In 2015, 99% of all international data traffic was transmitted over undersea cables, representing an unfathomable amount of information. By 2017, over two billion people had a Facebook account, with the average person having 338 “friends.” According to Pew, the average person had actually not even met almost ten percent of those people. Among teenagers, the numbers are even more disturbing, with Pew reporting 57% had made friends online, and less than 20% had met any of those friends in person.
In 2017, Sean Parker, the founding president of Facebook, admitted publicly that social media platforms were intentionally designed to consume the user’s time, and one of the methods was to trigger a validation response, designed to reward the user as they spent more of their day on the site. These likes, shares, friend requests, views, messages about a photo or post getting more responses than usual, and other positive reinforcement indicators, were specifically designed to addict the user, forcing them to crave these acknowledgements from people they barely knew, and keep them glued to the platform so the company could make money off them.
This has been admitted publicly.
But will the story be lost in the carefully curated newsfeeds designed to make the users of social media platforms happy?
And what would it take to get a generation that has known nothing but life behind the screen, to wake up, and notice the world around them?