Column: Managing your own social dilemma

I am the digital managing editor at The Daily Tar Heel. A large part of my role is analyzing data to determine how to get and keep you engaged with our content. I use numbers to guide how we deliver the news to you (although numbers never determine what we cover or how we cover it).

Over the weekend, I watched "The Social Dilemma" on Netflix. The documentary features former leaders and product designers at major social platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. These are the people who do what I do for the DTH, but in such a way that has forever altered the framework of our society.

The primary focus of the documentary is twofold: one, how technology companies have created a business model that takes an unprecedented amount of user data to sell for profit; and two, how unchecked disinformation campaigns have emboldened partisan divisions globally.

Social media is likened to a drug: these companies have created technology that keeps users engaged and accurately predicts user actions in order to sell ads. This technology operates unregulated across the internet, including on our own website.

The documentary appears to be a call to the major tech companies to adjust their models — to focus less on the profits and more on the discord social media is producing in politics and the disconnect it is creating in human relationships. 

However, if you find yourself spending an average of three hours a day on TikTok (like I was during the summer months), then you, too, are victim to these powerful algorithms, which are based on advanced technological capabilities and basic human psychology.

As someone who uses social media every day for work, here are the methods I use to control my screen time:

1. Recognize the problem. What do you gain from using your phone? Is it helpful, or is it a time sink?
2. Notifications — turn them off. Or at least turn off the notifications for the apps you don’t need constant updates from. A notification is like a dopamine hit, which is what controls our sense of reward — and they know this. That’s why you get them when your friend joins Instagram or likes something on Twitter.
3. Delete your apps. Remove apps you just don’t need to have in your pocket. This can be true for what I call guilty pleasure apps, like Words With Friends, or even more practical apps, like Twitter.
4. Set limits. Use your phone’s native screen time settings to give you reminders when you’ve been using certain apps for a long time.
5. Physical separation. Literally leave the phone somewhere out of reach. If you are working at your desk, put it across the room. If you are meeting with a friend, leave it in your bag. Make sure it isn’t easily accessible.
6. Understand the game. Social media is like a game, only with real world consequences. Don’t let yourself be swayed by who’s liked your post or how many followers you have. It is not a reflection of who you are.

My final tip is to recognize something this documentary barely touches on: social media can be really good. 

When people don’t feel seen by major news networks, they turn to social media to share their stories, such as the #BlackLivesMatter campaign, which began in 2013 and reignited this summer amid a strengthened national call for racial justice.

When governments take oppressive actions against their citizens, word spreads on social media, such as during the summer of 2019, when the Sudanese government blocked the nation’s internet access.

When school curricula are lacking, queer youth turn to social media to connect with others and learn the necessary sexual health education often excluded from their classes.

When a pandemic hits, the world turns to social media to get that thing we all desperately need: to stay connected with the ones we love.

Social media is neither good nor bad. It just is. How we use it is what matters. The major concern of the documentary is how it’s being used for bad — bad actors are taking advantage of social media to sow discord. This is done by creating echo chambers: social media algorithms are created to keep you engaged. They know what you will like. This becomes a problem when it comes to the news.

In some instances, our news has become partisan. We lack an understanding of universal truth, which makes us susceptible to targeted disinformation campaigns. To combat this, I suggest you tune into your local news station, read your local newspaper and don’t believe everything you see from unverifiable sources on the internet.

@willmelfi

@dthopinion | opinion@dailytarheel.com

Will Melfi

Will Melfi is the digital managing editor of The Daily Tar Heel. He is a senior at UNC-Chapel Hill studying journalism and political science.