The Dark Side of Digital Connection
The consequence of empathy excess, legislative measures to protect children's mental health, and the personal cost of online validation
Welcome to the latest edition of TL;dr as we share three takes on social media, that complicated mistress. The first looks into the unintended consequences of social media’s overproduction of empathy, which increases tribalism and reduces societal tolerance. The second addresses legislative efforts in two states to curb some of those adverse effects of social media on youth. The last offers a funny-not funny look at how our obsession with creating the perfect online image strains real-world relationships.
The Evils of Empathy: Unintended Consequences of Social Media
I almost hate to TL;dr this one. It’s the best essay I’ve ever read on why and how social media transitioned from new and cool new communications tools to platforms that foment so much negativity in our world. Writing for the Discourse substack, Andrey Mir examines the unintended consequences of social media’s focus on personal content over public concerns, which has led to an overproduction of empathy. This heightened empathy fosters tribalism and decreases societal tolerance. Mir discusses how different media forms — from text to television to social media — affect empathy levels and social dynamics, ultimately leading to a society inundated with empathic involvement but lacking in genuine empathy. You should read the whole thing. But if you don’t, here are three takeaways.
The Shift from Public to Personal News: Social media platforms, particularly Facebook, shifted the focus from public concerns to personal interests, leading to a more empathetic society. However, this empathy is often superficial and directed towards immediate, personal events rather than distant, significant ones. “Social media started conditioning people to see publicly exposed personal news as more relevant in the News Feed than public news. But the result turned out to be unintended: Instead of simply focusing on the personal, the News Feed ended up personalizing any shared news, including public news.”
Empathy as a Commodifiable Media Effect: Television introduced the concept of empathic involvement by emotionally engaging viewers, which ended full-scale industrial wars like Vietnam. Social media have taken this a step further, commodifying empathy and turning it into engagement. “The commodification of affect (by television) and engagement (by digital media) created empathy without unity. It retrieved the emotional involvement that was typical in an oral—tribal—society, but on the technological basis of a new medium that provides distant empathic involvement without any real personal connection and without any physical limitations of space and time.”
The Overproduction and Weaponization of Empathy: The constant demand for empathy on social media leads to anxiety and polarization, as users are inundated with empathic requests from their vast networks. This results in an empathy race where empathy becomes weaponized, leading to increased animosity and tribalism. “The resulting oversupply of empathy simply devalues it, leading to empathy policing by everyone toward one another, ensuing mass anger and polarization. Sociologist and philosopher Jean Baudrillard noticed a similar phenomenon in 1981: ‘We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning.’”
Bills Restricting Social Media Advance Amid Continuing Legal Battles
The negative impact of social media on children hasn’t gone unnoticed by lawmakers. Route 50’s Chris Teale reports on recent legislative efforts in New York and Utah to regulate social media usage among minors. The legislation reflects growing concerns over the impact of social media on youth mental health and privacy. Not surprisingly, both face potential legal hurdles.
New York’s SAFE for Kids Act: New York lawmakers passed the SAFE for Kids Act, which bans social media platforms from providing algorithm-driven feeds to minors without parental consent. “It would additionally prohibit the platforms from withholding feed products or services that are ‘non-addictive,’ like a chronological timeline, when that consent is not obtained.” The law also restricts notifications during late-night hours and allows the attorney general to seek damages for violations.
Arguments For and Against: Supporters of the legislation believe it will protect minors from addictive algorithms and improve mental health. “I want our children—my children—to live in a world where Big Tech doesn’t profit at their expense,” state Sen. Andrew Gounardes, who sponsored the legislation, said in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “The time to create a safer internet is now.” Opponents argue it could wind up harming the kids it’s designed to protect as well as face First Amendment challenges. “New York’s digital legislation is going to backfire on the teens that it’s supposed to protect,” Chamber of Progress CEO Adam Kovacevich warned. “Algorithms are an important tool for curating social media feeds and removing hate and harmful content from teenagers’ feeds. By banning algorithms and deciding what social media sites get to publish, New York’s digital legislation is likely headed for a First Amendment showdown.”
Legal Challenges in Utah: Utah’s law, which requires age verification for social media users, is facing legal challenges for potentially infringing on minors’ First Amendment rights. The amended lawsuit claims the law will “silence the voices of minors and anyone who refuses to provide proof of age,” emphasizing the ongoing national debate on balancing child protection with constitutional rights. “The various restrictions on minors’ social media accounts significantly restrict constitutionally protected speech," a Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) spokesperson said.
And just as we got this ready for publication, news broke the U.S. Surgeon General called on Congress to pass legislation requiring a label be put on social media apps similar to those on cigarettes and alcohol warning of their health dangers to children.
Your Boyfriend Isn’t Your Camera Man
This picture tells the story.
Writing for the After Babel substack, Freya India explores the societal trend of using partners as photographers to document life for social media. India criticizes the compulsion to capture perfect moments for online validation, arguing it leads to superficial interactions and neglects real-life connections. She calls for a shift away from treating loved ones as tools for social media content and toward valuing authentic, private moments.
Impact on Relationships: The expectation for partners to constantly take photos for social media can strain relationships and detract from genuine experiences. "Her need for me to catalogue her life is slowly draining my soul," a Reddit user lamented.
Cultural Pressure and Superficiality: Social media has normalized the compulsion to document perfect moments, often at the expense of truly enjoying them. India notes, “The compulsion to document the perfect memory can degrade the memory, turning it from that time we watched the sunset together on the beach to that time we argued after I demanded Instagram photos and you couldn’t get the angle right.”
Here’s An Idea, Let’s Connect IRL: India emphasizes the importance of prioritizing real-life relationships over virtual validation. “Be careful not to disregard the people around you and then demand they take your pictures. Maybe part of why we feel lonely is because we put too much time into our virtual lives now; we invest too much in our online networks and not enough in our real-life relationships.”
In Others’ Words
Speaking of priorities, here’s some words of wisdom from software engineer David Clarke:
Twenty years from now, the only people who will remember that you worked late are your kids.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take work seriously! Keep moving forward, says Sean Garrett, the founder of Mixing Board.
My first boss told me to treat a career like crossing a stream. You should know what you want to have accomplished when you reach the other side, but, in the meantime, don’t focus so much on how far you get with each step. Just try to keep moving toward your goal.
Sociology professor Daniel Chambliss, who spent years researching the qualities of elite swimmers, sings the praises of mundanity.
Excellence is mundane. Superlative performance is really a confluence of dozens of small skills or activities, each one learned or stumbled upon, which have been carefully drilled into habit and then are fitted together in a synthesized whole. There is nothing extraordinary or superhuman in any one of those actions; only the fact that they are done consistently and correctly, and all together, produce excellence.
When a swimmer learns a proper flip turn in the freestyle races, she will swim the race a bit faster; then a streamlined push off from the wall, with the arms squeezed together over the head, and a little faster; then how to place the hands in the water so no air is cupped in them; then how to lift them over the water; then how to lift weights to properly build strength, and how to eat the right foods, and to wear the best suits for racing, and on and on.
Each of those tasks seems small in itself, but each allows the athlete to swim a bit faster. And having learned and consistently practiced all of them together, and many more besides, the swimmer may compete in the Olympic Games ... the little things really do count.”
H/T to author James Clear for today’s quotes.
Onward and Upward.