This article discusses the potential effects of social media use on the social and emotional skills of young users in India. It covers what makes social media so powerful and how our brains are wired to be social. It emphasizes the importance of equipping today’s children and youth with the right tools, knowledge and mindset before engaging with technology.
Most of us are obsessed with our powerful and endlessly entertaining mobile phone screens. In this article, we will explore why social media is so appealing to our social brains, why younger people – children and adolescents – tend to be more affected by problematic internet use, and why it’s important to address the underlying human issues that any technology and only amplifies, not solves. Finally, we’ll discover the possibilities which social media offers, that is, if it’s used with the right guidance and mentorship.
Learning can be challenging, especially in India where school students are expected to learn about a wide range of subjects before graduating high school. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 lockdowns led to an increase in problematic internet usage among youths worldwide, including in India where school closures were for one of the longest durations in the world. During lockdown, students were both forced and expected to rely on smart devices not only for learning virtually but also for their entertainment and social connections. This naturally normalized their longer engagements with these devices and led to increased usage.
Children and adolescents in India be long to the first-ever generations that have practically grown up with social media and are statistically among its most frequent users. Even toddlers as young as 3-4 years old, if left with an internet-enabled mobile device, can mindlessly scroll on Youtube Shorts or Instagram Reels for hours. However, early childhood development experts confirm that this problematic use of the internet can be extremely detrimental to their emotional, psychological and physical well-being and development. Social media, like any other technology, can only amplify the already existing human forces – the heart, the mind, and the will. The relationship between social media and the mental well-being of young users is a well-established research area, however with relatively fewer studies conducted in India.
While not necessarily a source of problems always, several studies have reported associations between problematic smart phone use and social interaction anxiety. Research suggests that dependency upon smartphones, mediated by an unhealthy connection to their constant use, can negatively impact the psychosocial health of adolescents, such as increasing feelings of anxiety and depression, worsening sleep quality, and leading to conditions like ADHD. Research studies have also found that social media has a strong mediating effect on materialism. Our emotional senses are constantly being exploited by this, essentially and eventually degrading our baseline dopamine levels which can make us feel bored and unreasonably sad all the time. What yound children learn by seeing and experiencing during the forseeing and experiencing during the formative years is expected to lay the formative years is expected to lay the foundation for their future selves, after all.
Social Media For the Social Brain-
To understand what makes social media so addictive and powerful, one only needs to understand how our brains work. World-renowned neuroscientist matthew D. Lieberman’s book social: Why our brains Are Wired to Connect is one of the simplest and most engaging books ever written to address that. All human brains are unique and wonders in their right. However, there are underlying phenomena and tendencies that serve as their driving forces.
‘Likes’ to the Rescue of social Exclusion and social Pain-
Social exclusion has played an important role in our evolutionary past. Social pain, which is the pain of social exclusion, motivated us to reconnect with other. One can imagine that we all love receiving praise or positive feedback from people we know. But is it the same when it comes to receiving feedback from complete strangers? A study conducted in 2008 concluded that building a good reputation, which is an important incentive in human social behavior, activated the same reward circuitry as monetary rewards. Most humans crave positive feedback from strangers a lot more than they would assume. This is like a social reward.
Guess the explains why we care so much about how many likes and comments we receive on what we share on social media. Those ‘likes’ are extremely strong reinforcers and motivators, after all. It is worth nothing here that social media, if not consumed with the right intention or even slightly unconsciously, can seriously degrade one’s quality of life and well-being irrespective of any age-groups.
Moving forward and further simplifying notion of the social brain, essentially it is one’s natural desire to be social. i.e. our human need to belong, which is our most basic social motivation in life. This is what has led to social media become the king of powerful that it is today.
For instance, when adolescents are bullied or passed comments on, which is as common as it gets. It can be perceived as a big rejection by their peers, the people they are constantly influenced by. This is an example of extreme social pain. A famous American social psychologist, Roy Baumeister, known for his contribution in the studies of social rejection, belongingness, etc., explains how these social pains considerably degrade one’s intellectual and academic performances.
Engineered to be addictive-
It may not be breaking news to many how social media platforms hire engineers and designers exclusively to come up with newer ways to make these more addictive in nature, meaning intentionally designing the UI (USER INTERFACE) to hook users into constant use. This uninterrupted use of social media, with the quality of the quantity of its contents, has the power to wear down the innate resilience to emotional dysregulation is the brains, especially those that are still developing.
For instance, user’s mobile phone notification or emails only tells them that they’ve received a comment on a post but doesn’t tell what the comment is. All the make the user open the app and then stay engaged. Unfortunately, it’s uneasy for young users to calculate any of this.
China’s cyberspace watchdog has recently introduced a draft of the “Guidelines for the Construction of Minor mode of the Mobile Internet” These guidelines suggest restricting mobile phone usage for five age groups, ranging from under 3-18 years old, to a certain amount of time each day. However, it is unclear how these guidelines will be implemented and whether or not they will achieve their objectives.
How To Do What Needs To Be Done-
Consuming social media consciously Kentaro Toyama’s Technology Law of Amplification states that “Technology doesn’t amplify human forces that aren’t there” Therefor, expecting technology to fix everything without addressing the underlying human forces of the “ heart, mind, will” is likely to make things even more complicated than they were to begin with.
Social media was created merely to facilitate social connectedness. Which it does. But today even our marketplaces have moved there. There is a lot of good that it offers, including the role it plays in development of creativity, enhancing social support and a sense of community for the youth, if used intentionally, as proven in numerous studies. Additionally, many students happen to use social media platforms to facilitate open learning, allowing them easy communication, interaction, and collaboration among their peers.
In India, almost no adolescents are equipped to navigate social media with the right approach today. With the largest youth population, it only makes sense for India to invest in its youth, in their safety, education and development of their social and emotional skills. And to ensure that every child has access to their fundamental rights including survival, development, protection, and participation rights. It will only add to India’s growth socially, politically, as well as economically.
Concludingly, social media massively affects its young users’ social and emotional skills. What decides whether this impact is going to be more positive or more negative is what exists already. Children and youth who are still in their developmental years tend to be considerably more vulnerable and should be guided and mentored by the elders around to make social media consuming their children. For older and senior users, the idea of becoming even more thoughtful consumers and creators of social media seems like a great as well as timely one.
