When I first heard that Elon Musk actually bought Twitter — irrespective of what comes of the deal, which is now undergoing further diligence— my immediate thought was: What a shame, I’d much rather he focus on taking carbon out of the atmosphere. Musk is a polarizing figure, no doubt. Whatever you think of the guy, it is hard to argue that his leadership in electric vehicles, solar power, and reusable aerospace technology has not been a boon for the environment. That he’ll probably be focusing more on social media than he already does — the man likes to tweet — came as frustrating news. But then again, it’s not just Musk. It’s all of us.
The deleterious effects of social media on mental health, body image, harassment, and democracy are well documented and discussed at length. But my immediate thought proceeding news of Musk’s acquisition got me thinking: Might there also be a significant brain drain?
Data from Statista shows that the average internet user spent two-and-a-half hours per day on social media in 2021, up nearly sixty-five percent since 2012. If you think this is attributable to Covid-19, think again. In 2019, average usage was only two minutes less. Additional statistics from the Pew Research Center show that the majority of Americans who use social media visit the platforms at least once a day, with well over thirty percent checking in several times.
Though these are crude averages, it’s clear that, as a collective, we spend a lot of time on social media. Whenever I log onto Twitter, I find myself shocked at how many scientists, politicians, and entrepreneurs seem to be posting throughout the day. I can’t help but wonder about all the other things they could be using their time, energy, and brain power on.
For a 2020 paper published in the American Journal of Economic Review, researchers from Stanford University and MIT surveyed the state of innovation across diverse industries. Their conclusion: “Everywhere we look we find that ideas, and the exponential growth they imply, are getting harder to find.” Research conducted by Rand Corporation in 2021 found that American entrepreneurship has been in decline since 1990, with a stark drop starting in 2006. A 2017 study conducted by the educational psychologist Kyung Hee Kim included over 270,000 Americans and found that there has been a significant decline in creative thinking over the past few decades.
In 2021, when researchers asked internet users ages sixteen to sixty-four why they use social media, the prompt that garnered the second most responses, behind only “keeping in touch with family and friends,” was “filling spare time.” This is troubling since research shows that idleness and mind-wandering are crucial for creativity; particularly the kind of breakthrough, “aha” insights that are integral to innovation and progress.
“One of the skills we’re losing is the ability to tolerate boredom. As soon as we’re bored, even for a few seconds, we unlock our phones and resume the script of jumping from one social media feed to the next,” says Adam Alter, a professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business and author of the book Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked. “If you never encounter and then push beyond mental roadblocks, you’ll never think differently, creatively, or in innovative ways about the puzzles at work and home that occupy your mind. The more you visit screens every time you’re bored, the less time your mind spends seeking novelty and originality,” he says.
It’s not just adults who need to experience boredom but future generations too. In her studies of adolescents and internet use, Sherry Turkle, MIT professor and author of Reclaiming Conversation and The Empathy Diaries, has found that boredom has become intolerable for even the youngest children. “Baby bouncers with a slot for an iPad aren’t helping things,” says Turkle, who believes that adults are actively suppressing a crucial developmental skill.
Turkle’s research has found that by high school, modern adolescents are fleeing face to face conversation because “it seems interminable and makes them feel vulnerable. You can’t control what you’re going to say. Boredom and vulnerability are deep developmental skills that we can’t afford to lose,” she says. “Without them, you can’t have empathy. People want to build an app for that. But that is misguided. We are the empathy app,” she says. It’s an important app, one that is especially key for solving big societal problems such as polarization.
The decline in innovation, entrepreneurship, and creativity is undoubtedly multifactorial. The research on the direct effects of social media is still in its infancy — studies to answer big and complex questions like this one take time. Yet it’s worth taking seriously the idea that we might just be amusing ourselves to death.
It’s not just actual time on the platforms that detracts from progress in other pursuits, but also the broader impact social media has on our lives. It’s the distraction of incessant notifications (or wondering when you are going to get one, or why you haven’t in quite some time). It’s thinking in tweets and Facebook posts. It’s spending time staging the perfect Instagram photo or TikTok video. It’s being angry for half a day because of something a stranger wrote. It’s the deterioration of our ability to pay attention itself, a phenomena that Nicholas Carr detailed in his 2010 book, The Shallows.
When I spoke with Lee Rainie, a social scientist and the director of internet and technology research at the Pew Research Center, I asked him about the potential for a social media brain drain. “There is no doubt that social media has a big impact on all the things that make life worthwhile, including productivity and progress,” he said. But, he explained, it’s difficult to quantify the opportunity costs. “Trying to figure out the balance sheet is hard to do.”
However Rainie, who has been doing this research for over twenty years, did say, “When we talk to people about social media they are quick to worry about certain things, like If I weren’t ‘wasting’ my time doom scrolling, I’d be doing other things that would help me and the people around me.”
To be clear, social media can be harnessed for good. In the summer of 2017, when Hurricane Harvey made landfall and left much of Houston underwater, the “Cajun Navy,” a group of civilians rescuers, largely mobilized on social media. Social media can also be beneficial for lesser ventures. I’ve met people on Twitter who later became collaborators and in-real-life friends. I often first test ideas for essays, and even books, on social media too.
And yet, and yet.
Raine told me that even when people do use social media to their benefit, they often feel “productively whipsawed,” something I can empathize with. In one minute you are finding the answer to a question that would have taken you a half day in the stacks of a library, and in the next minute you are appalled by a tweet or post, sucked into an argument, or comparing your life to the highly produced and filtered life of someone else. “The negativity bias stands out. People are much more likely to say this isn’t working for me — let alone the broader culture — than they are to say I see all the good that comes from it,” says Raine.
I think the best metaphor for social media is a giant cocktail party. You can meet people, exchange ideas, poke jabs, and have fun. If you go to a cocktail party once a week for an hour or so and have a drink or two, it can be energizing. But if you go to a cocktail party every day for multiple hours and have multiple drinks, you’ve got yourself a real problem. Perhaps we are spending too much time at the social media cocktail party, to our individual and societal detriments?
There is a chance that Elon Musk will remake Twitter to accentuate its positive attributes and minimize its negative ones. And there is a chance that the rest of the social media platforms will follow. Musk revolutionized electric vehicles and is pushing the envelope on solar panels and rockets, so who am I to say he can’t do it here? I genuinely hope he does.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
In the meantime, though, I am going to re-up my own social media boundaries and limitations. No apps on my phones. No notifications ever. No more than thirty minutes a day. I’ve got too many things I want to read and write. Regardless of what you do for work and fun, I’d ask that you consider the same tradeoff. Our collective progress may very well depend on it.
