The Science Behind the Crimes of Social Media

40 percent of U.S. online users aged 18 to 22 years feel addicted to social media according to a survey conducted in 2019. Five percent of respondents from that age group admitted the statement “I am addicted to social media” described them.

By now you have heard it everywhere, “social media triggers dopamine”, “social media fries your dopamine receptors”, “social media is an addiction”. These are true statements, if you want to read more, check out Digital Dopamine is Destroying Us from ITWFI. But what really are the ways that social media takes control of your life? -- rather than using empty words, let's take a look at the science.

Dopamine is the “feel-good” chemical, it is released when a person engages in a pleasurable activity. Drinking water when you’re thirsty, binge eating comforting foods -- these are actions that trigger the release of dopamine in the brain. Dopamine is chased in anticipation on an exhilarating track, or with sudden surprise and seeking instant gratification.

With social media, in specific, there is a modern concept of “Random Intermittent Reward” system. In essence, it is the model of entertainment where you don’t know when you’ll hit the jackpot. A person can start scrolling on TikTok, and the first video they encounter will always give a surge of dopamine. Why? It’s easy! Instant entertainment, short spanned content, and immediate relaxation of parts of the brain that require you to think. The second video will never release the same amount of dopamine as the first. Dr. Anna Lembke from Stanford University says, “When we binge on pleasurable things, our brain compensates by bringing us lower and lower and lower.” This means that the first bounce of dopamine will never be matched again, BUT, the brain seeks the same hit and continues to scroll searching for the next great video. It may hit it, it may not. That curiosity and compulsion it develops is what harvests an addiction. This is how social media platforms like -- Tiktok, Instagram Reels, and Youtube Shorts, captivate their audience into endless scrolling.

Contributing to the model of Random Intermittent Reward, is what I like to title, “The Lack of Visible Variety”. Unlike Netflix, or Youtube, with scrolling forms of entertainment, the viewer is unaware of the variety of videos ahead of them. They cannot see the array of different tastes in entertainment. Instead they are forced to continue scrolling and discover for themselves.

To better understand this, think of gambling and slot machines, “You pull a lever and immediately receive either an enticing reward (a match, a prize!) or nothing,” says Tristan Harris -- a former design ethicist. Just like gambling, scrolling on social media can lead you to a jackpot reward, or nothing at all. No matter which it is, they both have the viewer coming back to the app consistently.

The incognito nature of the app can make scrolling an obsessive compulsive behavior. Let’s look at this like a typical OCD behavior -- cleaning. The first time a person washes their hands, it will be the cleanest it gets. However, the obsession with gaining a form of satisfaction from scrubbing off every germ prompts the individual to wash them one more time. Then again, then again, then again. They seek the satisfaction from clean hands, but never get it because it turns into an anxiety riddling obsession. Similarly, the first time you go on TikTok your brain will receive a peak of dopamine, but that first hit will force you to seek out more -- which you will never be able to replicate. Combined with the Random Intermittent Reward, searching for the next best video makes the viewer scroll out of compulsion.Scrolling out of compulsion is what makes it an obsession because it forces you to gravitate towards the next hit without receiving any satisfaction from the videos you encounter.

These manipulative strategies of social media corporations successfully lock in billions of viewers each day, and manage to steal their data and sell it to large scale tycoons only for you to be a victim to their monopoly schemes. Neuroscientist Andrew Huberman puts it best when he says: “If we were to look at ourselves through the lens of an experiment… If you saw an animal digging looking looking for a bone, then finding one but just keep looking looking looking you would think that’s very sad.” Well, IT’S TIME WE FACE IT, because that dog is us.

Written by: Eesha Bellad