Speaker 1: Zekia.
Speaker 2: You know me, okay, and you know that my social
Speaker 2: media platform of choice currently is TikTok. Yes, but I
Speaker 2: feel like you're a strong Instagram user too. I have
Speaker 2: a good time on social media. I really like it.
Speaker 2: I feel like you learn so much about different parts
Speaker 2: of the world, and TikTok is a really great place
Speaker 2: for that. Before I was like, yeah, Instagram is great,
Speaker 2: Like I'd search hashtags what are folks doing? Yeah, in
Speaker 2: Budapest right now, hashtag Budapest, what's going on?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: And TikTok because of how they set up there for
Speaker 2: you page. I mean, it's all just coming to me
Speaker 2: in a flood and I love it.
Speaker 1: You're a big Twitter.
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm lurking on Twitter. Just recently, I was following
Speaker 2: the fishing scandal. There was this big competition that had
Speaker 2: won like three hundred thousand dollars. These people were cheating.
Speaker 2: They were stuffing filats of fish, no wrapping it around.
Speaker 2: They had weights to skew the results, so it seemed
Speaker 2: like they had caught these heads. Now I saw that
Speaker 2: a couple of days ago, just I guess. Last night
Speaker 2: I saw it on the New York Times and I
Speaker 2: was like, late I already saw it on Twitter. Okay,
Speaker 2: I already saw it on Twitter days ago.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: It feels like social media is what everybody's using to
Speaker 2: get their news, to get their entertainment, and to stay connected.
Speaker 2: So it made us very curious about how social media
Speaker 2: might be impacting how we interact with each other and
Speaker 2: how we interact with ourselves. One percent, if you didn't
Speaker 2: have dial up and listen to that little screeching noise
Speaker 2: or the a room men on the disc we're not
Speaker 2: living the same life. I'm t T and I'm Zachiah
Speaker 2: and from Spotify.
Speaker 3: This is Dope Labs.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast that mixes hardcore science,
Speaker 2: pop culture, and a healthy dos of friendship. This week,
Speaker 2: we're talking all about social media specifically. We really wanted
Speaker 2: to know more about the impacts of social media on
Speaker 2: our well being, mental health, attention span, and how we
Speaker 2: communicate with one another. Let's get into the recitation. What
Speaker 2: do we know? Well, what I feel like I know
Speaker 2: is that social media is everywhere. It's a part of
Speaker 2: our everyday lives. Professors are using it as a part
Speaker 2: of their course curriculum, it's a.
Speaker 1: Part of our work.
Speaker 2: Social media is permitting everything, and so it also feels
Speaker 2: like a primary way that we communicate with one another
Speaker 2: all of the world. It feels like social media has
Speaker 2: gone through some rapid changes too. So it feels like
Speaker 2: it's gone from just being a place where you share
Speaker 2: pictures of yourself to a way to interact with brands,
Speaker 2: service providers. I mean, are you alive if you're not
Speaker 2: on social media? Sometimes it feels like that's what society
Speaker 2: is saying. It's so true. I mean, if somebody were
Speaker 2: to tell me that they don't have a lick of
Speaker 2: social media, I'm like.
Speaker 3: Are you on the run?
Speaker 1: Like? Are the Feds after you? What is going on?
Speaker 1: How do you know? How do you know anything without
Speaker 1: social media?
Speaker 2: And you and I we come from a generation that
Speaker 2: did not have social media and then had social media.
Speaker 2: And I remember making my first Facebook account when I
Speaker 2: was about to start college because remember at that point,
Speaker 2: Facebook was only for folks who had a college email address. Yes,
Speaker 2: and it was still so new at the time. And
Speaker 2: so now when you think of today, where our grandmas
Speaker 2: and grandpa's and our little cousins all have social media,
Speaker 2: dogs have social media. Yes, we're living in a different time.
Speaker 2: So we're moving around this world very differently because of it. Yes,
Speaker 2: that's so true. And so we have quite a few
Speaker 2: questions right about this. If we're moving differently, how different?
Speaker 2: What do we want to know? Tt I want to
Speaker 2: know more about how social media is impacting us.
Speaker 1: I see a lot of stuff in the news about how.
Speaker 2: Social media is impacting us, But I want to know, like,
Speaker 2: for real, for real, how are we changing? Like is
Speaker 2: it actually affecting our attention span and our relationships with
Speaker 2: people and how we communicate in our mental health and
Speaker 2: do different platforms affect us differently? Is it you know,
Speaker 2: six and one hand, half a dozen in the other?
Speaker 2: Is TikTok giving me the same bad vibes as Facebook?
Speaker 2: I don't want to believe that. I want to believe
Speaker 2: that TikTok will save the world. I'm just kidding. All right,
Speaker 2: let's jump into the dissection. Our guest for today's lab
Speaker 2: is doctor Jeff Hancock.
Speaker 4: My name is Jeff Hancock.
Speaker 5: I'm the founding director of the Stanford Social Media Lab
Speaker 5: and a professor here in the Communication Department.
Speaker 2: The Stanford Social Media Lab studies three main areas. One
Speaker 2: is misinformation, the other is the effects of social media
Speaker 2: on psychological well being. And the final area they study
Speaker 2: is AI and communication, so that's like those smart replies
Speaker 2: on Gmail, where it's basically artificial intelligence posing as a human.
Speaker 1: We talk about.
Speaker 2: Social media all the time on this show, and there's
Speaker 2: a lot to unpack. According to doctor Hancock, social media
Speaker 2: is a broader category that goes beyond platforms like Facebook
Speaker 2: and Twitter. It's really any media we used to be social,
Speaker 2: so that includes things like zoom, texting, and even email.
Speaker 5: The first video conference was nineteen sixty seven in France Microtel,
Speaker 5: and yet it took a pandemic to get us all
Speaker 5: to really be using it on the regular. Every time
Speaker 5: there's a new technology.
Speaker 4: People are really worried about it.
Speaker 5: Go back to the radio, right, that was going to
Speaker 5: cause us all to just be hermits in our house
Speaker 5: and never talk to people again. And it was going
Speaker 5: to kill the newspaper. And then there were comic books.
Speaker 5: Comic books, we're going to kill kids' brains and get
Speaker 5: them addicted. And then there is TV. Same thing, and
Speaker 5: we hear the same kinds of things with social media,
Speaker 5: and social media is a lot different than.
Speaker 2: Those right think about television and radio and newspapers. All
Speaker 2: of those platforms have professionals who create and produce content. Now,
Speaker 2: a lot of social media content is created by professionals,
Speaker 2: but a lot of social media is more DIY. There
Speaker 2: aren't the same barriers when it comes to posting and sharing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: anyone can publish anything to anywhere. We're all content creators
Speaker 2: and editors. This is a good thing and it can
Speaker 2: sometimes be a bad And even though social media can
Speaker 2: sometimes feel really bad or really good, doctor Hancock says,
Speaker 2: it's not so black and white. One of his graduate students,
Speaker 2: Angela Lee, is studying the importance of mindsets when it
Speaker 2: comes to using social media.
Speaker 5: It's about how you view the way something works for you.
Speaker 5: The most famous example of education, you can think of
Speaker 5: like your intelligence as like a muscle, and you can
Speaker 5: grow it, and you can think of it as like
Speaker 5: something that you're given and you have a fixed amount
Speaker 5: of intelligence, and that's called a fixed mindset. So Angela
Speaker 5: took that idea and applied to social media, and it
Speaker 5: turns out that people have really strong mindsets. She's identified
Speaker 5: two kind of components to social media mindsets. One is agency.
Speaker 5: Do you feel like you're in charge of your social
Speaker 5: media and you use it to do things for you
Speaker 5: and your world, or is it in charge of you
Speaker 5: and you're kind of out of control.
Speaker 1: I'm on social media whenever I have free time.
Speaker 2: I'm scrolling before I go to sleep, when I wake up,
Speaker 2: before I get out of the bed, the first thing
Speaker 2: I do is open up.
Speaker 1: My phone and starts scrolling.
Speaker 2: So I'm not a mindless scroller, but I am a
Speaker 2: person who automatically opens my phone and checks if I
Speaker 2: have these alerts. You know, those little red notification bubbles
Speaker 2: on the icons. I'm going to clear those. I'm automatically
Speaker 2: opening and checking those, even if I don't really care.
Speaker 2: My mind is just like clear those bubbles. And so
Speaker 2: one of the things I've had to do to combat
Speaker 2: that is to turn notifications off. And it reminds me
Speaker 2: of that video we did. Do you remember the just
Speaker 2: look up video with Thrive.
Speaker 1: And Both Yes, Oh my gosh, yes, that's such a
Speaker 1: good point.
Speaker 2: And in that video we learned that the average person
Speaker 2: checks their phone fifty two times a day. Now, that
Speaker 2: was twenty nineteen, so I don't even know what it is.
Speaker 1: Now, right, pandemic looking at your phone?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I feel like I'm on my phone
Speaker 2: a lot more now. At first, when I heard that number,
Speaker 2: I was very very surprised, But then I started to
Speaker 2: really think about how much time I spend on my
Speaker 2: phone and I was like, wow, that's definitely me.
Speaker 1: And if I have agency.
Speaker 2: On the other hand, I'm telling my social media what
Speaker 2: I wanted to do. So I'm saying, Okay, I'm only
Speaker 2: going to be on Instagram for thirty minutes and after
Speaker 2: that I'm moving on, or I'm coming to Twitter to
Speaker 2: find this very specific thing and don't show me anything
Speaker 2: else that you think I might want to see. If
Speaker 2: you have agency, you say, I don't want to see
Speaker 2: those suggestive posts.
Speaker 1: I just want to see what I want to see.
Speaker 5: That is a very healthy approach, right. It means that
Speaker 5: you're using it to do what you want to do
Speaker 5: in the world, and it's sort of forwarding your goals
Speaker 5: and trusting your needs. People that feel like it's out
Speaker 5: of their control, they are suffering. They tend to report hiring, anxiety,
Speaker 5: higher depression, more lonely, and it kind of sucks, right,
Speaker 5: They're locked into this thing where I don't feel like
Speaker 5: I'm in control.
Speaker 4: I feel like this.
Speaker 5: Thing social media is bad. Yet I have to use it.
Speaker 5: Most people have to use it just to live their lives.
Speaker 4: So when they use it, it makes them feel bad
Speaker 4: about themselves.
Speaker 2: And that leads us to the second component of Angela
Speaker 2: Lee's mindset study, which is whether you perceive social media
Speaker 2: as positive or negative.
Speaker 5: It helps you, it helps with communication and connection, being informed,
Speaker 5: or is it overall bad? Is it negative for you
Speaker 5: like undermines your health, et cetera.
Speaker 2: Doctor Hancock says this mindset approach is powerful and that
Speaker 2: we should encourage people, especially young folks, to embrace this
Speaker 2: more in control perspective on social media.
Speaker 4: That does two things.
Speaker 5: One, it pushes back against this idea of like, there's
Speaker 5: these social media companies and they are doing stuff to you,
Speaker 5: and there's nothing you can do about it. You're just
Speaker 5: a passive consumer and they're like pointing the social media advertising.
Speaker 4: Gun at you. I really hate that.
Speaker 5: It really takes away my power, It takes away my agency,
Speaker 5: and also it takes away my responsibility. So if I'm
Speaker 5: a jerk and I say cyberbully or I do mean
Speaker 5: stuff online, that's not my fault. That's like this social
Speaker 5: media fault. It's Marcus Zuckerberg's fault. So I think it
Speaker 5: does bring back that sense of like, well, no, I'm
Speaker 5: in charge you for the way I'm going.
Speaker 4: To behave with this.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think some people are like, oh, they're on
Speaker 2: social media. They can't help it. Yes, they can. They
Speaker 2: still have to press posts.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: I understand the pressures of social media can be high,
Speaker 2: but I feel like, all right, let's have some accountability
Speaker 2: in this equation. Yeah, the Internet is still a part
Speaker 2: of our culture, and what we're posting is absolutely adding
Speaker 2: to the conversation. And so we can't just say, oh,
Speaker 2: you know, it's just social media. It doesn't matter. It matters.
Speaker 2: And I think one of the things that continuously blows
Speaker 2: my mind is just how huge the social media community is.
Speaker 2: Usually it's when I find a profile and it has
Speaker 2: like one point five million followers or some huge number
Speaker 2: like that, and I don't have a single shared contact
Speaker 2: with that account. Does that ever happen to you?
Speaker 1: Yes? And it's always so shocking to me.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's like this is a whole, separate, undisturbed part
Speaker 2: of the Internet that I don't even know about. The
Speaker 2: six degrees of separation. It's a lie.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: The other day, I was on Twitter and there was
Speaker 2: this thread and this lady was like, I want to
Speaker 2: show y'all this new yarn and there were so many
Speaker 2: comments and people were just excited, full of excitement, and
Speaker 2: I was like, this is what I would expect for
Speaker 2: like an exclusive sneaker drop or a new game, you know,
Speaker 2: NBA game for the PlayStation or Xbox or something like
Speaker 2: this is this vibrant community, and I think we forget
Speaker 2: that there are so many users on these different platforms. Yes,
Speaker 2: it always blows my mind. Because we talked about social
Speaker 2: bubbles in our Science Now episode, where you can have
Speaker 2: that confirmation bias because everybody you know is usually interested
Speaker 2: in a lot of similar things, and what you just
Speaker 2: explained highlights that where as soon as you get outside
Speaker 2: of that bubble, there are people who have way different
Speaker 2: interests than you. Even when we're talking about things like
Speaker 2: memes and things that are going viral, it's everywhere. And
Speaker 2: I remember just recently this happened to me where you know,
Speaker 2: over the last few weeks, I was talking to somebody
Speaker 2: and I said, it's corn, a.
Speaker 1: Big lump of knobs.
Speaker 2: It has a juice, It has a juice, and that Yes,
Speaker 2: it's the most beautiful thing. And they were like, what
Speaker 2: are you talking about? No, And I was like, you
Speaker 2: don't know to Reek aka the corn Kid.
Speaker 1: Nah, you're on the dark Web.
Speaker 2: Because I can't believe there is a single person on
Speaker 2: this planet who doesn't know to Reek, not as they're
Speaker 2: using the Internet. I feel like he was everywhere.
Speaker 1: If he was everywhere everywhere, But.
Speaker 2: That just goes to show another undisturbed side of the
Speaker 2: web for someone else.
Speaker 1: Right, we love you TOIQ, more blessings, more life for you.
Speaker 2: And so just to help us wrap our arms around
Speaker 2: the big world wide Web, right, let's think about how
Speaker 2: many users are on these platforms. Okay, a big stepper is.
Speaker 1: YouTube starting with a big.
Speaker 2: YouTube has two point two billion monthly active users. That's
Speaker 2: every thirty days, two point two billion. With a bee,
Speaker 2: the B stands for billions. Yes, Facebook is at two
Speaker 2: point nine billion users. What's app WhatsApp if you have
Speaker 2: foreign parents, WhatsApp has been the thing for the last
Speaker 2: few years and it has two billion as well. WhatsApp
Speaker 2: is huge outside the country. Yes, everybody's using what's app.
Speaker 2: Instagram has two billion. The smaller ones are like Pinterest, Reddit,
Speaker 2: even Skype do you remember when everybody has Skype really
Speaker 2: fumbled a bag and Zoom took over. But you have
Speaker 2: to think about like social media is everywhere, and it's
Speaker 2: important to remember that social media is not a monolith.
Speaker 2: Doctor Hancock says that the type of platform matters. Not
Speaker 2: all platforms are created equal.
Speaker 5: There's be Real, which is getting a lot of attention,
Speaker 5: emphasizing authenticity and reducing the load of having to present
Speaker 5: an awesome self all the time, and.
Speaker 4: Then you can get outside of that.
Speaker 5: You go into things like Zoom are much more about
Speaker 5: like interacting with another person in depth.
Speaker 2: Yes, every app is given something different. Okay, you can't
Speaker 2: show up.
Speaker 1: On Instagram like you show up on Zoom. Okay, we
Speaker 1: would be fired.
Speaker 2: Doctor Hancock told us about a study from the Social
Speaker 2: Media Lab about people's experience with TikTok's algorithm.
Speaker 5: In their sense, the algorithm was that they were like
Speaker 5: these different sides of TikTok, and when they looked through
Speaker 5: the algorithm was like looking through a crystal. They could
Speaker 5: kind of see themselves reflected back, and they could see
Speaker 5: through it these other communities.
Speaker 4: That they weren't going to talk to the people.
Speaker 5: TikTok is not very social it's very much about like
Speaker 5: following people, but not about talking to people and the
Speaker 5: way that the Facebook news feed was designed, or even Instagram.
Speaker 4: And so she kind of came.
Speaker 5: Up with this idea that you know, the people think
Speaker 5: of the TikTok algorithm as like a crystal that can
Speaker 5: reflect back and show us different dimensions of ourselves.
Speaker 2: What doctor Hancock just said speaks to me because I'm
Speaker 2: a big TikTok user. You know that, Zakiyah, And that's
Speaker 2: exactly how I feel about TikTok.
Speaker 1: My for you page is for me.
Speaker 2: It's folks dancing, baby's cussing, saying silly things, dogs being ridiculous,
Speaker 2: and food concoctions. And when I look at someone else's TikTok,
Speaker 2: it looks very very different, Like why are is there
Speaker 2: so many carpet cleaning videos on your for you page?
Speaker 1: That felt like shape?
Speaker 2: But I want you to know that I am watching
Speaker 2: those people putting those rugs and detailing cards and vacuuming
Speaker 2: and putting those little lines before. I like that It's relaxing.
Speaker 2: And I think, like maybe what you see on your
Speaker 2: for you page for TikTok because of you know, the
Speaker 2: type of video content there might be different than what's
Speaker 2: on your for you page for Instagram.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, when we ask people about Instagram, they have a
Speaker 5: very different view of that, right that Instagram is a
Speaker 5: little bit more of a broadcast model that you then
Speaker 5: interact with people that you know or want to know
Speaker 5: and getting you know, those metrics are important, and that's
Speaker 5: very different from the news speed which frankly, anybody here,
Speaker 5: a young person here at Stanford is like, I don't
Speaker 5: do it except to communicate with family.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Facebook is a no for me. I'm going to tell
Speaker 2: you that right now. And it's been a no for
Speaker 2: me since, Like, I don't know off and on. I
Speaker 2: feel like when I left college. I used it a
Speaker 2: little bit when I was in grad school, but then
Speaker 2: I was like, all right, I.
Speaker 1: Gotta get out here.
Speaker 2: It's getting wild.
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm kind of the same way as
Speaker 1: you are. As a kid.
Speaker 2: I used to use Facebook like back in the day,
Speaker 2: but I don't really use it anymore. It just feels
Speaker 2: like Facebook is a really dark place where a lot
Speaker 2: of really unproductive conversations are happening, and I'm just not
Speaker 2: about that life. You know, something I do use a lot.
Speaker 2: I used to talk more on it, but now I'm
Speaker 2: mostly lurking Twitter.
Speaker 4: Twitter is a very different platform.
Speaker 5: I love it myself, but it turns out like although
Speaker 5: so much research is done on Twitter, so much and
Speaker 5: a lot of it makes a lot of big headlines,
Speaker 5: but like no one uses Twitter like we just analyze
Speaker 5: some data and it's like a tiny percentage of the
Speaker 5: US mostly like journalists, political folks.
Speaker 2: I find out everything on Twitter. I can remember the
Speaker 2: first time I realized Twitter was super powerful as a
Speaker 2: primary news source, and that was with Ferguson. When Ferguson
Speaker 2: was happening, I first saw that on Twitter. It was
Speaker 2: not on the news at the time. It was live
Speaker 2: streams from Deray McKesson and Janetta Elze. I think those
Speaker 2: are the two people that I was following figuring out
Speaker 2: what was happening on the ground in Ferguson. And most recently,
Speaker 2: when Eli Musk was talking about Okay, yes he wants
Speaker 2: to buy Twitter again, I saw it on Twitter before
Speaker 2: I got the alert from the New York Times. It's wow,
Speaker 2: it happens so fast, it really does, and Twitter's keeping up.
Speaker 2: That little thing is refreshing. Those tweets are scrolling. Twitter
Speaker 2: is keeping up and It's not like Instagram where it's like, oh,
Speaker 2: we're going to show you what we think you want
Speaker 2: to see. It's like, no, you can actually look chronologically,
Speaker 2: so when stuff happens and it refreshes.
Speaker 1: It is at the top of your timeline. I love it.
Speaker 2: You send me a lot of Twitter threads that I
Speaker 2: feel like are always so helpful. But then every time
Speaker 2: I get on Twitter, I feel like I am not
Speaker 2: following the right people because I don't see what you're seeing.
Speaker 1: You know, t T.
Speaker 2: I wonder if platforms are like horoscopes, you know, like
Speaker 2: maybe the platform you like says something about what you
Speaker 2: want to get from the Internet. I feel like that's
Speaker 2: a fair point. What does it mean about people on
Speaker 2: discord or Reddit?
Speaker 1: Ooh Reddit, I'm scared of Reddit. People be very scared.
Speaker 2: That feels one step away from the dark Web.
Speaker 1: I don't know if people are trying to get.
Speaker 2: But Reddit feels very close. Yeah, And there's a lot
Speaker 2: of other social media platforms out there that we don't
Speaker 2: know about. I mean, there's so many. I know Amanda
Speaker 2: Seals she made her own kind of like social media
Speaker 2: platform for the people who are fans of her to
Speaker 2: go on there to consume more of her content.
Speaker 1: Loveyajai did the same thing.
Speaker 2: But all this talk about social media makes me curious
Speaker 2: about what's y'all's favorite platform. So if you look in
Speaker 2: the app right now, you should see a pole and
Speaker 2: we're asking what your favorite social media platform is. My
Speaker 2: favorite platform is Twitter tt. You already spilled the beans
Speaker 2: on that, but sometimes you can find me.
Speaker 1: On Instagram too.
Speaker 3: TT.
Speaker 1: What's yours mine is TikTok.
Speaker 2: We know that I've already snitched on myself a few
Speaker 2: times during this lap. I always say TikTok is the
Speaker 2: happiest place on Earth, and That's where I'm going to be.
Speaker 2: And what I like about TikTok is that I don't
Speaker 2: feel pressure to post content. I just scroll and I'm
Speaker 2: there for a good time, for some laughs, for some
Speaker 2: oh my goodness, I had no idea, mind blown and
Speaker 2: things like that.
Speaker 5: I think people undervalue that, right, Like, oh, people are just.
Speaker 4: Wasting their time on social media.
Speaker 5: They're looking at like dogs dancing cat videos, which I agree,
Speaker 5: I totally love, and I say, like, screw you, Like
Speaker 5: nobody says, hey, you just wasted hours watching a football game,
Speaker 5: but like, that's just entertainment. That's just having fun. It's
Speaker 5: being with people, it's enjoying yourself. And I think we
Speaker 5: sort of like all people should be doing stuff. Social
Speaker 5: media is distracting, it's useless, and it's like, well, what
Speaker 5: is watching a hockey game or going to the movies.
Speaker 4: It's about entertainment.
Speaker 5: And if you can use a technology like TikTok to
Speaker 5: actually entertain yourself and that's working for you, then what's
Speaker 5: the problem.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's a really great point.
Speaker 2: I think that folks, you know, assign dignity to the
Speaker 2: things that they enjoy doing. So some people might say
Speaker 2: something like, oh, I can't believe so and so plays
Speaker 2: video games.
Speaker 1: They're too old for that.
Speaker 2: And I say, just because you don't like video games
Speaker 2: doesn't mean that somebody else shouldn't like video games, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. Yeah, And the same thing goes
Speaker 2: with social media. Some people are like, oh, TikTok is ridiculous,
Speaker 2: it's so stupid and all this stuff like that, and
Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, sure, to you, it's like that a
Speaker 2: lot of people are having a good time. And at
Speaker 2: one point, Instagram was the new social media platform on
Speaker 2: the scene, and everybody thought that was ridiculous because we
Speaker 2: were so used to Facebook and Twitter where it was
Speaker 2: just text. They're like, oh, just a picture, that's ridiculous,
Speaker 2: And so I just feel like everybody should just leave
Speaker 2: everybody alone. Whatever you like, I love you like it,
Speaker 2: I love it. But assigning dignity to certain things and
Speaker 2: saying other things are ridiculous. I don't think that's fair,
Speaker 2: because who are we to say what folks should be
Speaker 2: entertained by? Like sports, I'm not really into sports, but
Speaker 2: if you like it, go do you. I'm gonna be
Speaker 2: over here scrolling on TikTok, watching this dog roll its
Speaker 2: eyes and its owner. Let's take a break. When we
Speaker 2: come back, we'll talk about how social media is affecting
Speaker 2: our attention span, the truth about misinformation, and what's next
Speaker 2: on the social media horizon.
Speaker 1: We're back and we only have two more labs left
Speaker 1: in this semester. Can you believe it? I know I can't.
Speaker 2: Next week we begin our lab finale, So don't forget.
Speaker 2: If you haven't done it yet, give us a call.
Speaker 2: Let us know what your favorite lab was, and let
Speaker 2: us know what's happening right now that you might want
Speaker 2: to hear about. Call us at two zero two five
Speaker 2: six seven seven zero two eight. Okay, let's get back
Speaker 2: to the lab. We talked about just how ubiquitous social
Speaker 2: media use is. It's everywhere, and we know a lot
Speaker 2: of people are getting their news on social media too,
Speaker 2: so we wanted to know more about misinformation and how
Speaker 2: big of a problem it really is.
Speaker 5: Misinformation is a really small amount of our diet for
Speaker 5: most people most of the time. If I got the
Speaker 5: two of you to do an exercise that we did
Speaker 5: in class, get people to spend ten minutes going through
Speaker 5: whatever their favorite social feed is and I asked them
Speaker 5: to identify any misinformation that they can, and pretty much
Speaker 5: the answer is nobody sees any. And now we've done
Speaker 5: these large empirical studies with two other students of mine,
Speaker 5: Ross Dalkey and Ryan Moore, and they find that for
Speaker 5: most people, they never get exposed to misinformation.
Speaker 4: It's very rare.
Speaker 5: But unfortunately, there's a few people that get exposed a ton,
Speaker 5: and those dudes are the ones that are showing up
Speaker 5: on January sixth. Those are the people that believe that
Speaker 5: like the election was fraudulent.
Speaker 2: Doctor Hancock says that misinformation isn't a huge concern for
Speaker 2: most social media users, but it does exist, and it's
Speaker 2: targeted at specific users.
Speaker 5: Unfortunate right now, it's a lot of older adults, it's
Speaker 5: a lot of people that are concerned about health. It's
Speaker 5: a lot of lonely people that are doing online dating misinformation.
Speaker 4: Folks are not just doing it willy nilly.
Speaker 5: They're trying to either make money or persuade people. And
Speaker 5: the money one is much more common.
Speaker 2: I mean, I hear that. I understand the money and
Speaker 2: targeted people, but I feel like some people are doing
Speaker 2: it for free. Maybe they don't mean to do misinformation,
Speaker 2: but some people might might be doing it for free.
Speaker 2: And maybe it's also coming from people just reading like
Speaker 2: headlines about stuff and not reading the full article. And
Speaker 2: that feels like it's because, you know, maybe we don't
Speaker 2: have the attention span we used to have, or maybe
Speaker 2: we just are not up for seeing things through to
Speaker 2: the end anymore. Right, Everybody just posting headlines and not
Speaker 2: doing their due diligence. And we saw in the pandemic
Speaker 2: that that definitely led to a lot of misinformation spread.
Speaker 2: And you know how, like I always say, if somebody
Speaker 2: puts a quote next to Denzel Washington, people are gonna
Speaker 2: retweet reshare that quote, and it's like he didn't even
Speaker 2: say that. So is attention span an issue?
Speaker 4: It's a really important question.
Speaker 5: There are studies that show those kinds of things, but
Speaker 5: the problem is is there are also studies that show
Speaker 5: the opposite right, and then there are other studies that
Speaker 5: show there's no relationship.
Speaker 2: Doctor Hancock says that we need more research that takes
Speaker 2: place over decades in order for us to track attention
Speaker 2: span over time. So that's probably why we see so
Speaker 2: many conflicting perspectives and studies about whether attention span is
Speaker 2: good or bad or whatever, like, we don't know enough.
Speaker 2: These platforms haven't been around long enough to definitively say. However,
Speaker 2: doctor Hancock says it is likely that our attention spans
Speaker 2: are changing, but that's not necessarily a good or a
Speaker 2: bad thing, just different.
Speaker 5: It's pretty clear that our attention is likely to change,
Speaker 5: and it's pretty clear that our memory is likely to change,
Speaker 5: just from a theoretical point of view. So the idea
Speaker 5: there is, as we can use new tools to do things,
Speaker 5: our brain adapts to those, and so I no longer
Speaker 5: memorize multi hundred line poems like the ancient Greeks did,
Speaker 5: and that's okay in my life.
Speaker 4: And there is research that show that people, when they.
Speaker 5: Knew they would be able to find it online, they
Speaker 5: ended up remembering a little bit less, but they were
Speaker 5: really thoughtful about like knowing how to go out and
Speaker 5: get it, and so same thing with a right now,
Speaker 5: if you try to read in the same way that say,
Speaker 5: monks in the sixteenth century would read, we would find
Speaker 5: it really difficult. I have this image from the sixteenth
Speaker 5: century of a wheel in which a monk would books
Speaker 5: onto this wheel and you could kind of rotate it around,
Speaker 5: and it was a way that these monks could deal
Speaker 5: with the absolute insane information overload that was happening in
Speaker 5: the Renaissance, where there was like a book being produced
Speaker 5: every like week or month or so. It was absolutely crazy.
Speaker 2: Imagine that same monk having access to Google it what
Speaker 2: blow his mind. I wonder how people felt about talk
Speaker 2: radio when it first showed up on the scene. I
Speaker 2: remember as a kid thinking c spam was the wildest
Speaker 2: thing ever. I was like, who can watch people just
Speaker 2: talking NonStop like this? According to doctor Hancock, ideas about
Speaker 2: misinformation overload are really common anytime there are advancements in
Speaker 2: technology and our brains and media environment adapt to one another.
Speaker 5: What young people here now is like this thing could
Speaker 5: be bad for you sometimes, therefore.
Speaker 4: You shouldn't do it because it's wrecking you.
Speaker 5: We don't say that people like don't drive because there
Speaker 5: are people texting out there. And so I think if
Speaker 5: we take more of that adaptive mindset that we can
Speaker 5: learn how to do this, that we can change, I think.
Speaker 4: That'd be really valuable.
Speaker 5: I have a feeling that my attention span is different
Speaker 5: than when I was, say it was in grad school.
Speaker 4: Maybe that's a terrible thing.
Speaker 5: Maybe that's allowing me to deal with like this really
Speaker 5: new media environment.
Speaker 2: I do think my attention span has changed now. I
Speaker 2: know those are just my internal vibes and feelings. I
Speaker 2: don't have a study, but this is not the same
Speaker 2: asakia that used to sit down and read paper after paper.
Speaker 2: It's not the same one. It's not If your book
Speaker 2: is not juicy, I'm closing it.
Speaker 1: I don't know if my attention span has changed.
Speaker 2: I think that I am just entertained by a lot
Speaker 2: more now. The way that we consume social media media
Speaker 2: has changed, and so the things that are entertaining have changed.
Speaker 2: So Twitter, then Instagram, you know, we had just photos,
Speaker 2: and that became something that was really exciting because it
Speaker 2: was like, okay, yeah, you could see some text and
Speaker 2: some photos, so now I want to see photos. And
Speaker 2: then it became you can post videos, so it was like, okay,
Speaker 2: well now I want to see a caption and I
Speaker 2: want to see a video.
Speaker 1: So I don't think my attention span has changed.
Speaker 2: I think that what entertains me has evolved as social
Speaker 2: media has evolved, depending on the medium. If it can
Speaker 2: grab my attention and it's something that I'm interested in,
Speaker 2: I'll sit there for ten minutes and read an article,
Speaker 2: or I'll sit there for half an hour to watch
Speaker 2: you know, something that I feel like is interesting. But
Speaker 2: some things I don't feel like need to be a
Speaker 2: half hour. Some things I think can be said in
Speaker 2: thirty seconds. Even though our attention spans may be evolving,
Speaker 2: that doesn't mean social media is bad or addictive.
Speaker 5: I would say that the number one question I get
Speaker 5: asked is like, is social media addictive?
Speaker 4: Is it destroying young people's ability to talk face to face?
Speaker 5: I am Canadian, so I'm naturally kind of optimistic, So
Speaker 5: I don't believe that social media is necessarily addictive. I
Speaker 5: think that for some people, some of the time, they
Speaker 5: use social media way that is not healthy for them.
Speaker 4: On the other extreme, there are people that find it
Speaker 4: to be incredibly invaluable.
Speaker 5: I think for most people, most of the time, social
Speaker 5: media doesn't have that big of an effect on their
Speaker 5: well being. Sometimes it's fun, sometimes it's boring. Sometimes we
Speaker 5: have interesting things happen, but it's relatively fine.
Speaker 2: Well, that's interesting to hear because I would think that
Speaker 2: social media, for most people, most of the time, is
Speaker 2: having a big effect on their well being. Yeah, different news, Right,
Speaker 2: This feels like something we've talked about before, where it
Speaker 2: can feel like this is something that everybody is involved in,
Speaker 2: but maybe for the majority of people who are not
Speaker 2: primarily online, it's not that big of a deal. Like
Speaker 2: the effect is only as great as the frequency of use,
Speaker 2: and if you're online, you're only seeing other people that
Speaker 2: are online, and maybe it's that same online bubble.
Speaker 1: Again.
Speaker 2: I feel like doctor Hancock's take on this is very positive, absolutely,
Speaker 2: and that feels good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 2: And we've also said this in other episodes too. Where
Speaker 2: you can have too much of anything, you can have
Speaker 2: too much water, you can have too much air and
Speaker 2: those things can kill you. And so everything in moderation.
Speaker 1: And if we're.
Speaker 2: Considering everything in moderation, but also considering what we know
Speaker 2: to be this big boom of platforms that are available
Speaker 2: for people to partake in, what's the next platform? Where
Speaker 2: are we headed? Now? You know what's coming down the pipeline.
Speaker 2: As it relates to social media, All.
Speaker 5: The trends suggest video short form video is going to
Speaker 5: be really big.
Speaker 4: TikTok is just dominated.
Speaker 5: It's shocking, but in twenty twenty one it was the
Speaker 5: most accessed website including Google. Right, if you're a young
Speaker 5: person you want to learn something about COVID, you ain't
Speaker 5: going to Google anymore.
Speaker 4: You're going to TikTok. Now that's worrisome and crazy.
Speaker 5: And you look at the other platform's meta Snapchat, they're
Speaker 5: following TikTok, So that's a big trend. People talk about
Speaker 5: the metaverse and they usually think, you know, mostly about VR,
Speaker 5: But I think the metaverse is going to be very social.
Speaker 2: You know, we talked about the metaverse a little bit,
Speaker 2: and I really think it's going to start to pick
Speaker 2: up steam because what folks are able to do in
Speaker 2: the metaverse is really really interesting, and I think it's
Speaker 2: going to really change how we communicate with one another,
Speaker 2: especially in this semi post I know Joe Biden said
Speaker 2: that the pandemic was over. I don't know if the
Speaker 2: CDC agrees, but we're in this kind of post pandemic
Speaker 2: space and a lot of things are virtual. Imagine being
Speaker 2: able to go into the metaverse and have a conference
Speaker 2: call and you can see everyone's avatar instead of being
Speaker 2: on a zoom call. Or you can see a three
Speaker 2: D mockup of a building if you're an architect and
Speaker 2: be able to walk somebody through it. I think the
Speaker 2: possibilities with the metaverse are just endless, and there's so
Speaker 2: much to think about in this new media environment. I
Speaker 2: have some friends who aren't on social media at all,
Speaker 2: and some who are basically at the nicotine patch levels
Speaker 2: they're working on quitting. But then I have others who
Speaker 2: are posting several times a day to stories. So my
Speaker 2: question is will social media remain optional?
Speaker 5: I believe, at least in twenty twenty two that you
Speaker 5: can still be an engaged citizen without having to use
Speaker 5: a lot of social media as we kind of define
Speaker 5: it around like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok.
Speaker 2: So on the one hand, you can go to social
Speaker 2: media for entertainment and have a good time and when
Speaker 2: you want, and then on the other hand, you can
Speaker 2: also use it for information gathering or to stay informed,
Speaker 2: and doctor Hancock says that social media is also becoming
Speaker 2: more crucial for work and navigating life.
Speaker 5: I do think we have to use text team and
Speaker 5: zoom and phones a lot, and if you don't have
Speaker 5: a cell phone, that's a real problem.
Speaker 4: One of my former.
Speaker 5: Students, amigan Zalez, is done in U See Santa Barbara,
Speaker 5: and she studies people where it's like do I get.
Speaker 4: Another simcard for this month? Or do I get groceries?
Speaker 4: And there, I think is exactly at that question that
Speaker 4: you're getting at, where like.
Speaker 5: Yeah, for them, that's a real problem, like they can't
Speaker 5: get information. How do you get to this new job
Speaker 5: interview if you can't access Google Maps?
Speaker 4: Tez.
Speaker 2: This reminds me of something you brought up in our
Speaker 2: episode about the digital divide, where people make it about like, oh,
Speaker 2: do you have the newest iPhone right, when really it's
Speaker 2: like do you have access to technology?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 1: Do you have internet? Right to be able to even
Speaker 1: get the information.
Speaker 2: Yes, and the privilege of the option to not participate
Speaker 2: in some of these social platforms, Like some people don't participate,
Speaker 2: but it's like you have the privilege to not participate
Speaker 2: because these things are available to you. Absolutely, that's not
Speaker 2: your only resources, that's not your only lifeline. Right, So
Speaker 2: you don't have to be on Instagram or you don't
Speaker 2: have to be on WhatsApp because you can talk to people.
Speaker 1: All these other ways.
Speaker 2: And I wonder what the future looks like if we
Speaker 2: continue down the same path without strong interventions to provide
Speaker 2: access or more equitable access for everyone. I think everything
Speaker 2: that doctor and Hancock had to say was really interesting
Speaker 2: because I think going into this episode, I thought we're
Speaker 2: about to hear a bunch of bad news.
Speaker 1: Honey.
Speaker 2: He can say, get off Instagram, get off TikTok, get
Speaker 2: off Twitter, it's too much.
Speaker 1: You're ruining your brain. Your brain's turning mush.
Speaker 2: But what he's saying is is that for the vast
Speaker 2: majority of us, social media ain't so bad, and it's
Speaker 2: also providing us with information and connections that we wouldn't
Speaker 2: have without it, And so it makes me feel good
Speaker 2: because then it's just something that I need to check
Speaker 2: in with myself. How am I feeling? Do I feel
Speaker 2: like scrolling on Instagram today made me feel good?
Speaker 1: Or did it make me feel bad?
Speaker 2: Do I need to take a little break rather than
Speaker 2: any amount of social media consumption is bad for me?
Speaker 1: All right, it's time for one thing. What's your one thing? Zee?
Speaker 2: My one thing is another social media platform. Now listen
Speaker 2: if you feel like you're not getting your feel with
Speaker 2: the main players that we talked about today, I mentioned
Speaker 2: this one a little bit. It's Discord and I first
Speaker 2: got introduced to Discord by an Helen Peterson. She writes
Speaker 2: this newsletter and she's been on Dope Labs when she
Speaker 2: was sharing her book even, which is basically about burnout.
Speaker 2: So I was like, oh, what's this community?
Speaker 1: How does this work?
Speaker 2: And two other groups I follow on social media are
Speaker 2: kind of on Discord for a more engaged kind of
Speaker 2: community and sharing links. You know, I love to share links, girl.
Speaker 2: That's Ato Friends and Moonless, and so I've been kind
Speaker 2: of dipping my toe into Discord. So that's my one
Speaker 2: thing for the week. Tt I'm gonna try to get
Speaker 2: you on Discord to join in these communities too.
Speaker 1: That's it. For Lab eighty two.
Speaker 2: Tell us what are you getting from your social media?
Speaker 2: Is it giving everything you need? Do you need to
Speaker 2: find a new app? Call us at two zero two
Speaker 2: five six seven seven zero two eight and tell us
Speaker 2: what you thought.
Speaker 1: We really like hearing from you.
Speaker 2: So that's two zero two five six seven zero two eight,
Speaker 2: And don't forget there's so much more for you to
Speaker 2: dig into on our website. There'll be a cheat sheet
Speaker 2: for today's lab and additional links and resources in the
Speaker 2: show notes. Plus you can sign up for our newsletter
Speaker 2: check it out at Dope Labs podcast dot com. Special
Speaker 2: thanks to today's guest expert, doctor Jeff Hancock. You can
Speaker 2: find him on Twitter at Jeff Hancock, and you can
Speaker 2: find us on Twitter and Instagram at Dope Labs Podcast.
Speaker 2: Tt Is on Twitter and Instagram at dr Underscore t Sho,
Speaker 2: and you can find Zakia at z said So. Dope
Speaker 2: Labs is a Spotify original production from Mega Owme Media Group.
Speaker 2: Our producers are Jenny Radlett Mast and Lydia Smith of
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