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Existing now for over a decade, Instagram got us hooked. The app was bought by Facebook for $1 billion dollars in 2012, and 2020 the app generated $20 billion dollars for them in ad revenue. 

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The app currently has 1.16 billion users and 500 million daily active ones. 

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On one hand, this social media giant has become integral to people's modern social networks. Employers look at it. Dates look at it. People you went to college with look at it. It's an extension of our society, but in a shallow way that depicts highlight reels. Like all social apps, the percentage of people actively engaging on it is substantially smaller than the lurkers who use it, but it still seems to give us the feeling our entire social network exists on it and is thriving.

 

Today, social media applications such as instagram are accused of exploiting vulnerabilities in human psychology and tricking us into adopting bad habits through reinforcement. Like a pacifier to our brains, this content was specifically designed to whisk us away from the responsibilities of reality while being modeled after gambling machines. Today I hope to successfully explain to you on the micro level how this is done. 

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When Instagram had to step up against Snapchat's popularity, it too released stories. This gave users a feeling of lighter and more relatable content which enabled a more authentic feel compared to the unrealistically curated feed posts. The full screen nature of the stories and the quick-loading frictionless carousel content (which automatically loads) is consuming our attention and our ability to have control over the actions we want to take. This design can be seen also on Netflix, where you are much more likely to watch the next episode of a series if the media takes up the full screen and automatically loads. This way you don't have time to pause and think if you want to focus on something else. 

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Filters can also have psychological effects. Beyond the feeling of disappointment of seeing oneself in a regular camera after seeing a flattering filter on our faces, filters can cause a false feeling of connectedness. If suddenly we post a selfie with a cute filter and people react with hearts or our ex watch us, we start thinking there's a false sense of approval and acceptance, which over time can create debilitating feeling of loneliness.

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Some smaller features are also put into place to make it hard for us users to put down our phones. This can be found on Whatsapp and Snapchat, when you see when someone is typing a comment on a post or is typing a message. Another small but powerful feature making us feel like we are being seen and heard as users can be seen in the Instagram and Facebook stories, where you can see who views you content. This makes us as users feel important and creates a need to post more quantity and quality of content thus adding a pressure of social approval. The colours of the notifications are purposefully red so they are hard to ignore and the "like" hearts were given as a simulation of social reward. And if you ever decide to go several days without Facebook, you'll start noticing some very nudgy emails - designed to get you back on the platform before you realize the FOMO doesn't exist when your off it. 

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In order to capitalize on today's attention economy, the application needed to be habit-forming. In order to create a habit of any form, one needs a sufficient motivation, an action and a trigger.  If you don't give your brain time to catch up with your impulses, you will just continue scrolling. Therefore, the inspiration from gambling shockingly is not coincidental. The loading and "pull-to-refresh" motions are modeled after slot machines. Always spinning a wheel of fortune which decides for us will we get a dopamine boost by a happy post or perhaps will cortisol take over by a fuming one? The endless scroll similarly gives us a deep-dive into the mindless abyss of junk. I say this just because these days the ad ratio is 2 posts to 1 ad on Facebook. Stopping cues were purposefully removed so there's no time to think about leaving.

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Psychological Insights:

Explained with my imaginary friend, Joe.
 

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Internal Triggers - People take action based on memories or experiences. With Instagram this happens when Joe experiences an inability to direct his own energy towards his own desires, thus making him seek pleasure somewhere external when feeling loneliness or some other negative emotion. So if Joe misses his long beloved ex Joselina, who has been long gone scuba diving with her beloved partner Jeff, who makes her foods that sound all French and stuff... and this makes Joe feel like he really should have taken that "Cooking French" course the sports rec room in high school once offered. But he didn't. So now he eats Cheetos dipped in mayo at 2 am on a work night and calls it dinner while staring at screens of picture-perfect couples traveling. Wait, did this just get personal? Never mind. 

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Optimizing For People Who Pay - Not everyone cares so much about shopping, but for Joe, he loves a good pair of shoes. The more the good-looking shoes sneak into his Instagram feed, the more his temptation gets the better of him. Just 3 clicks on any post, reel, or in the IG store itself and he will be at the checkout (on a social media app, isn't that crazy?). Some companies will put aside ethical considerations of maximizing on users' shopping habits, but Instagram is certainly not like that. Since they want to optimize for money, they turned Instagram into a compulsive shopping market place. 

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Banner Blindness - Joe's brain is smart. Joe's brain knowns how and when to tune out ads. But recently, the ads have started blending in so well into our feed - that he mentally blocks real content and watches ads. The line between marketing and life blurs on these channels often enabling compulsive shopping. 

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Social Status - We constantly are measuring our social statues relative to others in life. This makes people want to post highlight reels of their life, which makes all of us feel inadequate when we consume it. For Instagram, although this is very mixed with negative emotions, it ultimately becomes an exponential drive for people to competitively "flex" on other people which just leads to more consumption. Because the worse Joe feels about himself on Instagram, the more likely he will be to buy something from the happy man in the ad. Oddly enough the hunger for "authenticity" grows on Instagram, and ends up selling self-help items or some kind of organic feel-good stuff.

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The Looking Glass Theory - A theory which asserts that we develop our concept of the self by observing how we are perceived by others. Therefore Joe, who may feel bad about his own self-image after eating all those late-night Cheetos, may start tending to his feed to project the perfect version of himself. 

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As data and ads continue to evolve hand in hand under the tech giants, and people struggle to feel like they are in control of their phones and not in control of them, it's fair to ask: why not just pay a $10 subscription to a social platform that only does good? 
 

The truth is is that we like to think of Facebook as this one guy, but the truth is it's a global cooperation that contains within it multiple businesses with their own CEOs and with a whopping income of 80 billion dollars a year.

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The "protection" of data on Facebook, which you can read about here (link), and the way it can ultimately make the world a better or worse place, is in the hands of those who fight for better laws and raise awareness to spending time off the platform.

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I found here some tricks I think we can all use to stay in control of our social media consumption.

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Consider trying these out:

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- Don't check your social media until 10 AM or after 10 PM.

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- Disabling pop up notifications from apps such as Whatsapp, Instagram and Facebook.

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- Grouping notification alerts on applications. 

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- Consider deactivating it for a detox, read about my experience detoxing here (URL).

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- Adjusting your feed to show you things you enjoy and unfollowing accounts you don't feel add you with real value.

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- Ad time limitations on your phone for different apps or screen time.

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- Change your screen colors to be black and white to avoid overstimulating the brain (read about here URL).

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- If you have compulsive buying problems on the app, consider unfollowing accounts that trigger this habit in you and try to sell you stuff.

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With the power to connect the world, we can do amazing things. Meet amazing people. Create inventions far beyond the capability of one person alone. But we need to remember that this inventions are fairly new and we still don't understand the full effects these platforms have on our behaviour, brain and wellbeing. 

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You always have the power to change for the better. Technology is an excellent servant but a terrible master.

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