Here’s an amazing photo Pollard took after getting dropped off by a chopper high up in the remote, glaciated mountains of the South Island of New Zealand. This would naturally cause quite a bit of angst for wedding photographers in Kansas, for instance, who would have no way to compete with a setup like this.
Pollard goes on to say that Instagram is also having a major impact on how couples are choosing a photographer for their wedding. He sees a lot of less-experienced photographers with a strong Instagram presence racking up a lot of the wedding gigs based mainly on the number of followers, likes, and comments on their photos. He notes that there are some wedding photographers that buy their numbers to make them more attractive to new couples. Who wouldn’t want to hire a wedding photographer that is obviously uber-popular? Again, it’s a huge public scorecard that also functions as an endorsement, or so the clients believe, when choosing who will document their experience of one of the more self-centered rituals in today’s society.
A wedding photographer’s level of experience, demeanor, skill, planning, and responsibility are no longer the only factors. As a result, Jim claims he knows many wedding photographers who artificially pump up their numbers to get more business.
A Mass Delusion
More evidence is piling up daily of a “mania” that has taken over modern society. Millions of people are creating contrived photos for Instagram, so they can get the approval of absolute strangers, who they will never meet.
This phenomenon was impossible 100 years ago, or even 20 years ago, before we were connected with billions through online social networks. You only had a few people around you every day to give you feedback and those people actually mattered to you.
This photo speaks for itself.
But since we are all connected now, isn’t it unusual and fascinating how we actively seek the approval of absolute strangers we will never meet and will have no impact on our lives? It’s delusion on a mass scale.
People line up for hours for their turn to capture a familiar Instagrammable moment, seemingly alone and finding meaning in their life, when the opposite is true. People who have meaning in their lives don’t feel the need to have to prove it continuously to other people. This photo is from here in New Zealand where I live. I don’t even hike up here anymore because I don’t like meeting morons on my hikes. There are similar social media queues at other Instagram-famous spots around the world, and sadly I witness this sort of behavior all the time.
Yet another place like this is Horseshoe Bend, in Arizona, where everyone takes the exact same photo.
People will do almost anything to make sure you comment on their Instagram posts. Yes, some of the people who comment will be actual friends and family members. However, in our ever-growing demand for more followers, the vast majority won’t be. And I’m not talking about people with over 10,000 followers. I’m also referring to people with over 500 followers. No one really has 500 friends in real life. If anything, we’re pre-wired to form tribes of 150 people or less. That number—150—is known as Dunbar’s number, and we’ll talk more about it later on.
However, these days, if you only have 150 “friends” online, you would feel like a failure, even if this belief runs counter to what we know about human interaction (according to Dunbar’s number). In fact, many people today have an insatiable craving for more and more followers while expecting to get positive comments from all of them.
Millions and millions of people are posting photos and they’re all putting significant value on the overwhelmingly positive feedback of strangers. Comments from strangers must be 100% positive or overwhelmingly positive; any hint of negativity causes distress. I heard Penn Jillette (of magical Penn & Teller fame) say once that just one or two negative tweets will really bother him. And that’s coming from Penn Jillette, one of the most mentally tough people in the world!
Plus, something about the way our overly-sensitive society has evolved makes it very difficult for people to deal with negativity or opposing viewpoints. But when you have an order of magnitude more comments online than in person, it stands to reason you’ll hear more negativity the more time you spend online. Even worse, because of the anonymity of the medium, people are much more likely to say nasty things online than they would in person.
To summarize: there’s a lot happening to us, psychologically, when we use social media, and not all of it is good. We’re subjected to images of beautiful people and unattainably perfect lives. We compare ourselves to these manufactured realities—to our own psychological detriment—then try to create our own personas to keep up.
In the next chapter, we look at the way these systems are constructed—the automatic algorithms that keep us clicking—exacerbate the problems we discussed in this chapter.
A group of Instagrammers all competing to get a better photo. They see everyone else playing the game, so that surely must be the game to be played, right?
Chapter 6
See the Matrix
“Instead of a trap door, what about a trap window? The guy looks out it, and if he leans too far, he falls out. Wait. I guess that’s like a regular window.”
— Jack Handy
Let’s do a deeper analysis of how Instagram chooses what to show you. I will also use Facebook as an example here because they use very similar tactics.
I think it is valuable for you to know how the machine works, so you can realize when you’re getting sucked in. Note that I am not saying the methods that Instagram uses are evil or anything like that, but it is good to realize how easy it is to manipulate human behavior and spread information.
Taking a step back, let’s talk about information and ideas. I believe it’s in the best interest of the eight billion people on earth to spread, share, and adopt good information—ideas that make us, as a society, better off. Examples of good information are instructions on how to teach kids to read; information about how to eat healthy; that it’s a good thing to help strangers in need; and things of this nature.
It’s also better to spread good ideas than to spread bad ones. I mean, this should go without saying, but I’m just building up a foundation. Examples of bad ideas are intolerance, hate, violence ... and I’m sure you can think of many more.
It’s important to know social networks are completely indifferent as to whether they are spreading a good idea or bad information. They’re just there to spread information. It all comes down to the algorithm and what it’s optimizing for.
Algorithms Are the Puppet Master
Algorithms are the robotic rules that social media networks use to filter and prioritize loads of data to decide what shows up in your “newsfeed” on Facebook, or what you see first as you scroll through Instagram. We used to see everything our friends posted chronologically, but our feeds have evolved to be more sophisticated and algorithms now determine what we see in our feed, and when we see it.
The engineers behind the algorithms are constantly changing them to create a “better” user experience. However, “better” is a subjective term. Algorithms are typically engineered to keep us around longer clicking, scrolling, liking, and sharing like good little consumers. Some of these lines of code have some serious, I’d like to think unintended, consequences. Because the algorithms are designed to keep us coming back for more, they also tend to be created in a way that exploits our cognitive biases and human weaknesses.
Secondly, the construction of the algorithms can lead to some unanticipated use cases and consequences. To understand what I mean by this, let’s begin by talking about technology and how people use it in ways which are not expected by those who create it.
Yuval Noah Harari and Trains
Yuval Noah Harari has a great view of technology and how it transforms culture in unexpected ways. He is the author of Sapiens, Homo Deus, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century—I recommend them all. These books analyze history in a wonderfully unique way. I heard a lengthy interview with Harari by Sam Harris. Among the my
riad topics, Harari began to talk about the technology of trains.76
A train, Harari explains, is just a technology, and it doesn’t care how people use it. Once trains were invented, new social structures and behaviors to develop around them.
We all know of ways that trains can be used to enable positive outcomes. We can transport goods long distances, visit friends far away, and, today, even commute to work using them.
However, trains have also been used in some less than savory ways. They have allowed communist governments to unilaterally make decisions about where to send food and supplies and have enabled more efficient mass genocide in wartime.
Harari’s point was that, when a new technology comes out, like “social media,” we really have no idea how it will be used, who will use it, or what the results of that use will be.
For example, let’s look at an average person on a social network. Let’s say they have about 1,000 followers. Before social networks, any given person could maybe influence 100 people in their real life (family, their friends, their bingo club, their church, etc.) so this is about ten times more people than what was once possible.
Now that we have technology that allows each of us an order of magnitude more influence, behavior on a societal level is changing dramatically. Influential individuals can broadcast their ideas more quickly, to more people, than ever before, and the content of those ideas could be either good or bad. So, you see, Instagram and Facebook made this tremendous technology, and a new use case arose—one that wasn’t necessarily expected.
The inventor of the train certainly didn’t have a choice in how it has been used. Is it possible that the inventors of social media have run into the same outcome?
How the Algorithms Work
This is how the algorithm decides what you get to see. The algorithm watches everything you do. It tries to be helpful by showing you more content that you’ll engage with. If you engage with a piece of content, the algorithm reasons, it must be useful for you to see it.
How does it know what you’ll engage with? Well, doesn’t properly research what you genuinely care about. All it can do is make guesses based on your reactions.
Whenever you see something in your feed that excites you, you will either respond with a like, a positive comment, or a negative comment right away. That response feeds the algorithm. The algorithm also factors in how long it takes you to react; if you react more quickly, it thinks you’re more interested in the content.
The algorithm also takes into account what other people are reacting to and engaging with. It feeds that into its calculations too. If more people are engaging with a certain post or topic, you’re also more likely to see that post or topic. Remember a few chapters ago when we talked about how pods can game the algorithm by spamming a new post with a lot of responses so more people will see it? This dynamic is why that works.
Now, I don’t have to ask if you have friends on social media that complain about stuff. You name it, someone is being querulous about it. Politics. Sports. Relatives. People. Whatever. On social media, people will complain, often vociferously, as they tell the world what they think about this or that. This person should be doing that! Can you believe what that person did to me? Can you believe how our group was wronged by them?
The negativity online sounds a lot louder, because all the Negative Nancies have something to complain about and they use social media to do it.
This kind of negativity is very emotional. It can spark a range of strong reactions in other people. Tactically, what this means is that people will engage with it. The algorithm interprets that engagement as a positive signal and makes sure the post gets widely shared.
So, you might find your feed filled with petty bickering, or outright arguments, because that’s what the algorithm thinks you want to see. That’s what gets engagement.
Fringe Groups Get a Megaphone
I’ll do a quick analysis of a controversial group based on a belief system that has been strengthened and exacerbated by social media. I could pick any group: Libertarians, Vegans, Neo-Nazis, Miami Dolphins Fans, Numinous Xealots, Burning Man Attendees, Trophy Hunters, Fantasy Fiction Fans, Anti-Vaxxers. Now, listen. I’m not saying all of those groups are “bad” (only some of them are). However, the beliefs of many of these groups are considered quite controversial.
As an example, think about groups for which you have an affinity. For example, I used to be a big fan of the Dallas Cowboys when I was in my 20s. If they played well and won, it put me in a good mood. If they didn’t, I’d be in a bad mood. I would talk with other Dallas Cowboy fans and would get excited. It made up a significant part of my identity. To insult the “story” of the Dallas Cowboys was something that would once have offended me.
And, as far as “groups” go, a sports team is rather innocuous. Think of some groups that you or your friends might be in. These groups are serious business and a huge amount of a person’s identity is defined by their association in the group. Facebook and Instagram highly encourage people to participate in groups because it keeps them online longer, increasing screen time, and allowing the opportunity for more ads to appear.
Sample Group Activity: Those Wacky Anti-Vaxxers
Anti-Vaxxers, eh? Perhaps you’ve seen their inane online ululations.
If you have not yet heard of this group of twits, Anti-Vaxxers are parents that choose not to vaccinate their kids. Vaccinations prevent terrible diseases like measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, and many other things. Forgoing vaccines is generally considered an unhealthy and dangerous choice for children and is widely condemned by medical professionals as a bad move. Not only are the unvaccinated children at risk of contracting the disease, but they also become carriers, possibly infecting other children as well.
I’m using Anti-Vaxxers as an example of a group who holds views that are almost universally agreed to be incorrect. I’m also choosing Anti-Vaxxers because I’m a man of science and it’s a perfect example of one of those bad ideas that is getting spread around widely, despite the existence of ample scientific evidence disproving it. If you don’t happen to like what I’ve chosen for this example, you can substitute any other controversial group that elicits highly polarized and emotional reactions.
Let’s talk about measles. In the 1980s, measles killed 2.6 million people a year. Now, it kills fewer than 100,000 each year.77 Most measles deaths are of children under the age of 5. The disease is highly contagious because the virus remains active and transmissible in the air and on infected surfaces for up to 2 hours.
Now, Anti-Vaxxers have been perpetuating many myths about the dangers of vaccines, saying that vaccines themselves can cause a variety of safety and health issues in children. For example, Anti-Vaxxers believe that vaccines cause autism. (Spoiler alert: they don’t.)
However, there has been a significant increase in the number of Anti-Vaxxers in recent years. The US National Library of Medicine explains why this is a problem:78
Parents hesitant to vaccinate their children may delay routine immunizations or seek exemptions from state vaccine mandates. Recent outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases in the United States have drawn attention to this phenomenon.
We identified 18 published measles studies (9 annual summaries and 9 outbreak reports), which described 1416 measles cases (individual age range, 2 weeks-84 years; 178 cases younger than 12 months) and more than half (56.8%) had no history of measles vaccination.
I believe the increase in the number of parents who are choosing not to vaccinate is partially linked to social networks and their evolving algorithms, which reward increased interaction and engagement. Social media algorithms unintentionally help the views of Anti-Vaxxers to spread because their views are controversial and spark significant engagement from users. Remember when we talked about how algorithms are able to identify and promote posts that garner significant attention from users? That same dynamic is what allows posts about topics like this to be spread wid
ely across the platform.
For example, immediately after a post about how vaccinations cause autism, users that vehemently agree with Anti-Vaxxers will offer words of support. People that disagree will immediately tell the Anti-Vaxxers what morons they are. This high level of activity signals to the algorithm that this might potentially be an interesting post. It increases the odds that this post will appear above other topics that might get less interaction, such as golf or gardening, that don’t receive as much passionate and immediate interaction.
The Anti-Vaxxer movement is also spreading both because social networks have topical communities that users can join to share ideas with like-minded folks and because both employ the hashtag feature to point people towards similar posts. Users can read posts that are specifically tagged with #antivaccine and #vaccineskill, for instance. Both of these features can create echo chambers for the misguided to affirm their own beliefs on these topics.
Many people still have not heard of the Anti-Vaxxing movement. However, they may see something in their feed from a friend who recently became an Anti-Vaxxer. The Anti-Vaxxer will often link to these topical groups, or curated accounts, so possible new recruits can get more information.
This @professional_antivaxxer account has thousands of followers and tons of nonsensical posts like this, designed to scare new mothers. It’s worth reading some of the gobbledygook in the description there on the right.
Under the Influence- How to Fake Your Way Into Getting Rich on Instagram Page 17