How to Use Social Media without Losing Your Mind | Randy Fernando
Randy Fernando, co-founder and Executive Director of the Center for Humane Technology, discusses the dangers of social media and offers Buddhist-informed techniques for using technology wisely to reduce suffering and avoid its pernicious impacts.
Deep Dive Analysis
16 Topic Outline
Introduction to Randy Fernando and Social Media Dilemma
Randy Fernando's Background: Buddhism and Technology
Center for Humane Technology: Mission and Buddhist Principles
Defining Humane Technology and its Characteristics
Tristan Harris, The Attention Economy, and Platform Tilt
The Social Dilemma Documentary: Insider Perspectives
How Social Media Monetizes User Attention and Behavior
Specific Harms of Social Media: Mental Health, Truth, Polarization
Social Media as an Accelerator of Societal Problems
Correlation Between Social Media Use and Mental Health
Social Media's Impact on Values and Attention Economy
Strategies for Wise and Intentional Social Media Use
Dan's Personal Experience and Positive Twitter Use
Buddhist Lens on Social Media: Intention and Self-Worth
Cultivating Stability and Deep Connection Off-Screen
Call to Action for Systemic Change in Technology
7 Key Concepts
Center for Humane Technology
A nonprofit organization of deeply concerned technology and social impact leaders focused on addressing the harms of social media platforms, such as outrage, polarization, addiction, depression, political manipulation, and the breakdown of shared truth.
Humane Technology
Technology that reduces suffering by addressing greed and hatred, is value-centric, sensitive to human nature, builds shared truth, and minimizes unintended consequences. It recognizes that technology is not neutral and is an expression of our value system.
Attention Economy
A system where companies compete for users' attention in order to monetize it, often described as a 'race to the bottom of the brainstem.' This competition exploits human physiological vulnerabilities for commercial gain.
We Are The Product
A concept asserting that users' attention and behavior are what social media platforms sell to advertisers. It means that access to users' brains and their next thoughts is being auctioned to third parties.
Platform Tilt
The inherent bias in social media platforms, driven by their underlying business model, where the incentives are not aligned between the users and the advertisers. This tilt naturally favors content that generates more attention, like anger and fake news.
Digital Borders
Refers to the security and integrity of online communication infrastructure, which is currently less secure and more easily penetrated by malicious actors than physical borders. It's relatively cheap to plant narratives and divide people through digital means.
Brahma Viharas
Buddhist principles including loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. Practicing these helps weaken the sense of a fixed self, which is seen as a source of problems, and contributes to inner stability.
11 Questions Answered
Yes, but it requires intentionality, creating distance from devices, and addressing underlying personal vulnerabilities, as the platforms are inherently 'tilted' against user well-being.
It's a nonprofit organization co-founded by Randy Fernando and Tristan Harris, comprised of concerned technology and social impact leaders, focused on addressing the harms of social media platforms.
From a Buddhist perspective, humane technology should reduce suffering by addressing greed, hatred, and ignorance, rather than perpetuating them. It must also be value-centric and sensitive to human nature.
The film describes how social media works and the harms it creates, as told by insiders who helped build the products, highlighting the mechanisms of attention-grabbing and how users' attention and behavior are monetized.
Platforms auction access to users' brains and next thoughts to third-party advertisers, using inferred and shared data to micro-target ads in highly optimized ways to induce clicks and behavior changes.
Harms include a quadrupling of cosmetic surgeries for social media appearance, dehumanization of others, increased screen time for children, faster spread of fake news, higher suicide contemplation rates among cyber-bullied children, and increased polarization driven by anger.
Studies show a correlation, particularly because individuals are more vulnerable to algorithms when feeling depressed, angry, or anxious. Platforms also train users to seek external validation and present curated images, which can fuel these issues.
Social media shifts value systems, making things like seeking fame or being an 'influencer' higher priorities. It also encourages sensationalism and clickbait headlines to gain attention, often at the expense of accuracy and modesty.
Be specific and intentional about why you're using a platform (e.g., learning a skill on YouTube, checking a friend's update on Facebook), and then disengage, being aware of features like autoplay and recommendations designed to keep you online.
While possible, users should examine their intention behind posting, as many posts stem from underlying insecurities. Cultivating inner stability and deep, in-person connections are more effective ways to foster well-being.
Online chatting is highly interruptive, constantly slicing attention and making sustained focus difficult. It also often takes more time for a small number of words compared to direct, in-person communication.
17 Actionable Insights
1. Address Underlying Instability
Address internal instability by cultivating practices like the Brahma Viharas (loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity) to become more stable and less vulnerable to external influences.
2. Create Device Distance
Wisely create distance between yourself and your devices, recognizing it’s a spectrum and that the right amount of distance for you is likely more than you initially think.
3. Prioritize In-Person Connection
Foster deep connections with others primarily through in-person interactions, video calls, or phone calls, as these methods provide stronger protection and are more effective than online chat or texting.
4. Increase Reactionary Space
Cultivate mindfulness by increasing the space between an impulse and a reaction, allowing for a more thoughtful and wise response, especially before engaging with online content.
5. State Your Posting Intention
Before posting on social media, write down your intention for the post; this practice can reveal underlying motivations (like seeking validation due to negative feelings) and may lead you to post less.
6. Clarify Social Media Intent
Before engaging with social media, ask yourself why you are going there and what you are seeking from the platform to foster intentional use.
7. Use Platforms Intentionally, Then Exit
If using a platform for a specific purpose (e.g., learning a skill), go directly to what you need, watch the video, and then immediately close the application to avoid getting sucked into recommendations.
8. Targeted Friend Check-Ins
When using a platform like Facebook to check on a specific friend, search for their profile directly and view their feed, rather than browsing the general timeline, to avoid unintended engagement.
9. Avoid Default Social Media Feeds
Do not let the default feed be your primary social media experience, as it can replace your intended actions with an algorithm-driven sequence that manipulates your attention.
10. Verify Before Sharing Content
Before sharing content, diligently read or skim the actual story to ensure it seems credible and has reliable sources, as even well-meaning individuals can be manipulated.
11. Share Sources for Infographics
When sharing infographics, always include the source so others can verify the information or engage in intelligent discussion about its credibility.
12. Avoid Interruptive Online Chat
Minimize online chatting and texting, as these highly interruptive forms of communication fragment attention and hinder the cultivation of sustained mindfulness.
13. Restrict Youth Social Media
For children, especially at a young age, restrict their use of social media platforms due to the exceptional dangers they pose to development and well-being.
14. Consult AllSides.com for News
Use allsides.com to view news articles from left, center, and right perspectives, helping to understand different viewpoints and avoid echo chambers.
15. Understand Diverse Viewpoints
Actively seek to understand different viewpoints, even by reading comments on articles, to bridge political divides and foster empathy.
16. Discuss “The Social Dilemma”
Watch “The Social Dilemma” with others and engage in conversations about its content to foster shared understanding and awareness of social media’s impact.
17. Support Humane Technology Movement
Sign up at humanetech.com to support the movement for humane technology and contribute to larger systemic changes in how technology is designed and used.
7 Key Quotes
It's access to our brain. It's access to our next thought. That is what is being sold.
Randy Fernando
If you follow the money, you can see that the incentives are not aligned between the people who are on the platform, just happily sharing their information and interacting, and the advertisers who are buying access to their thoughts and their behavior changes.
Randy Fernando
Anger is the emotion that travels fastest and furthest on social media.
Randy Fernando
Increase the space before we react, increase the space, take a look at what we're doing and respond with a little more wisdom.
Randy Fernando
The opposite of addiction is really it's wellbeing, it's love. You have to have the stability inside to be able to overcome, right? A lot of these feelings.
Randy Fernando
Every time you click a button and you're instantly gratified, it reduces our tolerance for when things don't go our way.
Randy Fernando
We're not really evolved towards happiness necessarily. We have to work to that. We're evolved to reproduce and perpetuate the species.
Randy Fernando
4 Protocols
Wise and Intentional Social Media Use
Randy Fernando- Be specific and intentional about why you are going to the platform.
- Get the information or interaction you intended.
- Close the app or browser immediately after achieving your goal to avoid being drawn into unintended content.
- Create distance between yourself and your devices, likely more than you think is necessary.
- Address any underlying personal instabilities (e.g., anxiety, depression) that make you vulnerable to platform manipulation.
- Cultivate deep, in-person connections with others as a strong form of protection and well-being.
Checking Information Before Sharing
Randy Fernando- Do diligence by looking at the actual story or content you're sharing.
- Read or at least skim the content to check for credibility and reliable sources.
- If sharing an interesting infographic or piece of data, share the source so other people can take a look and have an intelligent discussion about it.
Examining Post Intention
Randy Fernando- When you post something on social media, explicitly write down your intention for making that post, perhaps at the bottom of the post itself.
- Observe if your posts are often related to feeling bad, anxious, depressed, or angry, and if you are trying to make up for those feelings by seeking external validation.
Understanding Diverse Viewpoints
Randy Fernando- Use resources like allsides.com to view articles from left, center, and right perspectives.
- Don't go to the most sensational opposite sides, but seek out and try to understand the viewpoints of others who represent different perspectives.
- Go into the comments sections (if appropriate) and actively try to understand what is going on from different viewpoints.