the right filter? Did enough people like that photo? Will this get retweeted?
The ubiquitous, buzzing anxiety is relieved not with purchase but with attention. Only by checking Snapchat, Instagram or Twitter can one confirm their peers’ approval.
Social media platforms are the new public spaces for youth, but there is no “after school” or “on the weekends.” They perennially lurk, briefly appearing and reappearing in instances of boredom.
One loses the moments when nobody is talking, no music is playing, no pictures are being scrolled through, no input is being received and one is thinking and building a self.
Attention is fractured and auctioned off, lining the pockets of rich people in California.
Certainly, consumers are responsible for not cheaply giving their limited thoughts, feelings and time to whatever they find scrolling through the internet, just as they are responsible for not watching bad television.
But social media’s iron grip on youth consciousness engenders some amount of social responsibility on the part of Snap Inc., Facebook Inc. and all the other corporate giants.
Firstly, social media companies must make an effort to ensure especially young users have their parents’ guidance and approval. Lessons of decency can be lost on children who lack a guiding hand. Middle school is a pitiless bitch, and I shudder at the thought of reliving it with all my classmates armed with Instagram.
Companies should also make an effort to reduce the amount of spam and irrelevance. Facebook’s opaque notifications system alerts users of everything from nearby concerts to friends posting for the first time in a while. A stream of pseudo-events drowns out meaningful interactions and needlessly distracts users.
Social media’s role in the attention economy has a distinct potential for evil. Large heaps of youth attention lie in the clutches of large corporations, who need limits in their willingness to undermine the creative, character-building, contextual dance of social media and exploit attention for profit.
It’s on us to use social media wisely. It’s on them to make that possible.
Danny Bugingo can be reached at [email protected]