Social media has the power to make connections, build businesses, facilitate learning, and be an outlet for self-expression and discovery. However, its design more often than not does not allow it to play this role in consumers’ lives.

My research reveals differences in why and how professional versus personal users use Instagram. We can learn from these differences to positively impact those using the platform.

Resources to Increase Positive and Decrease Negative Influences of Social Media

Consumers who understand that social media is fundamentally a marketing channel are more likely to view what they see on social media with a critical eye. Marketers, for example, who, from the other side of the screen, meticulously craft their messages to be pumped out into the world, know that the content they see on social media is mediated through another brand’s lens, another organization’s values, another company’s best interests. When consumers do not actively pay attention to where information comes from, the intent behind it, and the incentives driving it, they can find themselves thinking and acting in ways that are not their own. Awareness is a powerful tool against the potential harms of social media. However, awareness is not always enough.

Awareness is a powerful tool against the potential harms of social media. However, awareness is not always enough.

In the final question of my survey, participants described the most positive and negative influences social media has had on their lives. Those working in Marketing & Advertising experienced the same negative influences as individuals in other industries, including wasted time, peer envy, and low self-esteem. Some of these marketing professionals even used language that specifically identified social media design tactics which work to increase their time spent on the platform, stating that they “crave instant gratification of likes,” and as a result find themselves “passively scrolling” or ‘comparing themselves against other influencers.’ Despite an acute awareness of these tactics, they too fall prey to the mechanisms at play which battle for, and successfully direct, their attention in certain ways.

A resource designed for consumers that aims to develop an awareness of these influences and encourages intentional activity may lead to more time well spent on social media.

A resource designed for consumers that aims to develop an awareness of these influences and encourages intentional activity may lead to more time well spent on social media. This resource might include a lesson on how the algorithmic system works, revealing aspects of social media that consumers cannot control, as well as a manual for the levers consumers can control, such as the accounts they follow, which can shape their experience for better.

Participants who used social media for professional purposes, or otherwise focused activities that enable growth whether that was in terms of their career, passions, or skills, seemed to engage most actively on the platform and had more positive associations with social media as a result. However, this also had tradeoffs.

A participant in the Marketing & Advertising industry explained, social media “made me think about my art as a product and as a way to get more followers or attention, rather than as a tool to explore my creativity.” An educational resource may also consider breaking down social media metrics, to show how a measurement system built on followers and likes can prioritize quantity over quality, and reinforce shallowness as a value while reducing more fundamental human values such as creativity and honesty.

An educational resource may also consider breaking down social media metrics, to show how a measurement system built on followers and likes can prioritize quantity over quality, and reinforce shallowness as a value while reducing more fundamental human values such as creativity and honesty.

Research to further explore this topic may use a focus group to design new key metrics rooted in the nature of engagements rather than the number of engagements.

My research suggests that to what end we use social media is the significant factor determining passive versus active use of the platforms, and as a result the effect usage has on well-being.

• Professional users have the benefit of being more intentional about their social media use, similar to those who explicitly stated primary reasons for using social media that supported personal goals or passions outside of their social lives.

• Marketing & Advertising industry professionals have the benefit of understanding the influences of social media, and therefore better chances of extricating themselves, for example, from the infinite scroll or other people’s ‘highlight reels’.

Key financial metrics incentivize social media companies like Facebook and Instagram to maximize the amount of time people spend using their products. There are no metrics to ensure time is well spent. However, there are levers consumers can pull to create conditions on social media that enable them to make better decisions about how they spend their time.

Testing the Effectiveness of Digital Well-Being Tools

Productivity, an output of internal focus and mindfulness, is part of living a healthy and balanced life. It is a method for pushing toward and achieving our objectives, whether individual or collective. It is part of our brain chemistry to feel happier when our minds are focused (Harvard Business Review Press, 2017). It is proven that even the smallest distraction—checking email, sending a text, scrolling through Instagram—exacerbates the difficulty we already have to focus our attention. Even the most aware and disciplined among us struggle to contend with the psychological temptations of our technology products, social media most of all. At the same time, the greatest leaders have cited proper time management and focus to be critical aspects of seeing through what they set out to do in life. If our leading technology products, increasingly catered to the younger generation, are built with the intention of draining attention, we risk our future by fostering leaders who lack the mental capacity, creative ingenuity and emotional resilience to address the global challenges we now face.

If our leading technology products, increasingly catered to the younger generation, are built with the intention of draining attention, we risk our future by fostering leaders who lack the mental capacity, creative ingenuity and emotional resilience to address the global challenges we now face.

“The basic of the most essential of leadership skills,” behavioral science journalist Daniel Goleman writes in a Harvard Business Review article titled “The Focused Leader”, is the ability to direct one’s attention on what’s important. In this article, Goleman describes two modes of attention that have to do with governing oneself, both of which are under attack in an attention economy. Self-awareness is the ability to focus on oneself and decide what matters most to you, while self-control is the ability to put one’s attention where one wants it and keep it there in the face of temptation to wander. In Adam Alter’s book, “The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked,” Alter asserts, “the problem isn’t that people lack willpower; it’s that “there are a thousand people on the other side of the screen whose job it is to break down the self-regulation you have.”

Alter asserts, “the problem isn’t that people lack willpower; it’s that “there are a thousand people on the other side of the screen whose job it is to break down the self-regulation you have.”

Digital well-being tools have emerged in response to bad habits forming around social media and technology use.

Digital well-being tools have emerged in response to bad habits forming around social media and technology use. Applications like Apple’s Screen Time are intended to help people monitor the time they’re spending with screens and create healthier behaviors around their technology use. Of those participants in my research who did indicate use of their smartphone’s digital well-being tool to set time limits on certain apps, Instagram was the most limited social networking app. Over half of the participants said that more time spent on screens was among the most negative influences social media has had on their lives. These participants all seemed to suggest that there’s an addictive quality to Instagram that drives usage and consumes their time at the expense of more meaningful interactions or beneficial activities.

Over half of the participants said that more time spent on screens was among the most negative influences social media has had on their lives. These participants all seemed to suggest that there’s an addictive quality to Instagram that drives usage and consumes their time at the expense of more meaningful interactions or beneficial activities.

My research showed a positive correlation between the total time someone spent “Social Networking” in a given week, and the total time spent on Instagram. A larger sample size is needed to see if this correlation can be extended to the amount of time an individual spends on their smartphone overall. If more time social networking correlates with more time spent online overall, and social media apps like Instagram are the driving force behind increased screen time, then tools like Apple’s Screen Time and Android’s Digital Well-Being may be a valuable focus of an experimental study that examines their effectiveness. Tools like these are still relatively new—the majority of participants who participated in my research were not using them, and many may have not been aware of them. Additionally, whether they can ultimately affect lasting behavioral change is worth investigating.

A May 2019 study that used a variety of research methods to understand how interruptions affect productivity emphasized a time-based measure called resumption lag in its findings. Resumption lag measures the time it takes a person to re-engage following an interruption (Duncan, Janssen, Mark, 2019). Tools like Apple’s Screen Time and Android’s Digital Well-Being account for the time that’s eaten up by smartphones, but there’s additional time lost that these tools do not account for.

Instead of attempting to change digital behaviors through a separate tool like Apple’s Screen Time, which allows individuals to put blocks on their usage, social media companies like Instagram can instead design well-being features within its app that encourage users to be more conscious of how they’re spending their time while using the app.

Instead of attempting to change digital behaviors through a separate tool like Apple’s Screen Time, which allows individuals to put blocks on their usage, social media companies like Instagram can instead design well-being features within its app that encourage users to be more conscious of how they’re spending their time while using the app. The “Away Message” from AOL Instant Messenger is a feature that either fell out of favor or disappeared entirely with modern social tools. This is an example of a design tactic that allowed one’s attention to be directed elsewhere while remaining connected online.

To this point, digital well-being tools as they exist now may act more like a painkiller, covering up and addressing the problem in retrospect rather than getting to the root of the problem. A real solution will require systemic change.

A real solution will require systemic change.