Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Jonah Gardner
Professor Casey
English 1201
5th of May 2019
Are We Hooked? Examining Online Connectivity, Media Consumption, and Device Interaction
There is no denying that the internet is a useful tool that has changed the world. It is an
essential tool for conducting business and communicating with others. However, the online
network has no off button and it is limitless in its growth; it is infinite. The internet has no way
of self-regulating, yet it has become deeply engrained into our contemporary society.
Therefore, as consumers and users of this network, it is essential that we examine our uses of it
as well as our dependency on it; and it is of vital importance that we consider the effects that it
might have on our behavioral patterns. Are you using your devices to access and interact with
the network in a beneficial way? Have social media networks begun to influence our behavioral
interactions, are we too connected? Are we too dependent on our internet network?
The whole of human history and knowledge is accessible at a moment’s notice – there
are entire encyclopedias online available for free, with no direct cost to the individual reading
it. Information spreads at a rate never before seen in humankind. The Notre-Dame Cathedral
in Paris, France tragically caught fire on Tuesday April 16th – and within seconds of the smoke
starting to rise, people were watching live footage of it on fire in Paris, Texas.
The world has never before been as connected as we are today; if you live in a first
world country, you have the ability to be connected to a whole network of communication
tools and platforms. The beauty of this network is that it gives us the potential for person to
person communication across any distance. Someone can sit in their apartment in Frankfurt,
Germany instant messaging a someone on a flight from Shanghai, China – whilst simultaneously
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having a face to face video conversation with someone six thousand miles away in Cincinnati,
Ohio.
both on the macro and the micro scale. People rely on this network to do their jobs and to
keep track of operations. On a micro scale, social media can use as a marketing tool for small
Social media gives local business an advertising platform to use to promote their brand
and offers the benefit of being able to build customer loyalty by rewarding followers with
exclusive deals and discounts. If you are starting a small business, or you own a local restaurant
There is no questioning that, in the right context, social media aids in the growth of a
business. More interesting than that is the effect that social media can have on the employees
within a business. A study was done by two professors in Turkey; Ali Sukru Centinkaya, a
Doctor of Philosophy, and Muhammad Rashid, with his Master’s in business administration,
both whom teach at Selcuk University. The study entitled The Effect of Social Media on
and examined they examined the effects of social media use within the workplace whereby the
employees were given the right to use social media on behalf of the company they worked for...
The results of the study indicate that if a company lays out clear guidelines for social media use
but enables their employees to use social media on behalf of the business, and it actually
increases the employees job performance. In the conclusion of the published study, Centinkaya
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writes, “Social media drives organizations to decentralization and enable employees make
prompt decisions. This in return increases customer satisfaction and business competitive
advantage.” (Centinkaya, 17). If used properly, social media can be a significant benefit to
businesses.
Through social media, companies now have a platform to use target marketing in order
to get their products in front of users whom are best suited for their product. This is of
particular use for startups and younger companies whom would have formerly had to pay high
prices to get their product on the television screens and in magazine pages of potential
consumers. Now corporations have immediate, direct access to consumer data and can
enhance their marketing reach through cloud based computational services such as Amazon
Web Services.
From a business perspective, the benefits of social media use are rather concrete.
However, when taking a closer look on an individual user’s level, examining the benefits of
The interest regarding social media’s effect on the brain is rather wide spread, there
have been studies done on both sides of the argument, that have explored the correlation
between mental health issues and social media use. Several of which have indicated that social
media could be linked to behavioral inadequacies like decreased empathy; other studies
in Florida – and Charles Negy PhD a psychology professor of at the University of Central Florida
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sought to clarify the relationship between social media and mental health. The study looked at
four-hundred sixty-seven undergraduate students, examining their time spent on social media,
how important it was in their lives, and the correlation between mental health issues and
behavior on social media. Regarding the study, Berryman was quoted saying “We propose that
research focus on the behavior of individuals rather than assume media is the root cause of all
socio-personal problems” (Springer). Results from the study show that with the exception of
vague booking (a behavior characterized by posting something vague to causing a reaction from
friends, in attempts to get them to reach out) concerns regarding social media use may be
misplaced. This study claims that how an individual uses social media is more important than
the time spent on it. Which may very well be true; but by focusing on behavior within social
media, it fails to take into consideration what that time spent on social media is costing the
The network that has been engrained into our social structure is accessible through a
rectangular device sitting in our pockets and purses, and on our desks and dinner tables. The
access is instantaneous and pain free, so It can be hard to perceive when we have spent too
Studies have shown that time spent looking at screens can adversely influence sleep
patterns (Driller); LED screens emit blue light, a type of light that mimics sunlight, which can
trick your brain into staying up longer, thereby loosing vital deep sleep. Sleep deprivation takes
a toll on your body and effects your brain chemistry; these effects are obvious for anyone who
has had a few short nights of sleep in a row. Furthermore, those effects are exponentially more
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negatively impactful especially in adolescence and young adulthood, when the brain is
undergoing development.
In a study called Technology Trumping Sleep done at the California State University,
conducted research amongst high school and college aged individuals to examine the effect
that screen time has on sleep… The sample included ages sixteen to twenty-five… The study
used a series of online survey to examine for Electronic habits, internet and social networking
usage, sleep and rise times, as well as daily sleepiness. The study indicated that seventy-two
percent of high school students sleep with their phone in the bedroom, and that eighty-six
percent of college students sleep with their cell phone, tablet, or laptop in the room. Over half
of those students continue to access their devices while in bed, and many reported waking up
after going to sleep to access their device or respond to messages. In the conclusion of the
capacity. Although this first truly digital generation is seeing great benefit from
their electronic and media access, they are also paying a cost. Findings regarding
relationship, which means there is one… Students allow their social digital world
to impede and compete with their academic time and biological sleep time…
adopt and provide healthy guidelines for parents to use with pre-teens and
structure and means of protecting their health in the realms of electronics and
sleep.” (Moulin)
Time spent on devices can influence the natural sleep patterns of individuals. Which can have a
direct impact on physical development and cognitive wellness. This is known to be true, and
yet our internet network has gotten so deeply engrained into our society that well over half of
teenagers even sleep with the internet right next to their pillow.
We are constantly connected to our online world through our devices. Whether it is to
use an instant messaging application to chat with a friend, to watch a show on Netflix, or to
check for your friends latest posting - our devices have become deeply engrained into our
dependency on the networks that we are a part of. And it is of vital importance that we
In regard to exploitation of consumer behavior, the cat is out of the bag for the social
media giants. It is no secret that social media platforms are engineered to keep you on the app
for longer periods of time and coming back to visit the site more frequently.
Hilary Andersson of the BBC interviewed multiple Silicon Valley designers whom
formerly worked for social media companies. In her interview of Aza Raskin, the mind behind
the “infinite scroll” feature - now commonly used across many media platforms, he opened up
about just how much effort goes into engineering these various apps, "’Behind every screen on
your phone, there are generally like literally a thousand engineers that have worked on this
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thing to try to make it maximally addicting’. Infinite scroll allows users to endlessly swipe down
through content without clicking. 'If you don't give your brain time to catch up with your
impulses…you just keep scrolling.’ He said the innovation kept users looking at their phones far
the companies are motivated by the opportunity for generating more financial profit. From the
same interview, Anderson writes about Raskin, “He said, many designers were driven to create
addictive app features by the business models of the big companies that employed them. ‘In
order to get the next round of funding, in order to get your stock price up, the amount of time
that people spend on your app has to go up,’ he said. ‘So, when you put that much pressure on
that one number, you're going to start trying to invent new ways of getting people to stay
hooked.’” (Anderson). In the same piece, Hillary Anderson interviewed Sandy Parakilas, a
former Facebook employee whom said, "You have a business model designed to engage you
and get you to basically suck as much time out of your life as possible and then selling that
Companies are motivated by profit, and in our online world today, the profit that is
generated is predicated on clicks and time spent on a page. The more time a user spends on a
page means increased likelihood that user will click on an advertisement or another node
One such feature is the “like” button, a Facebook innovation co-invented by former
employee, Leah Pearlman. In her BBC article Hillary Anderson wrote of Pearlman, “she had
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become hooked on Facebook because she had begun basing her sense of self-worth on the
number of ‘likes’ she had. ‘When I need validation - I go to check Facebook,’ she said. ‘I'm
feeling lonely, 'Let me check my phone.” (Anderson). The features that are designed to grab
and keep users’ attention, simultaneously prey on humankind’s desire to be well liked.
The same innovations that social media corporations use to drive profit, can have dire
side effects. Although these features may not have been directly invented for the purpose of
becoming addicting, the corporations are well aware of their addictive nature. This is
something that former President of Facebook Sean Parker opened up about in a 2017 interview
The thought process that went into building these applications… That thought
process was all about, how do we consume as much of your time and conscious
attention as possible? That means that we needed to sort of give you a little
The social media inventors used various design tactics that consequently created powerful
platforms that are addictive in nature - Hüseyin Bilal Macit, a professor of computer science at
Mehmet Akif Ersoy University in Turkey, verified this point which in a 2018 study entitled
Research on Social Media Addiction and Dopamine Driven Feedback, which concluded, “The
results of neurological and psychiatric tests on social media users show that similar biological
and psychological symptoms of alcohol, cigarette and drug addicts are seen in active social
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media users.” (Macit). It is then factually true that social media is capable of becoming a neuro-
Corporations were driven by profits to employ people to create features that kept users’
coming back for more. The features were optimized over time with the consequence being
extremely addictive, but the strength of this addiction seem to be far out of scale with what
Chamath Palihapitiya was asked a question about the exploitation of consumer behavior in
building the largest social media platform ever. His response went viral, as he said;
“I feel extremely guilty… I think we all knew in the back of our minds… something
bad could happen, but I think the way that we defined it was not like this… It is
literally at a point now where I think we have created tools that are ripping apart
the fabric of how society works. That is truly where we are… The short-term
dopamine feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society
works… It is eroding the core foundations of how people behave by and between
These words are made more powerful when you know that Chamath wasn’t just another
Facebook Exec., he was formerly the longest tenured member of the Facebook Executive Team.
After this interview, several news programs had him on to probe and ask questions of him
regarding the nature of his comments. During his co-hosting of CNBC’s Squak Box, he doubled
down on the issue, saying “The reality may be that the whole business model of the internet
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may be fundamentally somewhat broken… because we allow ourselves to get interacted with in
ways where we don’t necessarily control the medium or the messenger.” (CNBC)
The reality is that social media as we know it has not been around long enough to
examine the long-term consequences of its use, and there are too many variables in regard to
quantifiably assessing its impact on school or job performance. However, what is objectively
true is that the social media tools we so frequently use today were designed to exploit
consumer’s behavior by effectively hacking into the dopamine centers in the brain, thereby
At sixteen years old, I was prescribed an ADD medication and I have been battling to
improve my ability to focus ever since. Upon examination of all of the data behind device
usage, some of the stories behind design features within these social media tools, and opinions
of individuals whom were involved in creating these platforms, I have begun to seriously
question not just my use of social media, but the relationship I have with the internet at large.
It is important to remember that the internet has no off button and it is limitless. If the
ourselves… So, the question remains, are you controlling it or is it controlling you?
figure 1. Are you hooked? (Coach, Does Your Phone Own You?)
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Works Cited
Andersson, Hilary. “Social Media Apps Are 'Deliberately' Addictive to Users.” BBC News, BBC, 4
Berryman, Chloe & Ferguson, Christopher & Negy, Charles. (2017). Social Media Use and
Mental Health among Young Adults. Psychiatric Quarterly. 89. 1-8. 10.1007/s11126-017-
9535-6.
Cetinkaya, Ali Sukru, and Muhammad Rashid. “The Effect of Social Media on Employees’ Job
search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=133658870&site=eds-live.
“Coach, Does Your Phone Own You?” Tudor Collegiate Strategies, 7 Jan. 2018,
dantudor.com/coach-does-your-phone-own-you/.
CNBC. “Former Facebook Exec Chamath Palihapitiya On Social Media, Bitcoin, And Elon Musk
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zyRpq2ODrE.
Driller, Matthew, and Liis Uiga. “The Influence of Night-Time Electronic Device Use on
Chronobiology International: The Journal of Biological & Medical Rhythm Research, vol.
search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=s3h&AN=135672109&site=eds-live.
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Hüseyin Bilal MACİT, et al. “A Research on Social Media Addiction and Dopamine Driven
Feedback.” Mehmet Akif Ersoy Üniversitesi İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi Dergisi, no.
Moulin, Kerry L., and Chia-Jung Chung. “Technology Trumping Sleep: Impact of Electronic Media
and Sleep in Late Adolescent Students.” Journal of Education and Learning, vol. 6, no. 1,
search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ1125237&site=eds-live.
Springer. “More Time on Social Media Is Not Linked to Poor Mental Health.”
springer/media/research-news/all-english-research-news/more-time-on-social-media-
is-not-linked-to-poor-mental-health/15185572.
Stanford Graduate School of Business. “Chamath Palihapitiya, Founder and CEO Social Capital,