{"id":40586,"date":"2025-02-13T01:21:09","date_gmt":"2025-02-13T09:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=40586"},"modified":"2025-02-13T01:21:09","modified_gmt":"2025-02-13T09:21:09","slug":"can-social-media-be-equally-addictive-and-a-force-for-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/can-social-media-be-equally-addictive-and-a-force-for-good\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Social Media be equally addictive and a force for good?"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to an article on Stanford Medicine<\/a>, Dopamine, the main chemical involved in addiction, is secreted from certain nerve tracts in the brain when we engage in a rewarding experience such as finding food, clothing, shelter, or a sexual mate. Nature designed our brains to feel pleasure when these experiences happen because they increase our odds off survival and of procreation.\u201d [1]<\/a><\/p>\n

The advent of social media in the early 2000s seemed harmless at first. There was already a little distance developing amongst humans and so the opportunity to \u201cconnect\u201d on another platform seemed like a harmless and fun way of consuming information and breaking geographic boundaries. Then came the \u201clike\u201d and \u201cretweet\u201d functions in the case of Facebook and Twitter and the masses got hooked on a type of Dopamine. Given that most people engaging with social media likely had good access to food, shelter, and a level of companionship, did we unlock a new reward mechanism for our brains? Maybe. Research on brain architecture<\/a> indicates that the brain (from childhood) is always developing new connections and there is enough evidence backing neuroplasticity[2]<\/a>. Each time we learn something, new connections form and if they are offering some form of \u201ctemporary reward\u201d, then that could explain why a large portion of society grapples with addiction to social media. The alarming thing is that the change brought about by the influence of these apps in our lives is happening so fast, has occurred in such a short time (just over two decades) and almost exponentially. While we seem<\/em> more connected than ever and news is literally at our fingertips, there are some adverse consequences directly linked to social media such as deteriorating mental health among youth and Gen Z evidenced by the teen mental illness epidemic in the mid 2000s due to engagement in social media apps.[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

Is the use of social media all bad? <\/strong><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think so and I will explain why. In June 2024, Kenyan youth (Gen Z) used the power of social media to challenge something that had never been challenged before. Using technology and social media, they self-organized and put together peaceful protests dubbed the \u201cGen Z protests\u201d that demonstrated their grasp of their constitutional rights and agency[4]<\/a>. What was striking about these protests is that \u201cour children\u201d were fighting against social vices such as corruption and wastage and reimagining the future of Kenya. Thankfully Kenya has a good democratic space provided by a vibrant constitution and this time around, the \u201ckids\u201d showed us how to translate the constitutional rights into action. They used WhatsApp, X, Instagram, TikTok and other apps as a coordination start point. Everyone knew where they were supposed to meet and when. The agenda was well laid out and equally understood by the tens of thousands who participated in the protests. It was so well organized that it formed a paradigm shift on the idea of agency and claiming constitutional rights. Even the adults across the country, and youth from other neighboring countries, borrowed a leaf and begun to speak out. The Gen Z were protesting a finance bill that would sharply raise the cost of living, propagate corruption and dim their future aspirations. The bill did not pass so they were successful, but unfortunately there was also collateral damage that continues to date. What begun as peaceful protests turned ugly, violent and leading to looting and unnecessary destruction of property and the loss of lives. To date, social media has remained a key source of information and calls for demanding accountability.<\/p>\n

This is just one example of how I think social media can be a powerful force for good and I dare say one of evil at the same time. Gen Z\u2019s in my country turned the dopamine reward for a worthy cause – but the salient addiction to social media has not gone away.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How might we slow down the addictive nature of social media apps?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The article by Jonathan Haidt and Eric Schmidt, \u201cSocial Media is Warping Democracy\u201d featured on The Atlantic<\/a> indicates that \u201csocial media is not intrinsically bad and has the power to do good-as when it brings to light previously hidden harms and gives voice to previously powerless communities.\u201d [5]<\/a>So how might we reduce the unhealthy highs brought about by the social media apps. One suggestion is \u201cdemetrication\u201d<\/a> \u2013 which means obscuring like and share counts to curb off public popularity. Increasing the age at which children can actively engage with social media apps to 16 years<\/a> is one other way to prevent and manage addiction. Another article suggests taking a timeout \u2013 for a whole month as a pathway to freeing ourselves from this \u201cdrug\u201d of choice. Whatever the options we decide on, if we turned our focus to doing good, then social media is a solid avenue to advance great ideas for humanity.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> https:\/\/scopeblog.stanford.edu\/2021\/10\/29\/addictive-potential-of-social-media-explained\/<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> https:\/\/solportal.ibe-unesco.org\/articles\/neuroplasticity-how-the-brain-changes-with-learning\/<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/technology\/archive\/2023\/05\/generative-ai-social-media-integration-dangers-disinformation-addiction\/673940\/<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> https:\/\/www.african-cities.org\/youth-uprising-how-gen-z-protests-could-shift-kenyas-power-structures\/<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/magazine\/archive\/2019\/12\/social-media-democracy\/600763\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to an article on Stanford Medicine, Dopamine, the main chemical involved in addiction, is secreted from certain nerve tracts in the brain when we engage in a rewarding experience such as finding food, clothing, shelter, or a sexual mate. Nature designed our brains to feel pleasure when these experiences happen because they increase our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":221,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3430],"class_list":["post-40586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-postman-dlgp04-socialmedia","cohort-dlgp04"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40586"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40587,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40586\/revisions\/40587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}