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The promises of social media were ambitious and optimistic in equal measure. Even 10 years ago most people who foresaw a socially mediated world expected the world to become more connected, more empathetic and more human as a result. Demographic markers like location and class were expected to be swept away as communities of interest replaced communities of place.
Who could have forecast that social media in 2019 would come to be perceived as so negative and facing such a "techlash" that tools to avoid bullying and ways to hide "like" counts would be introduced and welcomed with such relief?
In July, in the wake of mounting concern over the negative mental health effects of various social media, Instagram announced the launch of two new features available to users of the site. The first is called Restrict. It allows users to protect their accounts by restricting another user without their knowledge. Much like the concept of the mute button on Twitter, if you restrict someone on Instagram, only you and they will see the comments they post. Only when you approve their comments will they then become visible to all. In a case where someone is being bullied by hurtful comments, and a user may be too afraid to block or unfollow the bully, this feature works around that fear.
The other new feature is Comment Warning. This warns a user about the comment they are about to post, alerting them that it may be deemed offensive, giving them the chance to retract their comment and take a wiser course. There is much more detail available elsewhere on these new social media coping tools, and there has been substantial media coverage of how the new features work and how they can be implemented to reduce online bullying.
What is of more interest, and concern, is what it suggests about how the next generation will interface and communicate with others in the future. The Comment Warning tool, in particular, could end up discouraging people from analyzing their motivations and taking responsibility for their actions themselves because Instagram is effectively encouraging users to outsource all of that to a machine. It is a machine that will alert you to the possibility of others' offense-taking as a result of comments you might make or things you may say, rather than instinct. It is a machine that will monitor and call you out on your opinions or values, not intuition.
These tools may seem small or insignificant features but this is a huge moment in the tussle between man and machine. It is a significant step towards a world in which humans surrender self-regulation and outsource responsibility for their actions to machines.
In the course of a recent and unrelated research project, I met with many young people who were excited about the ability of digital assistants and other AI-enabled technology to monitor, analyze and regulate their behavior. One young woman suggested that technology is objective and therefore can have a more impartial, less subjective view of what is good for you as an individual. The logical conclusion being that young people can trust technology more than they can trust themselves when it comes to deciding what is best for them.
Those in their teens and early twenties, typically known as Generation Z, are very keen for media technologies to become their behavior regulators. Many are keen to have their media sessions timed and to be alerted when they have been watching too much TV, others are favorable towards the idea of having a machine choose the right entertainment content to match or overcome their mood, and others even hope for their fridge to alert them to when they have eaten too many calories, or modify their food choices, perhaps even deny them, regulating their desires away and instead recommending something that is "better for them."
The danger with all of this is that Generation Z will grow up never having any direct feedback at all. When a person makes a choice, the consequences that follow are a good guide to judging whether that was a good or bad decision. But if a machine is deciding on someone's behalf, the machine receives that feedback, if any at all. An entire generation of young people will lose their instinct, lose their ability to decide what to do next, to decide what they want and what is best for them. It will be a generation who enjoys no gut feelings, and in the end perhaps no feelings at all, that is what awaits.
The new Instagram features seem helpful, empathetic and a much-needed route towards a less bullying, less hurtful environment. But as with all technologies, not thinking through the longer-term, broader societal consequences could mean the creation of less hurt but a lot more harm.
