Since they burst with the force of a thousand seas at the beginning of the last decade, social networks have become an indispensable element of our daily lives. Whether we want it or not. They have conditioned our interpersonal relationships, they have changed our consumption patterns and they have revolutionized the public sphere, decisively influencing politics. All this for better or for worse, depending on who we ask. And if we ask the Americans, for the worse.
Survey. Illustrates it a poll of 1,600 people compiled by SocialSphere. The idea was to test the attitudes of the average American towards social networks, the time they spent on them or their impressions of the impact they have had on our personal and collective lives. Based on the conclusions, it seems clear that we have reached the nostalgia of a time without social networks. 64% of those surveyed consider that life “was better” before they broke into our daily lives.
NEW POLLING I conducted and shared w / @Morning_Joe team on social media, #Facebook, #Instagram.
1) Nearly 2/3 of Americans who use platforms believe life was better without them.
2) 42% of #GenZ addicted, can’t stop if they tried.
1/5 pic.twitter.com/iHwM30puj5
– John Della Volpe (@dellavolpe) October 12, 2021
Other data. Why do we judge its impact so negatively? Partly because we consider ourselves hooked. 42% of young people (generation Z) could not stop using the networks “even if they wanted to”, a much higher percentage than the rest of the cohorts (28%). It is significant that GenZ also misses (53%) a time when neither Instagram nor Facebook existed, given that they hardly experienced it. In nostalgia there is much of the idealized past but also of lived experience.
We knew it. The survey reinforces other studies that point in the same direction: we feel tied to social networks. In January, YouGov published another survey in which 44% of British people reported feeling anxious when they spent time without accessing their mobile. It is not difficult to empathize with this idea. We have all experienced the convulsive update of Twitter or the passive and at the same time mechanical consumption of Instagram. Networks are designed as reward mechanisms. They activate our dopamine. They make us want more.
Bad business. What is surprising about these investigations is that they reveal acute self-awareness about our trouble. Going back to the SocialSphere survey. 35% declares to feel “informed” after surfing the web … In exchange for feeling depressed (18%), anxious (18%) or angry (13%). These emotions are more serious in the case of young people, reaching percentages of 38% to 43% when they consult Facebook. They know what effect it has on their emotions even though they can’t control it.
Trend. We have spoken on more than one occasion how mobile phones have disrupted the mental health of adolescents. During the first half of the past decade, the volume of depressed or anxious young people increased by 33%. Hyperconnectivity in networks is not associated with greater physical socialization, which is very positive for our body and mind; collapses our hours of sleep and rest; and reinforces patterns such as bullying, extended outside the classroom, or the feeling of loneliness (you see all your classmates make plans without you).
Of course, this process is influenced by other factors and scientific research is not yet conclusive on this. Social media and smartphones they have positive impacts on our life. But it is easy to see why adolescents perceive them as a negative element in their daily lives, even if they cannot get away from them.
Politics. What about the older ones? Their nostalgia for pre-Facebook times can be explained by the polarization that the Internet has subjected us to in recent years or how the conversation on networks is monopolized by a hypermobilized and radicalized 1% compared to a silent 90% (and perhaps more doubtful or open to consensus). It is also easy to empathize with the idea that politics and public debate today are no better than ten years ago. Although it is not necessarily true.
Image: Camilo Jiménez / Unsplash