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Center for Humane Technology


LEDGER OF HARMS

Beta Version Updated June 2021

Under immense pressure to prioritize engagement and growth, technology platforms
have created a race for human attention that’s unleashed invisible harms to
society. Here are some of the costs that aren't showing up on their balance
sheets.

We hope these factoids, each supported by a citation, help to advance your work.
Please share with others who might also find them useful.

This ledger is a work in progress -- we welcome your feedback and suggested
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THE NEXT GENERATIONS

From developmental delays to suicide, children face a host of physical, mental
and social challenges


WHY IT MATTERS

Exposure to unrestrained levels of digital technology can have serious long term
consequences for children’s development, creating permanent changes in brain
structure that impact how children will think, feel, and act throughout their
lives.


THE NEXT GENERATIONS


EVIDENCE

3X more likely

Children who have been cyberbullied are 3x more likely to contemplate suicide
compared to their peers. The experience of being bullied online is significantly
more harrowing than "traditional bullying", potentially due to the victim’s
awareness that this is taking place in front of a much larger public audience.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · van Geel, M., Vedder, P., & Tanilon, J., 2014. JAMA
Pediatrics ↗
1 in 4

Children surveyed have had online sexual encounters with adults via social
media. Nearly 1 in 3 teen girls have been approached by adults asking for nudes,
while 1 in 6 girls aged 9 -12 years have interacted sexually with an adult on
these platforms. Overall, 1 in 2 participants (48%) said they had been made to
feel uncomfortable, been bullied, or had a sexual interaction online.

Copy Link Private Study · THORN. (2021). Responding to Online Threats: minors’
Perspectives on Disclosing, Reporting, and Blocking. Impact report by THORN, .
 ↗

Preschoolers who use screen-based media for more than 1 hour each day have been
shown to have significantly less development in core brain regions involved in
language and literacy. Brain scans indicate that the more time spent on screens,
the lower the child's language skills, and the less structural integrity in key
brain areas responsible for language. This is one of the first studies to assess
the structural neurobiological impacts of screen-based media use in
preschoolers; it raises serious questions as to how screen use may affect the
basic development of young children's brains.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Hutton, J. S., Dudley, J., & Horowitz-Kraus, T., 2019.
JAMA Pediatrics ↗
58 minutes

per day is the average amount of time 2-4 years old spend on mobile devices. And
46% children under the age of 2 years have used a mobile device at least once,
despite the American Academy of Pediatrics' recommendation that children under 2
years should not use any screen media.

Copy Link Private Study · , 2017. Common Sense Media ↗

In a longitudinal study tracking over 200 children from the age of 2 years to 5
years old, children with higher levels of screen time showed greater delays in
development across a range of important measures, including language,
problem-solving, and social interaction. Analyses indicated that the level of
screen time was significantly linked to the specific level of developmental
delay 12 -14 months later. This is a critical period in a child's life: as the
researchers note, the current data indicates that exposure to excessive screen
time during these early years can have serious effects "impinging on children's
ability to develop optimally".

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Madigan, S., Browne, D. T., Racine, N., & Mori, C.,
2019. JAMA Pediatrics ↗
About 40%

Of 13-17 year olds reported it was “normal for people my age to share nudes with
each other.”

Copy Link Private Study · THORN. (2021). Responding to Online Threats: minors’
Perspectives on Disclosing, Reporting, and Blocking. Impact report by THORN, .
 ↗

Children who experienced cyberbullying during their adolescence were
significantly more likely to engage in risk-taking health behavior as adults.
Boys who were cyberbully-victims were significantly more likely to smoke as
young adults (p = 0.014) while teenage girls were significantly more likely to
show a lifetime usage of drugs (p < 0.04).

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Kritsotakis, G., Papanikolaou, M., Androulakis, E., &
Philalithis, A. E. , 2017. Journal of Nursing Scholarship ↗
In 55%

Of cases where children reported or blocked aggressors, the perpetrators quickly
found them again either by creating a new account on the same platform or via a
different platform.

Copy Link Private Study · THORN. (2021). Responding to Online Threats: minors’
Perspectives on Disclosing, Reporting, and Blocking. Impact report by THORN, .
 ↗

The amount of time spent using social media is significantly correlated with
later levels of alcohol use. Research on several thousand teens demonstrated
that while time spent on other forms of electronic media (including TV or video
games) has comparatively little impact, the amount of time spent on social media
is significantly linked to alcohol use 4 years later. Data indicates that social
media has this unique effect through "social norming": repeatedly exposing teens
to multiple images of their peers and role models drinking alcohol makes such
behavior seem normal and acceptable, encouraging imitation.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Boers, E., Afzali, M. H., & Conrod, P., 2020.
Preventative Medicine ↗

Children who see videos of child influencers holding unhealthy foods consume
significantly more calories than those who see influencers holding other types
of objects, as clearly shown by experiments using randomized control trials.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Coates, A. E., Hardman, C. A., Halford, J. C. G.,
Christiansen, P., & Boyland, E. J., 2019. Pediatrics ↗
Over 40%

of videos from the 5 most popular kid-influencer YouTube channels feature food
and drink, with 90% explicitly showing unhealthy food or drink products,
sponsored by brands. The 179 food/ drink videos created by these child
influencers have more than 1 billion views. Such advertising exploits the fact
that children aged 8 and younger are highly susceptible to product placement,
cannot distinguish advertising from real content, and spend on average 1 hour
daily watching videos online.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Alruwally, A., Mangold, C., Greene, T., & Arshonsky,
J., 2020. Pediatrics ↗

More than half US middle-schoolers cannot distinguish advertising from real
news, or fact from fiction. Many state that “If it’s viral, it must be true”. As
a result, the next generation are poorly equipped to make sense of the world in
their future decisions, whether with regards to drug use, risky sexual behavior,
political extremism or any other issues in their future lives.

Copy Link Journalism · Shellenberger, S., 2016. Wall Street Journal ↗
77%

of teenagers get their news from social media, with 39% stating that they
“often” get news from celebrities, influencers, or personalities, according to a
survey of over 800 teens aged 13-18. In the last 3 years, there has been a
significant growth in the percentage of teens using YouTube and Instagram as
their top news sources: YouTube use went from 27% to 44% while Instagram as a
news source went from 22% to 32%.

Copy Link Private Study · Robb, M. B., 2020. Common Sense Media ↗
30%

teens report that they pay “very little attention” to considering the source
from which they are getting their news on social media.

Copy Link Private Study · Robb, M. B., 2020. Common Sense Media ↗

Several self-harming videos have been circulating on TikTok, from the "Skull
breaker" challenge to the "Cha Cha Slide" challenge (which involves repeatedly
swerving a car across a road in time to music). Videos that contain the tag
"#passoutchallenge" had over 233,000 views on TikTok as of February 2020.

Copy Link Journalism · Sjoberg, B., 2020. The Daily Dot ↗

Media multi-tasking is significantly linked to later levels of attentional
difficulties. Tracking more than 800 adolescents across time demonstrated that
the degree to which young teens (aged 11-13 years old) multi-tasked was a
significant predictor of attentional problems 3 months later (p < 0.05),
highlighting the potential impact of distracting digital environments on young
teens' development.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Baumgartner, S. E., van der Schuur, W. A., Lemmens, J.
S., et al., 2017. Human Communication Research ↗

The level of electronic media use before bedtime is significantly correlated
with depression in adolescence. Measurements from several hundred teenagers
indicate that this is primarily due to the impact on sleep: compared to video
game players, teens with high levels of social media use experienced greater
sleep difficulties, which in turn strongly correlated with higher levels of
depression.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Lemola, A., Perkinson-Gloor, N., Brand, S., &
Dewald-Kaufman, J., 2014. Journal of Youth and Adolescence ↗

A longitudinal study of several thousand adolescents indicated that their level
of social media usage was a significant predictor of their depression levels
over the course of 4 years. For every increased hour spent using social media,
teens show a 2% increase in depressive symptoms.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Boers, E., Afzali, M. H., Newton, N., & Conrod, P.,
2019. JAMA Pediatrics ↗

The number of US teenagers who are online continuously is increasing at a
dramatic pace, almost doubling from 2015 to 2018: 24% to 45%.

Copy Link Private Study · Anderson, M., & Jiang, J., 2018. PEW Research ↗
83%

Of children do not tell trusted adults about abuse they encounter online. In
situations where children receive unsolicited nudes from adults this percentage
grows even higher: 94% did not report this to a trusted adult (although 33% had
previously predicted that they would do so).

Copy Link Private Study · THORN. (2021). Responding to Online Threats: minors’
Perspectives on Disclosing, Reporting, and Blocking. Impact report by THORN, .
 ↗
27%

Of boys aged 9-12 years use adult dating apps, often exposing themselves to
adult sexual predators. This shows how easily children can sidestep the
simplistic safety procedures & age restrictions platforms use.

Copy Link Private Study · THORN. (2021). Responding to Online Threats: minors’
Perspectives on Disclosing, Reporting, and Blocking. Impact report by THORN, .
 ↗

After nearly two decades in decline, high depressive symptoms for 13-18 year old
teen girls rose by 65% between 2010-2017

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Twenge, J. M., Joiner, T. E., Rogers, M. L., & Martin,
G. N., 2018. Clinical Psychological Science ↗
66%

is the increase in the risk of suicide-related outcomes among teen girls who
spend more than 5 hours a day (vs. 1 hour a day) on social media.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Twenge, J. M., Joiner, T. E., Rogers, M. L., & Martin,
G. N., 2018. Clinical Psychological Science ↗

A systematic review and meta-analysis (of 20 studies) showed strong, consistent
evidence of an association between bedtime access to or use of electronic
devices and reduced sleep quantity and quality, as well as increased daytime
sleepiness

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Carter, B., Rees, P., & Hale, L., 2016. JAMA
Pediatrics ↗


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MAKING SENSE OF THE WORLD

Misinformation, conspiracy theories, and fake news


WHY IT MATTERS

A broken information ecology undermines our ability to understand and act on
complex global challenges from climate change to COVID-19.


MAKING SENSE OF THE WORLD


EVIDENCE

64%

of all extremist group joins are due to our recommendation tools...our
recommendation systems grow the problem”, noted an internal Facebook
presentation in 2016. Yet repeated attempts to counteract this have been
repeatedly ignored, diluted, or deliberately shut down by senior Facebook
officers, according to a 2020 Wall Street Journal investigation. In 2018,
Facebook managers told employees the company’s priorities were shifting “away
from societal good to individual value.”

Copy Link Journalism · Horowitz, J., & Seetheraman, D., 2020. Wall Street
Journal ↗
6X faster

Fake news spreads six times faster than true news. According to researchers,
this is because fake news grabs our attention more than authentic information:
fake news items usually have a higher emotional content and contain unexpected
information which inevitably means that they will be shared and reposted more
often.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Vosoughi, S., Roy, D., & Aral, S., 2018. Science ↗

Anger is the emotion that travels fastest and farthest on social media, compared
to all other emotions. As a result, those who post angry messages will
inevitably have the greatest influence, and social media platforms will tend to
be dominated by anger.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Fan, R., 2014. PLoS ONE ↗
45%

of tweets about coronavirus are from bots spreading fake information, according
to research from Carnegie Mellon University. An analysis of more than 200
million tweets created since January 2020 indicates more than 100 false
narratives, including conspiracy theories that hospitals are full of mannequins.
Researchers note that these posts appear to be aimed at sowing division within
America, commenting “We do know that it looks like a propaganda machine.”

Copy Link Journalism · Allyn, B., 2020. National Public Radio ↗

As the COVID-19 pandemic develops, there has been a significant increase in
posting fake news and false information even among human users, due to the
algorithms underlying social media platforms. Researchers note that people
naturally repost messages on the basis of their popularity, rather than their
accuracy. Fact-checking has been unable to keep pace. Such false information is
particularly dangerous because, as noted above, it tends to be retained for a
long time, irrespective of fact correction.

Copy Link Journalism · Schalit, N., 2020. The Conversation ↗
17%

Each word of moral outrage added to a tweet increases the rate of retweets by
17%. It takes very little effort to tip the emotional balance within social
media spaces, catalyzing and accelerating further polarization.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Brady, W. J., Wils, J. A., Just, J. T., Tucker, J. A.,
& van Bavel, J. J., 2017. PNAS ↗

Reading a fake news item even once increases the chances of a reader judging
that it is true when they next encounter it, even when the news item has been
labeled as suspect by fact-checkers or is counter to the reader’s own political
standpoint. The damage done by fake news items in the past continues to
reverberate today. Psychological mechanisms such as these, twinned with the
speed at which fake news travels, highlight our vulnerability demonstrating how
we can easily be manipulated by anyone planting fakes news or using bots to
spread their own viewpoints.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Pennycook, G., Cannon, T., & Rand, D. G., 2018.
Journal of Experimental Psychology ↗

The primary driving force behind whether someone will share a piece of
information is not its accuracy or even its content; the main reason we share a
post is because it comes from a friend or a celebrity with whom we want to be
associated. As humans, we’re often more concerned with status, popularity, and
establishing a trusted “friends” circle, than with maintaining the truth. As a
result, social media spaces will inevitably be spaces where the truth is easily
downgraded.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Del Vicario, M., Bessi, A., Zollo, F., Petroni, F.,
Scala, A., Caldarelli, G., . . . Quattrociocchi, W., 2016. PNAS ↗
2 minutes

of exposure to a conspiracy theory video reduces people’s pro-social attitudes
(such as their willingness to help others), as well as reducing their belief in
established scientific facts.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · van der Linden, S., 2015. Personality and Individual
Differences ↗

Analysis indicates that bots wield a disproportionate influence, dominating
social media platforms such as Twitter. An estimated 66% of tweeted links to
popular websites are tweeted by bots, with this number climbing to 89% for
popular news sites. In addition, bots overwhelmed human users: in this study,
500 bots were responsible for 22% of the tweets, compared to the top 500 human
users who only accounted for 6% of tweets. As a result, those who create bots
can manipulate and artificially tilt the balance of shared social spaces.

Copy Link Private Study · , 2018. Pew Research Center ↗

An Oxford research study of 22 million tweets showed that Twitter users had
shared more “misinformation, polarizing, and conspiratorial content” than had
shared actual news stories

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Howard, P., & al, e., 2017. Data Memo ↗

Twitter now plays a key role in how journalists find news. According to a recent
survey, many journalists see tweets as equally newsworthy compared to headlines
from the Associated Press. As a result, the neutrality of the press can be
easily undermined: on the one hand, professional journalists can be manipulated
by bots and bad faith actors and on the other hand, the chance of radical
content, conspiracies, and other types of disinformation occurring in
professional news articles are extremely high.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · McGregor and Molyneux, 2018. Journal of Journalism ↗

Using a wide range of tricky techniques, malicious actors of all types use
social media to rapidly advance their agenda. They have developed sophisticated
media manipulation strategies, including hijacking existing memes and seeding
false narratives widely. Manuals for journalists and other media professionals
to defend against these strategies naturally lag far behind, and are just
starting to be developed in civil society.

Copy Link Private Study · Phillips, 2018. Data and Society ↗

Analysis indicates that foreign governments place and promote misinformation
stories on multiple social media channels, creating the illusion of known truth
emerging from diverse "independent" sources.

Copy Link Conference Proceedings · Starbird, Arif, Wilson, Van Koevering,
Yefimova, and Scarnecchia, 2018. Association for the Advancement of Artificial
Intelligence Publications ↗

Fake news items contain more anger than posts of real news. According to
research conducted with more than 1,000 active users on China's Weibo platform,
angry posts generate more anxiety and this, in turn, motivates readers to share
them further. Analyzing over 30,000 posts on Weibo, the researchers found that
fake news posts contained 17% fewer "joy" words but 6% more "anger" words
compared to real news posts. They found similar trends in an analysis of 40,000
posts on Twitter.

Copy Link Journalism · Lu, D. , 2020. New Scientist ↗


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ATTENTION AND COGNITION

Loss of crucial abilities including memory and focus


WHY IT MATTERS

Technology's constant interruptions and precisely-targeted distractions are
taking a toll on our ability to think, to focus, to solve problems, and to be
present with each other.


ATTENTION AND COGNITION


EVIDENCE

The level of social media use on a given day is linked to a significant
correlated increase in memory failure the next day. Assessing nearly 800 people
aged 25-75, research showed similar effects irrespective of age and of the
user's memory levels on previous days. These effects occur in one direction
only: levels of social media use predict later memory failure, but levels of
memory failure do not predict social media use on subsequent days.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Sharifian, N., & Zahodne, L. B., 2019. Journal of
Gerontology: Series B ↗
Draining attention

The mere presence of your smartphone, even when it is turned off and face down,
drains your attention. An experimental study of several hundred adults showed
that both working memory and the ability to solve new problems were drastically
reduced when their phones were turned off but present on their desks, as opposed
to being in another room. Ironically, participants who said they were highly
dependent on their phones showed the greatest increase in memory and fluid
intelligence scores when their phones were moved to the other room. Researchers
noted that smartphones act as "high-priority stimuli," unconsciously draining
significant attentional resources even when we consciously ignore them.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Ward, A. F., Duke, K., Gneezy, A., & Bos, M. W., 2017.
Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 2(2) ↗
3

months after starting to use a smartphone, users experience a significant
decrease in their mental arithmetic scores (indicating a reduction in their
attentional capacity) and a significant increase in social conformity, as shown
by experiments with 25 year olds using randomized controlled trials. In
addition, brain scans show that heavy users have significantly reduced neural
activity in their right prefrontal cortex, a condition also seen in ADHD, and
linked with serious behavioral abnormalities such as impulsivity and poor
attention.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Hadar, A., Hadas, I., Lazarovits, A., Alyagon, U.,
Eliraz, D., & Zargen, A., 2017. PLoS One ↗
75%

of screen content is viewed for less than 1 minute, according to a study that
tracked computer multitasking across the course of 1 day. Results indicate that
most people switched between different content every 19 seconds. Biological
analysis demonstrated that participants experienced a neurological "high"
whenever they switched — explaining why we feel driven to keep switching and
underscoring how human biology makes us vulnerable to being manipulated by
attention-extractive economies.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Yeykelis, L., Cummings, J. J., & Reeves, B., 2014. J.
Communication, 4(64), 167-192 ↗
1 hour per day

is the amount of time most Americans spend dealing with distractions and then
getting focused and back on track each day, which comes to a grand total of 5
full weeks in a year.

Copy Link Book · Pang, A. S.-K., 2013. The Distraction Addiction ↗

Our memory systems automatically prioritize superficial social text over more
complex forms of text. For example, after reading news online, people are
significantly better at remembering other readers' comments rather than
sentences from the article itself or even its headline; this is in part due to
the social (“gossipy”) nature of posted comments. Similarly, users remember
Facebook posts significantly better than sentences from a book or even human
faces, on the same scale as the memory difference between amnesics and
non-amnesics.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Mickes, L., Darby, R. S., Hwe, V., Bajic, D., Warker,
J. A., Harris, C. R., & Christenfeld, N. J. S., 2013. Memory & Cognition ↗

A meta-analysis of several dozen research studies indicates that higher levels
of switching between different media channels is significantly linked to lower
levels of both working memory and long-term memory. Given the current Extractive
Attention Economy, and the increasing number of social media platforms and apps
competing to capture our attention, basic human capacities — such as our
memories — are increasingly under attack.

Copy Link Conference Proceedings · Uncapher and Wagner, 2018. Arthur M. Sackler
Colloquium of the National Academy of Sciences ↗


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PHYSICAL AND MENTAL HEALTH

Stress, loneliness, feelings of addiction, and increased risky health behavior


WHY IT MATTERS

As technology increasingly pervades our waking lives, research is showing a wide
range of effects on our happiness, our self image, and our mental health.


PHYSICAL AND MENTAL HEALTH


EVIDENCE

A long-term study of several hundred Dutch teenagers shows that problematic
social media use is significantly linked to the emergence of serious cognitive
effects a year later, including reduced attention, increased impulsivity, and
increased hyperactivity. Losing control over social media habits (such as lying
to parents to gain access to social media) was significantly more likely to lead
to new attentional problems a year later.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Boer, M., Stevens, G., Finkenauer, C., & Van Den
Eijinden, R., 2020. Child Development ↗
30%

of 18-44 year olds feel anxious if they haven’t checked Facebook in the last 2
hours, according to a recent survey of over 2,000 American adults that indicates
a high incidence of potential Facebook addiction warning signs. In fact, many
are so hooked that 31% report checking it while driving and 16% while making
love.

Copy Link Private Study · , 2020. Honest Data ↗
1 month

away from Facebook leads to a significant improvement in emotional well-being.
In an experimental study of over 1,600 American adults (who normally used
Facebook for up to an hour each day), deactivating Facebook accounts led to a
significant increase in emotional well-being (including a reduction in
loneliness and an increase in happiness), as well as a significant reduction in
political polarization.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Allcott, H., Braghier, L., Eichmeyer, S., & Gentzkow,
M., 2020. American Economic Review ↗

The greater your level of Facebook addiction, the lower your brain volume. MRI
brain scans of Facebook users demonstrated a significant reduction in gray
matter in the amygdala correlated with their level of addiction to Facebook.
This pruning away of brain matter is similar to the type of cell death seen in
cocaine addicts.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · He, Q, Turel, O., & Bechara, A., 2017. Nature: Science
Reports ↗

Young men exposed to social media show an increased tendency to physically
objectify themselves. A study of 300 men aged 17-25 indicated that their
frequency of visiting celebrity, fashion, or personal grooming sites correlated
significantly with an increase in social appearance anxiety and monitoring of
their own body shape. In turn, this was linked with an increased idealization of
lean, muscular body types but without any increase in activity to achieve these
new ideals, creating a sense of powerless dissatisfaction with their existing
bodies.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Seekis, V., Bradley, G. L., & Dufffy, A. L., 2021.
Psychology of Men and Masculinity ↗

The number of "Likes" on a celebrity Instagram account can significantly change
how you see yourself. An experimental study showed that when women were exposed
to different celebrity Instagram images, their ratings of their own facial
appearance dropped in direct proportion to the number of "likes" attached to
each image they saw. Given that there are 1 billion active Instagram users, and
some celebrities have more than 150 million followers, the scale of impact is
vast.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Tiggemann, M., Brown, Z., & Veldhuis, J., 2018. Body
Image ↗

Posting alcohol-related messages on Facebook can lead to an increase in
alcoholic behavior and alcoholic identity in real life. Research analysis of
several hundred college students revealed that the more they posted
alcohol-related messages, the more their real life social groups tended to shift
a few months later towards friends with higher alcohol use, which then in turn
linked to an increase in their own levels of drinking a few months after that.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · D’Angelo, J., & Moreno, M., 2019. Cyberpsychol. Behav.
Soc. Networks ↗

The more time you spend on Instagram, the more likely you are to suffer eating
disorders such as orthorexia nervosa, (a clinical condition where sufferers
obsess about ideal foods so much that they stop eating adequately, seriously
endangering their health). According to research, no other social media
platforms have this correlative effect. Scientists believe this is because
images of food have more impact — and are remembered longer— than text, and
because food images from "celebrity" Instagram users have a dramatically
disproportionate influence on their followers' reactions to food. According to
researchers, Instagram's algorithm recommendations allow orthorexia sufferers to
become trapped in an echo chamber of images that only show a distorted reality
of food images and how to react to food.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Turner, P. G., & Lefevre, C. E., 2017. Eat Weight
Disorders ↗

In just 3 years, there has been a quadrupling in the number of plastic surgeons
with patients undergoing cosmetic surgery for the sake of looking good on social
media (from 13% in 2016 to 55% in 2019). The greatest increase is in patients
under the age of 30, particularly teenagers. Doctors point to the role of social
media in creating an exaggerated idea of what is normal in beauty and as a
result, distorting viewers' sense of their own appearance. According to
clinicians, such Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) (aka “Snapchat Dysmorphia”) is
rapidly on the increase.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Rajanala, S., Maymore, M. B. C., & Vashi, N., 2018.
JAMA Network: Facial Plastic Surgery ↗


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SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS

Less empathy, more confusion and misinterpretation


WHY IT MATTERS

While social networks claim to connect us, all too often they distract us from
connecting with those directly in front of us, leaving many feeling both
connected and socially isolated.


SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS


EVIDENCE

A person’s social media usage level significantly predicts their level of
neuroticism/ anxiety one year later, as shown by a long-term study of 11,000
people aged 20-97. In addition, levels of neuroticism/anxiety predicted later
levels of social media use, leading researchers to suggest a possible negative
downward spiral linking these two processes.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Andrews, N. P., Yogeeswaran, K., Wang, M.-J., Nash,
K., Hawi, D. R., & Sibley, C. G., 2020. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, & Social
Networking ↗

The mere presence of a mobile phone can disrupt the connection between two
people, leading to reduced feelings of empathy, trust, and a sense of closeness.
In a series of studies, researchers found that when pairs of strangers were
asked to have meaningful conversations, their ability to connect emotionally was
significantly reduced if a mobile phone was visible.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Przybylski, A. K., & Weinstein, N., 2013. Journal of
Social and Personal Relationships ↗
2X

Children under age 14 spend nearly twice as long with tech devices (3 hours and
18 minutes per day) as they do in conversation with their families (1 hour and
43 minutes per day).

Copy Link Journalism · Donnelly, L., 2019. The Telegraph ↗

Parental use of mobile devices during playtime with their children can lead to
significant levels of child distress. A study of 50 infant-mother pairs
indicated that infants showed greater unhappiness, fewer positive emotions, and
were significantly less likely to play with toys when their mothers looked at
their devices for as little as 2 minutes.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Myruski, Sarah & Gulyayeva, Olga & Birk, Samantha &
Perez-Edgar, Koraly & Buss, Kristin & Dennis, Tracy, 2018. Developmental
Science ↗
50%

of Americans report that their partner is often or sometimes distracted by their
devices when they are trying to talk to them.

Copy Link Private Study · Vogels, E. A., & Anderson, M., 2020. Pew Research
Center ↗

The more that someone treats an AI (such as Siri) as if it has human qualities,
the more they later dehumanize actual humans, and treat them poorly.

Copy Link Conference Proceedings · Kim, Hye-Young, 2019. Journal of Consumer
Research ↗
50%

of parents reported that mobile devices typically interrupted the time they
spent with their children 3 or more times each day; only 11% reported that
mobile devices did NOT interrupt their time with their children.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · McDaniel, B., & Radesky, J., 2017. Child Development ↗

People who took photos to share on Facebook experienced less enjoyment and less
engagement with the scene compared to those who took photos purely for their own
pleasure. Closer analysis indicates that taking photos to share on social media
increases a user's focus on their own self-identity and self-presentation,
distracting them from connecting to the world around them.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Barasch, A., Zauberman, G., & Diehl, K., 2017. Journal
of Consumer Research ↗
89%

of cellphone users admit to using their phones during their last social
gathering (34% were checking for alerts). During social gatherings, 82% of
millenials judge that it’s ok to read texts & emails, while 75% think it’s ok to
send texts & emails.

Copy Link Private Study · Rainie, L., & Zucker, K., 2015. Pew Research Center ↗

When encountering someone with an opposing political viewpoint, people are more
likely to judge them as warm and intelligent if they hear that person’s ideas
spoken rather than written down. Unfortunately, many social media platforms are
currently designed to focus on text, reducing the chances of genuine discussion
and debate and increasing the possibility of polarization.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Schroeder, J., Karadas, M., & Epley, N., 2017.
Psychological Science ↗

We are so distracted by our phones that we often fail to see the most basic
things, sometimes at great cost to ourselves and others. Security camera footage
from San Francisco public transit reveals that a gunman was able to pull out his
gun and openly handle it at length without anyone noticing, before he eventually
shot a fellow passenger.

Copy Link Journalism · O’Connor, L., 2013. Huffington Post ↗


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POLITICS AND ELECTIONS

Propaganda, distorted dialogue & a disrupted democratic process


WHY IT MATTERS

Social media platforms are incentivized to amplify the most engaging content,
tilting public attention towards polarizing and often misleading content. By
selling micro targeting to the highest bidder, they enable manipulative
practices that undermine democracies around the world.


POLITICS AND ELECTIONS


EVIDENCE

Social media continues to profit by amplifying messages of extreme content,
which then attract more views and hike up advertising revenue. For example, one
week after the Capitol attacks, military gear ads continued to be attached to
content on the US elections and the attacks, despite Facebook staff and external
watchdogs flagging these instances.

Copy Link Journalism · Mac, R., & Silverman, C., 2021. Buzzfeed ↗

Social media’s perverse incentives for maximizing engagement may be driving
political polarization. Content about political opponents is more likely to go
viral on social media — in fact, each individual term referencing a political
out-group increased the odds of a social media post being shared by 67%.
Language about political opponents drives engagement 4.8 times more than
negative affect language and 6.7 more than moral-emotional language.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Rathje, Steve, Jay J. Van Bavel, and Sander van der
Linden, 2021. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ↗
5 million

pieces of disinformation were slipping through daily on Facebook and less than
5% of hate speech was being deleted, a few weeks ahead of the Capitol attacks,
according to staff leaving the company. Raising this and similar issues, at
least 4 members of Facebook's integrity team resigned between May and December
2020, stating “it’s an embarrassment to work here”.

Copy Link Journalism · Mac, R., & Silverman, C., 2020. Buzzfeed ↗

A Facebook whistleblower has revealed that Facebook cannot keep up with the
scale of misinformation and election manipulation that is flooding its platform
across the world. Sophie Zhang, former data scientist on Facebook’s integrity
team, noted that due to a lack of resources, senior leadership seemed unwilling
to protect democratic processes in smaller countries, focusing instead on spam
or potential public relations risks. Zhang pointed out that Facebook took 9
months to respond to fake accounts that boosted Honduran President Hernandez,
despite the fact that “President JOH’s marketing team had openly admitted to
organizing the activity on his behalf.”

Copy Link Journalism · Silverman, C., Mac, R., & Dixit, P., 2020. Buzzfeed ↗

Analyzing over 2 million recommendations and 72 million comments on YouTube in
2019, researchers demonstrated that viewers consistently moved from watching
moderate to extremist videos; simulation experiments run on YouTube revealed
that its recommendation system steers viewers towards politically extreme
content. The study notes "a comprehensive picture of user radicalization on
YouTube".

Copy Link Conference Proceedings · Ribeiro, M. H., Ottoni, R., West, R.,
Almeida, V. A. F., & Meira, W., 2020. Association for Computing Machinery ↗

Exposure to a fake political news story can rewire your memories: in a study,
where over 3,000 voters were shown fake stories, many voters later not only
“remembered” the fake stories as if they were real events but also "remembered"
additional, rich details of how and when the events took place.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Murphy, G., Loftus, E., Grady, R., Levine, L. J., &
Greene, C. M., 2019. Psychological Science ↗

The order in which search engines present results has a powerful impact on
users' political opinions. Experimental studies show that when undecided voters
search for information about political candidates, more than 20% will change
their opinion based on the ordering of their search results. Few people are
aware of bias in search engine results or how their own choice of political
candidate changed as a result.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Epstein, M. S., & Robertson, R. E., 2015. Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences ↗
1 in 4

Spaniards are estimated to have received disinformation and hate speech via
WhatsApp ahead of the 2019 national elections, with WhatsApp delivering more
disinformation and hate speech than Twitter, YouTube, & Instagram combined, and
almost as much as that spread by Facebook.

Copy Link Private Study · Legion, A., & Deruy, J., 2019. Avaaz ↗

Game theory analysis has shown how a few bots with extreme political views,
carefully placed within a network of real people, can have a disproportionate
effect within current social media systems. Studies demonstrate how an extremist
minority political group can have undue influence using such bots—for example,
reversing a 2:1 voter difference to win a majority of the votes.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Stewart, A. J., Mosleh, M., & Diakonova, M., 2019.
Nature ↗

Fake news stories posted before the 2016 US elections were still in the top 10
news stories circulating across Twitter almost 2 years later, indicating the
staying power of such stories and their long-term impact on ongoing political
dialogue.

Copy Link Private Study · Hindman, & Barash, 2018. Knight Foundation ↗

More fake political headlines were shared on Facebook than real ones during the
last 3 months of the 2016 US elections.

Copy Link Journalism · Silverman, C., 2016. Buzzfeed ↗

The most popular news story of the 2016 US elections was fake. In fact, three
times as many Americans read and shared it on their social media accounts as
they did the top-performing article from the New York Times. (The fake news
story alleged that the Pope endorsed Donald Trump for President).

Copy Link Journalism · Silverman, C., 2016. Buzzfeed ↗
150 million

Americans were reached by Russian propaganda posts on Facebook during the 2016
US elections, according to Facebook's estimates.

Copy Link Journalism · Ackerman, S., 2017. The Daily Beast ↗

The outcomes of elections around the world are being more easily manipulated via
social media: during the 2018 Mexican election, 25% of Facebook and Twitter
posts were created by bots and trolls; during Ecuador's 2017 elections,
president Lenin Moreno's advisors bought tens of thousands of fake followers;
China's state-run news agency (Xinhua) has paid for hundreds of thousands of
fake followers, tweeting propaganda to the Twitter accounts of Western users.

Copy Link Journalism · Confessore, N., Dance, G., Harris, R., & Hansen, M.,
2018. New York Times ↗

The 2017 genocide in Myanmar was exacerbated by unmoderated fake news, with only
4 Burmese speakers at Facebook to monitor its 7.3 million Burmese users.

Copy Link Journalism · Stecklow, S., 2018. Reuters ↗


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SYSTEMIC OPPRESSION

Amplification of racism, sexism, homophobia and ableism


WHY IT MATTERS

Technology integrates and often amplifies racism, sexism, ableism and
homophobia, creating an attention economy that works against marginalized
communities.


SYSTEMIC OPPRESSION


EVIDENCE

Facebook's internal training materials for its moderators state: "We allow
praise, support, and representation of white separatism as an ideology, e.g.
'The US should be a white-only nation'". At the same time, Facebook notes that
"Our Implementation Standards prohibit organizations and people dedicated to
promoting hatred and violence against people based on their protected
characteristics.”

Copy Link Journalism · Cox, J., 2018. Vice News Motherboard.  ↗

Sustained disinformation campaigns, made viral by social media, can dilute,
distract, and deny the reality of oppression. Within a week of George Floyd’s
killing by police, social media platforms hosted a range of counter-information:
one video asserting that the death was faked reached 1.3 million people, while
thousands of posts on both Facebook and Twitter claimed that the police officer
involved was an actor and that the event was faked by the state.

Copy Link Journalism · Alba, D., 2020. New York Times ↗
70%

of the most shared Facebook posts about Black Lives Matter in June 2020 were
critical of the movement, despite the fact that the majority of Americans
support BLM, according to research by data analysis company CrowdTangle. Such
fake representations of public opinion can play a significant role in distorting
the basis for democratic dialogue and diminishing the momentum for social
change. Even as societies take action to challenge racism and other forms of
systemic oppression, social media platforms are being hijacked to discourage or
even deny change.

Copy Link Journalism · Roose, K., 2020. New York Times ↗

Russia's propaganda program (IRA) primarily targeted African-Americans in the US
between 2015-2017: fake African-American campaigns on Facebook and Instagram,
such as "Black Matters US" and "Blacktivist", reached 15 million users and
successfully prompted over 1.5 million users to click through to fake websites
which purported to support African-American interests but promoted initiatives
such as "Not voting is a way to exercise our rights".

Copy Link Private Study · Howard, P. N., Ganesh, B., Liotsiou, D., Kelly, J., &
Francois, C, 2018. The Computational Propoganda Project ↗

Russia's IRA spread false information designed to create outrage about Black
Lives Matter and deepen social division in the US. Research indicates that one
of the IRA's major strategies was to use social media platforms to target
conservative groups who supported the police or veterans and specifically feed
them misinformation about BLM. The Oxford University report concludes that "the
affordances of social media platforms make them powerful infrastructures for
spreading computational propaganda".

Copy Link Private Study · Howard, P. N., Ganesh, B., Liotsiou, D., Kelly, J., &
Francois, C, 2018. The Computational Propoganda Project ↗

Even after the shooting of 2 law enforcement officers by a Boogaloo activist,
Facebook allows many Boogaloo groups to continue organizing. The tech giant
argues that its June 2020 ban identifies and removes violent Boogaloo groups
leaving non-violent groups intact; external researchers disagree, noting that at
least 20 violent Boogaloo groups have side-stepped Facebook's new restrictions
and continue to operate on the platform.

Copy Link Journalism · Beckett, L., 2020. The Guardian ↗

With over 800 million users, TikTok promotes itself as a place for
self-expression and unrestricted creativity, yet its internal documents reveal a
policy of downgrading content from users who do not fit normative ideals of
gender, race, class, sexuality, or able-bodiedness, with moderators urged to
censor users with "abnormal body shape", "too many wrinkles", or whose
environment shows signs of poverty such as "cracks in the wall" or "old
decorations".

Copy Link Journalism · Sam Biddle, Ribeiro, P. V., & Dias, T., 2020. The
Intercept ↗

The number of teens encountering racist hate speech online has practically
doubled in the last 2 years. 23% of 14-18 year olds "often" encounter racist
content in 2020 (compared to 12% in 2018), and almost 50% more teens report
encountering sexist or homophobic material online.

Copy Link Private Study · Rideoout, V. J., Fox, S., Peebles, A., & Robb, M. B.,
2021. Common Sense Media and Hopelab ↗

Google image search systematically distorts the way that genders are represented
in the workplace, leading to knock-on effects in our perception of real life,
according to research. Analysis of Google's top 100 images for each of 45
different jobs demonstrated that Google displayed significantly fewer images of
women compared to the actual percentage of women in each of these professions:
for example, while in real life, 27% of CEOs are women, only 11% of images
generated by a Google search depicted women. Further experiments showed that
exposure to such search results significantly distorted viewers' later estimates
of how many women worked in these fields.

Copy Link Conference Proceedings · Kay, M., Matuszek, C., & Munson, S., 2015.
Paper presented at the ACM: CHI conference on Human Factors in Computing
Systems ↗

Rigorous testing of industry AI algorithms, including Google search’s natural
language processing, discovered significant stereotypical bias by gender, race,
profession, and religion. For example, during "fill-in-the-blank" tests the AI's
regularly associated the word "African" with words such as "poor". Researchers
noted that GPT-2 showed less bias compared to the other A.I. language models,
suggesting that this may be due to GPT-2 was trained on the type of real world
datasets that are moderated to reduce bias (such as Reddit forums).

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Nadeem, M., Bethke, A., & Reddy, S., 2020. Computation
and Language ↗
Up to 10,000

Twitter users were actively involved in Gamergate at its peak, with the hashtag
#Gamergate being tweeted hundreds of thousands of times per month, mostly
supporting the campaign of abuse and violent threats against specific female
game designers and those who spoke up to support them. Gamergate played out
primarily on Twitter, whose platform design and administration, according to
researchers, make the platform particularly adaptable for online abuse— due to
the highly public nature of tweets, the potential for mass targeting of
individuals, and the fact that abusive responses can’t be removed.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Salter, M., 2017. Crime, Media, Culture: An
International Journal ↗

Until 2019, Facebook allowed advertisers to use discriminatory targeting in ads:
those advertising jobs, housing, and credit offers, could choose to exclude
people on the basis of gender, race, disability and other characteristics, in
direct contravention of federal laws such as the Fair Housing Act which bans
discrimination. While Facebook has agreed to block such targeting, experts note
that measures are not stringent enough and can be easily "gamed": for example,
advertisers can still exclude users on the basis of their location.

Copy Link Journalism · Jan, T., & Dwoskin, E., 2019. Washington Post ↗

The algorithmic basis of Google search makes it vulnerable to exploitation by
those with enough capital to deploy search engine optimization tactics, often in
ways that perpetuate existing forms of race and gender oppression. Researchers
note that the porn industry has publicly boasted of how easily it can subvert
Google safeguards to place porn in the first page of search results. In
addition, commercial incentives for promoting degraded stereotypes of women,
especially women of color, has knock-on effects for non-porn related Google
searches: an innocent Google search for "black girls" returned pornographic
results for many years, via both ads and non-ad search results.

Copy Link Book · Noble, S., 2018. Algorithms of Oppression ↗

For many years, 92% of the ads that appeared when searching for a
black-identified name on Google mentioned the word "arrest", according to
Harvard researchers, compared to only 80% of the ads prompted by searching for
white-identified names, a statistically significant difference (p < 0.01). Even
where a white-identified name (e.g. "Karen Lindquist") belonged to a person with
an arrest record, a Google name search still only generated neutral ads that did
not mention arrest. In contrast, black-identified names attracted "arrest ads",
even when no-one with this name had an arrest record.

Copy Link Peer-Reviewed · Sweeny, L., 2013. Cambridge White Paper ↗


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DO UNTO OTHERS

Many people who work for tech companies — and even the CEOs — limit tech usage
in their own homes


WHY IT MATTERS

Many tech leaders don’t allow their own children to use the products they build
— which implies they’re keenly aware that the products from which they make so
much money from pose risks, especially for young users.


DO UNTO OTHERS


EVIDENCE

Chamath Palihapitiya, former VP of user growth at Facebook, has said that: “I
can control my decision, which is that I don’t use that sh%t. I can control my
kids’ decisions, which is that they’re not allowed to use that sh%t... The
short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying
how society works.”

Copy Link Journalism · Hern, 2018. The Guardian ↗

Steve Jobs, who was CEO of Apple for many years, told reporters that his kids
don’t use iPads and that “We limit how much technology our kids use at home.”

Copy Link Journalism · Bilton, 2014. The New York Times ↗

Sean Parker, who was the founding president of Facebook, has publicly called
himself "something of a conscientious objector" on social media and said, “God
only knows what it's doing to our children's brains.”

Copy Link Journalism · Allen, 2017. Axios ↗

Many modern Silicon Valley parents strongly restrict technology use at home, and
some of the area’s top schools minimize tech in the classroom. In the words of
one 44-year-old parent who used to work at Google, "We know at some point they
will need to get their own phones, but we are prolonging it as long as
possible."

Copy Link Journalism · Weller, 2018. Business Insider ↗

“We’ve unleashed a beast, but there’s a lot of unintended consequences,” says
Tony Fadell, inventor of the iPod and co-inventor of the iPhone. “I don’t think
we have the tools we need to understand what we do every day… we have zero data
about our habits on our devices.”

Copy Link Industry Source · Cooper, 2018. Wisdom 2.0 ↗


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