In a TED talk, the technologist J. P. Rangaswami compared the information we consume to a diet. A work of great literature could be compared to an incredibly nourishing and fortifying meal. Social media snippets could be compared to snacking on junk food. Imagine if we surrounded children with an unlimited buffet of Cheetos and Twinkies. What would happen to their health over time?

I can’t for certain whether I’m in a better or worse place, from a mental health and emotional well-being point of view, compared to where I was five, 10, or 20 years ago. There are too many overlapping factors. That being said, I think we can all agree that social media — with its increasingly complex and addictive algorithms — plays a much bigger role in our lives than ever before. And, despite all the great and powerful things that social media enables, we can probably also all agree that our social media diet is likely rather unhealthy. At least for most of us.

Beyond the Politics of Andrew Yang

The quote above comes from Forward: Notes on the Future of Our Democracy, by former presidential candidate Andrew Yang. You might know him best as “that Asian guy pushing universal basic income.” He later ran for mayor of New York City too. Today, to the best of my knowledge, he spends most of his time running Forward, which Wikipedia describes as ” a political action committee that seeks to form a political party that will alleviate political polarization and reform the U.S. political and economic systems.”

Now, you may or may not agree with some of the political opinions that Andrew Yang holds, but he brings up a very valid point when it comes to our collective relationship with social media. These are — and I realize this term feels awfully overused these days — unprecedented times. We don’t know what are the long-term ramifications of social media. When I asked whether we were addicted to Facebook 15 years ago, I had no idea it would continue to grow into what it is today.

I can’t be the only one who mindlessly doom-scrolls through Twitter, thumbs my way through Instagram, and instinctively and almost unconsciously opens the Facebook app and starts scrolling without even realizing what I’ve done. It’s like the commercial for Lay’s potato chips: Betcha can’t eat just one. And again, as powerful and empowering as social media platforms can be and have been, most of the content on there isn’t exactly “nourishing.” There’s good stuff, to be sure, but there’s a lot of bad stuff too. Junk food, feeding our insatiable appetite for dopamine and acknowledgement.

On Social Media Diets and Screen Time

And this is from the context of grown-ups who are supposed to know what we’re doing. What about children who’ve never known a world without social media? What about kids who’ve been surrounded by displays full of instant gratification all their lives? Why do grown-ups get so much screen time? It’s a topic I discussed with James Smith on the SocialDad podcast last month:

Perhaps it’s partly because Andrew Yang has a couple of kids of his own that he’s been giving this more thought, particularly from the angle of how screens and social media affect the development of children. Or maybe it’s so much more widely applicable to people of all ages. Is it more tempting to spend an hour consuming an endless stream of TikTok videos? Or would you rather spend that hour curled up with a good book?

Not Really a New Problem

Interestingly enough, the TED Talk by JP Rangaswami that Andrew Yang references in his book? it’s from ten years ago and it’s arguably even more applicable today than it was back then. I’ve embedded it here for your reference. Rangaswami is a technologist, economist and journalist. He currently serves as a senior advisor and/or independent non-executive director at a number of firms.

For more on this topic, I encourage you to check out Put the F*king Book Down by Josh Misner. I think we could all benefit from learning how to be bored again and not reach for our phones simply out of habit.

Image credit: Gage Skidmore / Wikimedia
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