Chapters

1. Introduction

2. The Research on Social Media and Well-Being

3. Follow the Money ⁠— The Business of Social Media

4. The Value of Social Media Marketing

5. How Financial Incentives Shape the Social Media Experience

6. Hidden Costs for Consumers

7. Differences in Activity Between Marketers and Consumers

8. A Shift in the National Dialogue Around Technology

Chapter 1

Over the past two decades, many studies have been done to understand the positive and negative influences of social media use on well-being. While many of these studies have shown positive associations between social media use and well-being, many more suggest social media use impacts well-being negatively. Positive influences on well-being range from improved social capital and social support, to higher levels of creativity. Negative influences include depression, anxiety, and loneliness. Since the earliest cross-sectional studies predicting declines in well-being due to social media use, the findings have not been disproved but instead strengthened through research methods that establish a more casual relationship between the two. In all of these studies, however, a key stakeholder of social media companies is left unexamined. The role of advertising has been excluded from the conversation surrounding social media and mental health. As a social media marketer, I intend to introduce the marketer’s perspective to the current body of research in an effort to broaden the scope of the conversation and ground the variables which have been shown to impact well-being negatively in the business model of social media.

As a social media marketer, I intend to introduce the marketer’s perspective to the current body of research in an effort to broaden the scope of the conversation and ground the variables which have been shown to impact well-being negatively in the business model of social media.

In my review of the literature, I will briefly cover the timeline of research outcomes related to social media use and well-being over the past two decades. I will then focus on more recent studies that suggest the relationship between social media use and well-being is more nuanced, specifically showing how different ways of using social media produces different outcomes for well-being. I will pull in consumer research reports, comprehensive company reports, and current events to illustrate the role advertising plays in influencing the ways in which people use social media platforms. I focus specifically on Facebook and Instagram, both owned by Facebook, Inc., as the most widely used social networking sites which account for the largest share of social media advertising revenue in the United States, to reveal how the company’s business model manifests negative externalities for users that compromise their well-being (Statista, 2019 & 2020).

My own research, a survey design, will go on to examine differences in activity and impacts on well-being for social media users who predominantly use Instagram. I’ll examine how users with Personal Profiles are more vulnerable to potential harms than users with Professional Accounts, or users who are marketers professionally and therefore possess an understanding of social media as fundamentally a marketing channel.

Chapter 2

The percentage of internet users who say they are constantly connected online rose from 56% in 2015 to 63% in 2019 (GlobalWebIndex, 2020). In 2019, a major industry trend was the emergence of digital well-being tools, such as Apple’s Screen Time, that allow people to monitor their screen time and set time limits for certain apps. In the short time since these tools have been available, almost 1 and 4 of all internet users globally have tracked their screen time or set app limits, according to GlobalWebIndex’s 2020 flagship report on the latest trends in social media. This suggests that many people are more aware of the time they spend looking at their screens, and of the perceived negative effects with social media usage. Over the past two decades, research studies have been done to understand these effects. 

The largest social networks in the United States are Facebook and Instagram, with 169.76 million and 121.23 million users, respectively (Statista, 2019). Due to its enormous scale and frequency of use, Facebook is the focus of most studies concerning social media usage and well-being. I will make Instagram, owned and operated by Facebook, Inc., the focus of my research as it is more popular among the younger demographics I hope to inform (Chen, 2020).

Some of the earlier studies in the first half of the decade show Facebook usage to be associated with lower self-esteem (Kalpidou, Costin, & Morris, 2011) and greater feelings of loneliness (Song et al., 2014). Instagram was more likely found to be associated with body image issues (Tiggemann & Slater, 2013). Many of these studies used small and non-representative samples, or relied on self-reported usage data. However, additional studies throughout the decade using longitudinal and experimental research designs strengthened these earlier findings.

At the same time, other studies reported positive influences of social media use on well-being. The most evident among positive influences were increased social support, in the form of both bonding and bridging social capital. Bonding social capital refers to the emotional support and companionship received from strong ties like close friends and family online, while bridging social capital refers to the benefits provided by maintaining a large network of loose ties, such as having access to new information, being exposed to diverse perspectives, and feeling part of a broader community (Putnam, 2000). 

Since 2013, the number of social media accounts held by the average internet user globally rose from 4 to 9. Facebook’s user base alone accounts for about 52% of the global online population. The ubiquity of social media use around the world suggests these platforms serve a profound desire to be connected. The numbers also suggest these platforms are not only online destinations but places where individuals carry out significant portions of their lives. Of the average 6 hours and 35 minutes US adults spend on digital platforms per day, about 2 hours is spent on social networking sites (eMarketer, 2019). It should be no surprise then that some types of social media use remain positively associated with well-being over time (Crolic et al., 2019). For example, a recent 2019 study found that active use of social media is related to higher levels of creativity (Acar, Neumayer, & Burnett, 2019). What is most interesting here is the specificity of “active use of social media.” One significant change in the research around social media use throughout the decade was a shift from studying the impacts of social media use overall, to focusing on specific ways individuals use social media and how these differences affect well-being.

One significant change in the research around social media use throughout the decade was a shift from studying the impacts of social media use overall, to focusing on specific ways individuals use social media and how these differences affect well-being.

Starting in 2009, and reinforced in multiple studies throughout the early 2010s, research found that passive use of social media was associated with decreases in subjective well-being (Constine, 2012; Pempek, Yermolayeva, & Calvert, 2009; Verduyn et al., 2015). Alternatively, in a 2014 longitudinal study, active Facebook use was found to positively influence life satisfaction. The opposite was observed for passive use in this study as well (Wenninger, Krasnova, & Buxmann, 2014). The same was found in an experience sampling study done the following year, where participants felt 5% worse when they engaged passively on Facebook “a lot” during the time period separating two assessments, compared to when they did not use Facebook passively at all (Verduyn et al., 2015). This study, however, was not moderated by additional factors that could influence well-being, such as a participants’ number of Facebook friends, their perceptions of support from their Facebook friends, depressive symptoms, loneliness, gender, self-esteem, or motivations for using Facebook. 

Additional studies in 2014 and 2015 showed that social comparison (Steers, Wickham, & Acitelli, 2014) and peer envy (Tandoc et al., 2015; Verduyn et al., 2015) play a major role in the relationship between social media use and depression. More recent experiments manipulating Facebook use in daily life have been able to establish a more casual relationship between social media use and impoverished well-being, including higher levels of anxiety and depression. In a 2018 experiment, researchers limited use of Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat to 10 minutes per platform, per day, for one group, and instructed the other group to use social media as usual. At the end of the 3-week experiment, the limited group showed significant decreases in loneliness and depression compared to the control group. Both groups, however, showed significant decreases in anxiety and FOMO, suggesting the control group benefited from increased self-monitoring, meaning that, as a result of participating, this group may have paid more attention than they normally would to the way they use social media and the influence social media has on them throughout the experiment (Hunt et al., 2018).

These findings suggest that the amount of time individuals spend using social media and the way they engage on social media matters. By and large, the research concludes that passive use of social media negatively impacts well-being. Passive use is found to provoke social comparisons and envy, which have negative consequences for well-being. In contrast, when active use of social media predicts positive influences on well-being, it seems to do so by creating social capital and connectedness (Kim & Lee, 2011), and reducing feelings of loneliness (Matook, Cummings, & Bala, 2015; Ryan & Xenos, 2011). Other mechanisms that may underlie negative associations between passive usage and poor well-being are perceptions of having wasted time (Sagioglou & Greitemeyer, 2014), anxiety (Shaw, 2015), and information overload (Koroleva, Krasnova, & Günther, 2010). The problem is that social media is found to be used passively most of the time (Constine, 2012; Pempek, Yermolayeva, & Calvert, 2009; Verduyn et al., 2015).

By and large, the research concludes that passive use of social media negatively impacts well-being. … The problem is that social media is found to be used passively most of the time.

Although Facebook articulates a narrative around time well spent, building a business on advertising revenue forces them to measure success by the time users spend on the platform. Profitability depends on consuming as much of people’s attention as possible, so that it can sell that attention to marketers. Well-being has a lot to do with how people spend their time. Psychologist Laura Carstensen emphasizes this in her research demonstrating how people become happier as they get older, largely due to the fact that they have less time, so they prioritize spending that time doing things they love and spending it with people they love (Carstensen, 2011). Using social media passively creates a one-sided experience for the individual, where they are consuming information without engaging with others or sharing information themselves, therefore undermining the potentially positive influences that social media provides of increasing social capital and connectedness.

Using social media passively creates a one-sided experience for the individual, where they are consuming information without engaging with others or sharing information themselves, therefore undermining the potentially positive influences that social media provides…

It follows that people who use social media passively report higher levels of peer envy and lower levels of well-being. It is less clear, however, why passive use is found to be more common than active use of social media. An examination of Facebook Inc.’s latest annual report helps clarify the company's business priorities and understand the implications of choices that satisfy marketers to the detriment of consumers.

Chapter 3

Companies like Facebook and Instagram are under pressure to compete for people’s attention, so that they can sell that attention to marketers and remain competitive in today’s economy, where many large-scale technology companies are built on similar models. At the same time, the company’s mission is to ensure that consumers spend their time doing things that matter to them on the platform, like connecting with friends and family. The tension between these two objectives is felt in the company’s history of public announcements over the past decade addressing both marketers’ and consumers’ concerns. 

Facebook’s News Feed became a competitive place between 2007 and 2014, after Facebook launched the Pages feature that allowed businesses to create profiles on the platform. Once reserved for updates from friends and family, by 2011 more than 3 million businesses had Pages deploying branded content in the News Feed that allowed for constant engagement with consumers. Marketers remember this time as the heyday of ‘organic reach,’ when brands could reach consumers directly on social media without the help of paid distribution (Say, 2015). Consumers, on the other hand, were aggravated with the clutter that drowned out updates from friends and family. This prompted some initial changes to the sorting order that Facebook uses to rank the content people see in their News Feed. A 2014 public announcement explained, “Of the 1,500+ stories a person might see whenever they log onto Facebook, News Feed displays approximately 300. To choose which stories to show, News Feed ranks each possible story (from more to less important) by looking at thousands of factors relative to each person” (Boland, 2014). Many more changes to the algorithm that chooses which stories to show would occur throughout the rest of the decade, slightly altering the experience consumers have on the platform each time. 

With the 2014 announcement, Facebook limited organic reach for Pages to make more space for friends and family. Moving forward, brands would only reach a small percentage of their Page followers with every post. To remain visible in the News Feed among consumers, brands resorted to paid advertising. By 2016, organic reach fell another 52% for Pages and the strategy for brands officially became ‘pay-to-play’ (Peterson, 2016). Facebook echoed another change to the News Feed in an announcement that promised to prioritize posts from people over pages. Between 2015 and 2017, Facebook’s ad revenue grew much faster than its user base. The MAUs (monthly active users) in North America grew 10.8% alongside a 11.59% growth in DAUs (daily active users), while revenue from advertising grew 143.7% (Facebook, 2019). A look at the Revenue, Sales and Operations in addition to the Risks sections of the company’s annual report reveals the critical role marketers play in their financial success.

As of 2019, Facebook captures over 80% of all global social media revenue and controls 58% of the US social media market (Statista, 2020). This figure is likely influenced by the global sales force Facebook employs, in more than 60 offices around the world, to support individual marketers, agencies, and resellers. As noted in the Sales and Operations section of the company’s most recent 10-K, their global sales force is focused on attracting and retaining advertisers and providing support to them throughout the stages of the marketing cycle, from pre-purchase decision-making to real-time optimizations to post-campaign analytics.

The Risks Related to Our Business and Industry section of the Facebook, Inc.’s 10-K justifies the company’s resources being allocated in this way: “Marketers will not continue to do business with us, or they will reduce the budgets they are willing to commit to us, if we do not deliver ads in an effective manner, or if they do not believe that their investment in advertising with us will generate a competitive return relative to other alternatives.” Facebook confirms the loss of marketers, or reduction in spending on their platform, is among the biggest risks the company faces. Therefore, Facebook invests much of its resources in its sales operations and advertising technology solutions, including the ad machine itself and the engineers who work on it.

  In 2019, about 98.5% of Facebook's global revenue was generated from advertising (Statista, 2020). Facebook Inc. confirms that substantially all of the company’s revenue is generated from selling advertising placements to marketers. Although the company states their top priority “is to build useful and engaging products that enable people to connect and share with friends and family,” this cannot come at the expense of their marketers (Facebook, 2019). The push and pull of public announcements addressing both parties’ concerns over the past decade reveals the tension caused by building for consumers while sustaining the business on marketers’ dollars. This tension is also revealed in the differences between the data that says social media is effective for marketers, and the research that says social media is harmful to consumers.

The push and pull of public announcements … over the past decade reveals the tension caused by building for consumers while sustaining the business on marketers’ dollars. This tension is also revealed in the differences between the data that says social media is effective for marketers, and the research that says social media is harmful to consumers.

Chapter 4

Facebook and Instagram are marketplaces where marketers can bid against one another for impressions in an auction system like that pioneered by Google (Foroohar, 2019). ‘Impressions’ is a metric used by media companies and marketers to report advertising success. It refers to the amount of times an ad is displayed. People need to be on the platforms for marketers to sell advertising and generate impressions. For this reason, daily active users (DAUs) as well as monthly active users (MAUs) are key metrics Facebook reports to its stakeholders, which represents the volume of opportunity marketers have to make impressions on consumers through advertising.

With this in mind, another business risk listed in Facebook Inc.’s annual 10-K report is more clear: “decreases in user engagement, including time spent on our products.” A logical conclusion that can be drawn from this is that increasing the amount of time people spend on the platforms is among the company’s biggest priorities. The need to increase time spent is tied to financial incentives to “maintain or increase the quantity or quality of ads shown to users.”

The need to increase time spent is tied to financial incentives to “maintain or increase the quantity or quality of ads shown to users.”

Facebook’s investment in its advertising solutions has proven successful for the company, and for marketers. Between 2018 and 2019, digital advertising spending surpassed traditional advertising (e.g. TV, radio, newspapers) for the first time ever in the United States. By 2021, it’s projected to exceed traditional media by nearly $70 billion (eMarketer, 2019). Facebook Inc. is the biggest ad seller of all the social networks, and the second largest digital ad platform overall after Google, with $67 billion net ad revenue combined with Instagram.

However, more marketers and larger marketing budgets on the platforms demand more users and more opportunities to make impressions on them. To this end, particular design elements of the Facebook and Instagram user interfaces work to increase the amount of time users spend on the platforms. These design elements may also explain why users spend more time using social media passively than actively. This has ramifications even for marketers, on the effectiveness of advertising (Hutchinson, 2019).

To this end, particular design elements of the Facebook and Instagram user interfaces work to increase the amount of time users spend on the platforms. These design elements may also explain why users spend more time using social media passively than actively.

Chapter 5

The average person scrolls through 300 feet of content every day on their smartphone (Keller, 2017). That’s about the size of the Statue of Liberty. This is a statistic that Facebook stresses to their marketers, because unlike the climb to the crown of Lady Liberty, the movement along social media content feeds happens very fast. For brands to stand out on the platform, they need to develop what Facebook calls “thumb-stopping” ads: ads that cause people to halt the scrolling motion of their thumbs through their feeds, effectively capturing their attention for the moment (Schulte, 2015).

Aza Raskin, interface designer and son of Jef Raskin who initiated the Macintosh project at Apple, designed the “infinite scroll” that is now a central feature of many tech apps, including Facebook and Instagram (Raskin, 2006). The year Facebook launched “News Feed'' implementing this design feature was a defining year for the company. News Feed reorganized all of Facebook around a centralized stream of content, which pulled in and infinitely refreshed the latest updates within a consumer’s network. News Feed and its “infinite scroll” removed the barrier of previously having to jump from one profile to the next to see what people were up to. It might be hard to believe now that people were initially outraged by the update. A Facebook Group named “Students Against Facebook News Feed” formed and gained over 60,000 members within one day of its launch (Statz, 2017). With News Feed, actions were publicized to a consumer’s entire friend network, instead of confined to those whom it concerned.

When Instagram launched in 2010, the infinite scroll was built into the user experience. More important, Instagram was made for mobile, in contrast to Facebook which was built for and largely accessed via desktop. Only 11% of Facebook’s ad revenue came from mobile ads in 2012, the year Facebook acquired Instagram in one of the company’s largest acquisitions to date. Within a year of the acquisition, Facebook, Inc.’s mobile ad revenue jumped 34%, making up a 45% share of the social network’s total ad revenue in 2013. This trajectory continued throughout the decade, with mobile advertising driving over 92% percent of Facebook’s total ad revenue by 2018 (Clement, 2020). Instagram allowed consumers to scale social media content feeds the size of the Statue of Liberty with their thumbs each day, while simultaneously allowing Facebook to scale its advertising model.

Instagram allowed consumers to scale content feeds the size of the Statue of Liberty with their thumbs each day, while simultaneously allowing Facebook to scale its advertising model.

Aza Raskin is now the co-founder of an organization called Center of Humane Technology, a nonprofit led by a group of tech insiders who are trying to reverse the harmful effects of their designs, including the infinite scroll. In a 2018 interview published by BBC, Raskin references the habit-forming nature of the infinite scroll, which results in people spending more time on their phones than necessary (Andersson, 2018). “In order to get the next round of funding, in order to get your stock price up, the amount of time that people spend on your app has to go up,” Raskin explained from the business perspective. The design assumption governing Silicon Valley at the time, he noted, was that ‘ease of use’ equaled ‘better’ (Raskin, 2019). In short, the infinite scroll encourages mindless activity. This perspective is aligned with the research.

In short, the infinite scroll encourages mindless activity. This perspective is aligned with the research.

Chapter 6

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.

A habit is when a behavior, choice, or action becomes automatic. New habits are created by putting together a cue, a routine, and a reward, and then cultivating a craving that drives the loop (Berridge & Kringelbach, 2008; Schultz, 2006). The first president of Facebook, Sean Parker, disclosed what the inventors understood consciously about habit loops when they created their products, referring to them as “a vulnerability in human psychology (Parker, 2018).” Social media runs on a social-validation feedback loop where people get hooked on feedback from others in the form of likes and comments. This form of social validation is an emotional payout that’s experienced as a “spike” in the brain, lighting up the pleasure centers and letting the brain know to lock the pattern of behavior that led there. Habits are driven by a craving for that spike. Every action a person takes which receives this attention reinforces the reward of social-validation and creates a craving for more, driving them to come back to the platform and perform similar actions over and over again.

In “The Power of Habit,” Charles Duhigg illustrates an experiment around how habits form with a monkey named Julio. In the experiment, Julio was seated in front of a monitor screen and trained to pull a lever whenever images appeared on the screen. The images on the monitor screen were his cue, which triggered the routine of pulling the lever, which dispensed and rewarded him with sweet juice. Once Julio got hooked on the juice, the researchers began altering the reward. Sometimes, the juice wouldn’t arrive at all after Julio pulled the lever, or it would be diluted and only half as sweet. When the juice didn’t come or was late, Julio got angry and depressed. The researchers then tried distracting Julio by opening up the lab door so that he could leave. Prior to starting the experiment, Julio showed every sign of wanting to leave. The researchers struggled to keep him still in the chair facing the monitor screen. Now, Julio couldn’t care less about his other monkey friends outside the lab door, nor his food in the corner. The book quotes, once Julio “had developed a habit … the distractions held no allure. The animal would sit there, watching the monitor and pressing the lever, over and over again, regardless of the offer of food or the opportunity to go outside.” Julio was glued to the screen, waiting for it to refresh with the signals that he now anticipated to give him a dose of pleasure.

“The animal would sit there, watching the monitor and pressing the lever, over and over again, regardless of the offer of food or the opportunity to go outside.” Julio was glued to the screen, waiting for it to refresh with the signals that he now anticipated to give him doses of pleasure.

Habits can be intentionally designed by outside forces. A person’s habits can form without their awareness, and these habits can shape their lives more than they realize. This may be the case with passive use of social media. While cravings for social-validation may keep people coming back to the platforms, features like the infinite scroll keep people scrolling once they’re there. However, a marketer who possesses an understanding of social media as a tool for influence may be less susceptible to these unseen forces. Marketers spend just as much time, if not more, using social media platforms as consumers. However, the differences in why and how they use it seem to have significantly different impacts on them.

Marketers spend just as much time, if not more, using social media platforms as consumers. However, the differences in why and how they use it seem to have significantly different impacts on them.

Chapter 7

Digital marketers understand that they are in a competition for people’s attention. Their job depends on breaking through the clutter and maximizing the effectiveness of their advertising. They use planning frameworks to ensure their objectives are addressed through purposeful activities. They start with defining the outcomes they want to see from their advertising efforts. They use tools to identify the audiences they want to reach, such as Mintel, GlobalWebIndex, and eMarketer, so that they can tailor messaging to them and target them precisely when and where they will be online. But unlike marketers, the average social media user is not nearly as methodical in their approach. They have no reason to be.

But unlike marketers, the average social media user is not nearly as methodical in their approach. They have no reason to be.

Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram are marketed as products that are made to connect people. However, few resources are available to consumers instructing them on proper uses of social media. There are many more resources available to marketers. Facebook has a page on its website dedicated to “Success Stories” showing “how businesses similar to yours are growing with Facebook marketing” (Facebook, n.d.). The marketing success stories are so robust there are several filter options on this page—from business size, to marketing objective, to industry, to product, to region—that marketers can choose from to find a case study most relevant to them. Every year GlobalWebIndex, an audience insights tool, puts out a flagship report covering the latest trends in social media. Social media management companies, like Hootsuite, keep marketers informed on platform updates so they can adjust their advertising approach to make ever-changing algorithms work for them.

Consumers, on the other hand, demonstrate a lack of understanding of how algorithmic systems work, according to a recent study analyzing backlash against Twitter in 2017, after reports surfaced about changes to the way tweets would appear in users’ timelines (DeVito, Gergle, & Birnholtz, 2017). The change would do away with the chronological order of tweets, and instead present a curated content feed, similar to Facebook, using an algorithmic system that ranked tweets based on what it thinks a user wants to see. The study analyzed countless theories espoused by consumers in a conversation on Twitter filtered under the hashtag #RIPTwitter. Researchers perceived a large gap in understanding between consumers and product engineers.

Facebook has recently stated that the company is focused on helping consumers understand the algorithm, so they can take control of those ranking signals in order to give the algorithm better personalized feedback (Cooper, 2020). In January 2020, Instagram also posted an update to its own Instagram account regarding some of the metrics that impact feed ranking. “Because it’s powered by machine learning,” the post explained, “Instagram’s feed ranking is constantly adapting and improving based on new data.” What a consumer sees in their Instagram feed is the output of all the information that the platform is continuously amassing about their interests and behaviors, based on their real-time activity. Instagram engineer Thomas Dimson explains that the algorithm determines who a consumer cares about most by tracking whose content they like, who they direct message, and who they search for. It then uses this information to prioritize posts from these people in the consumer’s feed.

The Instagram algorithm also considers certain engagement metrics to determine the types of content a consumer sees, and how their content is shown to others on the platform. Comments, likes, shares, and views, are the most important engagements that factor into post ranking. The amount of times someone posts, as well as the consistency with which they post, factors into the visibility of their content in other people’s social media feeds. If a consumer does not use Instagram actively, their experience will be more influenced by the activities of others on the platform. The design of the platform will work against them.

Marketers, by definition, use social media actively. Their activities take into consideration the factors that affect feed ranking, like post frequency and key metrics such as comments, likes, shares, and views. In other words, a marketer’s approach to social media is driven by clear intentions related to their advertising goals. This is partly because the importance of using social media actively has always been communicated to marketers. In effect, research shows how social media advertising positively affects marketing objectives like new customer acquisition and sales (Stephen & Galak, 2012), among other business goals. Research continues to explore the effectiveness and value of advertising on social media. This data is at odds with all the research that suggests the opposite for its users.

The process by which the brain converts a sequence of actions into an automatic routine, called “chunking,” is at the root of how habits form, Charles Duhigg explains in “The Power of Habit.” This process makes it so we don’t have to think about basic behaviors and can instead reallocate that energy to doing or thinking about other things. At the same time, when we stop thinking during routine moments, we may make ourselves vulnerable to threats (Graybiel, 1998). If passively scrolling through social media is the routine, the threats may be negative impacts on our well-being due to social comparison, envy, perceptions of wasted time, information overload or anxiety.

Chapter 8

In 2015, nearly three quarters of all US adults viewed technology companies as having a positive impact on the United States. In 2019, the number of Americans who held this view had dropped 21 percent, according to a new Pew Research Center survey (Doherty & Kiley, 2019). Much of the criticism surrounding big tech is aimed at social media companies (Smith, 2019). This period between 2015 and 2019 is inextricably linked to a major political scandal involving Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, a data company employed by the Trump campaign that scraped the personal data of millions of American voters and used it to target individual ads to voters’ exact susceptibilities. At the end of a documentary covering Cambridge Analytica, called “The Great Hack,” former CFO of the company Julian Wheatland reminds audiences, “There was always going to be a Cambridge Analytica.” While it’s not always bad actors leveraging personal data at mass scale and in the context of the democratic process, this data is what makes social media platforms possible, and profitable. What is most compelling about the information shared by the Cambridge Analytica whistleblowers was the description of the company as having operated like an advertising agency—with strategists, creative teams, and targeting teams.

Cambridge Analytica’s exploitation of the Facebook platform for political advertising woke Americans up to the power and scale of social media’s influence. It also resurfaced conversations around well-being that had been researched for over a decade previously. In early January 2018, two months before the news of Cambridge Analytica and Facebook’s entanglement broke, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted a status update which led with the statement: “One of our big focus areas for 2018 is making sure the time we all spend on Facebook is time well spent” (Zuckerberg, 2018). There was a noticeable shift occurring in the national dialogue around technology that tech leaders would have to confront. Headlines suggested people were falling from the initial euphoria and beginning to feel for the first time that social technology takes away from their daily lives more than it enriches it. According to a 2018 Kantar Consulting survey, 62% of millennials and 58% of centennials say they wish to spend more of their free time completely disconnected from technology. When asked whether mental or physical health was more important to their own well-being, Millennials rated mental health more important, and centennials rated them both evenly. People are more aware of the time they spend looking at their screens, and of the perceived negative effects with social media usage. But do they have the tools to change their behavior?

People are more aware of the time they spend looking at their screens, and of the perceived negative effects with social media usage. But do they have the tools to change their behavior?

In his book “Mindless Eating,” Brian Wansink talks about the strategic positioning used by many food sellers, like Cinnabon, to drive aroma-driven craving. By locating Cinnabon stores away from the food court, its distinct smell can waft down halls and lure customers towards the counter. Smell is a powerful, unseen force compelling consumers toward their next Cinnabon purchase in this situation. The social-validation feedback loop of social media platforms and habit-forming features like the infinite scroll are similar unseen forces within the larger ecosystem of the social media experience. These forces are fueled by financial incentives to sell advertising. The difference in this case is a person has to already be inside of a shopping mall in order to be compelled by the unseen forces of a Cinnabon store. The unseen forces of smartphones and social media platforms are much more pervasive, and possess more power to influence where people direct their attention, and how they spend their time. That is, of course, unless a person is aware of these forces.

My research is grounded in the hypothesis that awareness is a powerful tool against the potential harms of social media use. Consumers who are aware that social media is fundamentally a marketing channel, shaped by financial incentives to sell advertising, are less susceptible to the negative influences of social media. On the contrary, these users are likely to use the platforms to their benefit. My survey design, sampling social media consumers who predominantly use Instagram, will test this hypothesis through the lens of a consumer’s account type and their reasons for using Instagram.