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Course: Social media literacy?>?Unit 4
Lesson 5: What happens when we can’t resist persuasive technology?What happens when we can’t resist persuasive technology?
Social media keeps influencing more and more of our thoughts and beliefs
What happens when we can’t resist persuasive technology?
“The worst part is that I knew what I was doing was wrong, I knew the dangers of the endless scroll, but I still got sucked in.”
–Mahika, 15, San Francisco, CA
“It’s interesting that knowing what was going on behind the curtain, I still wasn’t able to control my usage.”
–Tim Kendall, Former Facebook Executive, in The Social Dilemma
“Even knowing how these tricks work, I’m still susceptible to them. I’ll still pick up the phone, and 20 minutes will disappear.”
–Jeff Seibert, Former Twitter Executive, in The Social Dilemma
We’ll never be fully free of our biases in cognition and perception; they’re part of being human and we need them to survive. As the quotes above indicate, we are all susceptible to these effects, even those who created these technologies in the first place.
We began this discussion by looking at how prevalent persuasive technology is in our daily lives. When we look at the intersections between the brain and these technologies, we can see that giant social media companies grew so quickly because they mastered how to hack our brains.
We are all affected by technology to different degrees. We can find ways to resist its effects. But persuasive technologies are constantly getting better at finding our vulnerabilities and taking advantage of them to keep us engaged and influence our behavior. As social media takes on a bigger role in the world—how we connect online, how we get information, who we vote for—it shapes more and more of what we're thinking and feeling. Even if we know it’s happening, we end up with less and less control over who we are and what we really believe.
To explore these consequences, let’s again take a closer look at our own experiences.
Go Deeper
Listen to social psychologist Jonathan Haidt on the Center for Humane Technology’s Your Undivided Attention podcast. Jonathan discusses his work with fellow psychologist Jean Twenge that shows the connection between the youth mental health crisis and the rise of social media use.
Want to join the conversation?
Why are persuasive technologies becoming more adept at identifying our vulnerabilities and exploiting them to keep us engaged and influence our behavior?(1 vote)