Today, we know a LOT more about the affects of social media on our young people. The results are in. And they’re not good you guys.
Suicides and self harm for young women are THROUGH THE ROOF. In preteens the number are up almost 200% since the beginning of social media. The numbers are black and white. And while it is not just social media that is responsible for this (it is technology generally – emails, texts, and our impersonal ways of connecting these days), we KNOW that we often feel crappy after spending time on social. This shouldn’t be news to anyone.
Additionally, we know that there are a TON of other issues with social media on the rise right now – election hacking, conspiracy theories run wild, political tensions rising, monopoly business structures, rampant hate speech/ violent rhetoric/ bullying, and children being advertised to daily… Just to name a few. We also have learned the extent to which Facebook company (Instagram being part of it) is willing to go to manipulate and prey on its users. It’s not a theory, it’s been confirmed by people within the company that, much like a casino, they STUDY how to tap into your senses in order keep you on the app longer. Not to keep you HAPPY with the app – but how to KEEP YOUR ATTENTION on it. This causes them to often work against what you’d actually WANT out of the app and simply adding drama to your life in order to keep your focus; in order to keep you addicted.
None of this is healthy.
Upon diving deeper into this, I felt SO GUILTY. I have built a business on social. Not a day would go by that I didn’t encourage people to follow me on Instagram. I felt like I has been part of the problem. I felt like I needed to stop feeding the beast immediately.
So I cut it off. And despite all the things we know about addiction, it wasn’t as hard as you would think. It was SAD though. It was sad for me because I LOVE you guys – I LOVE talking to you every day. I love sharing something that I think might make you smile. I love adding value and substance to your lives. I appreciate the messages I got while I was gone. But the good news is, I have formulated a PLAN for myself you guys and how I want to tackle this very important issue and it doesn’t include me cutting social off completely.
See, I can always count on my husband and little sister to hit me with the humble stick. They both were like “uhm, NEWS FLASH! You’re not that important.” They made it clear to me that me getting off social wasn’t going to do anything except take positive content off of the platform. It wasn’t going to prevent you guys from getting on, it wasn’t going to stop Facebook/ Instagram from doing the crappy things they are doing.
So what problems am I really looking to solve?
Well, #1 – I want to keep YOU GUYS safe and healthy. I want to protect YOUR wellbeing, YOUR sanity. I DON’T want you to have to get on social to connect with me. SO realized I needed to create new avenues of connection for us. The main one being, a weekly newsletter that will be launching soon. This newsletter is going to be a SAFE PLACE for you to hide – away from social pressures, your to do list, or things you need to buy. It will be SOLEY a source of inspiration and a place to fill your cup. There will be funny things like memes and cartoons. There will be yummy things like new food and drink recipes for you to try. There will be beautiful things like art and music to discover. There will be opportunities for expansion – articles to read and things to learn about. There will also be CONNECTION… special moments from my week and little life updates to connect us. So I hope you will sign up for that. It will be very different from how I used to do emails so if you have signed up before and weren’t that into them, I hope you’ll give our new newsletter a try and see what you think!
In the same school of thought when it comes to protecting YOUR sanity and getting you content that fuels you – I am going to be starting a Patreon. For those who don’t know, Patreon is a platform where creators can charge a little bit for a subscription. This does two things – enables me to not have to work with brands as much and therefore, advertise MUCH LESS and, it also gives you guys a way to access a TON of bomb content all in one place. Those who get a subscription will also get an additional newsletter, first access to merch, access to exclusive bonus episodes of the podcast, and a lot of other perks. Stay tuned for that!
SO protecting your sanity and wellness is #1 to me.
But the other two issues that I am very concerned over are:
- Hateful speech, violence, or harassment and the lack of action being taken over these things.
- The power being wielded by these companies that is virtually unchecked making it easy for them to prey on and manipulate young people (and adults too).
And these two issues are ones that will ONLY be solved with government regulations put in place by people who UNDERSTAND the problem and how to solve it. Right now, there are two organizations that I am getting involved with and using to better educate myself – the first is Stop Hate for Profit and the second is The Center for Humane Technology. I think we need a Congressional committee on the subject of Technology so that we can get Congressional leaders together who actually understand the various platforms to ask intelligent questions and work with these groups to design regulations to help solve these horrifying problems. Because trying to get these companies to self-regulate is a recipe for disaster, as we are currently seeing today. They are either incapable of or unwilling to do what they need to do to police rumors, prevent violent rhetoric, shutdown hate groups, and move away from the addictive model they have designed causing preteens and teenagers to kill themselves. The end. There are VERY REAL WORLD consequences from their lack of action. And the entire point of the government is to prevent harm to the public. They aren’t doing their job right now either.
My last complaint is from the direction of a creator. I have never been able to get in touch with a single customer service rep from this company EVER until a friend of mine started working there. And even then, she couldn’t even help me with the exact issue I was experiencing at the time. I was blocked from actions with you guys for MONTHS, for seemingly NO reason. I have had friends and local businesses who’s accounts were hacked with absolutely no way to recover it. It’s really scary to build a business on a platform that you KNOW isn’t looking out for you… Additionally, changing the algorithm really hurt my business and it was nothing that I did wrong. It’s just another example of Facebook / Instagram not looking out for me. And obviously, this was just additional motivation to build my brand elsewhere and move towards platforms like Patreon and Tiktok that value creatives.
Facebook and Instagram aren’t inherently evil. There is SO MUCH GOOD that happens on these platforms… In fact, I feel that they have driven a creative renaissance of sorts and Tiktok is only furthering that explosion of beauty, innovation, humor, music, and so much more. But there IS a flip side to that coin… and right now, a LOT more bad is happening than good. And we cannot bury our heads in the sand or look the other way… It’s just not fair to those who are really hurt by it, namely, our young people. So I am making an effort not only to create off of these platforms to give you guys an escape, but ALSO to fight for regulations to keep these companies ethical and make sure we as users, are being treated fairly.
Should there ever be a widespread boycott or strike from Facebook/ Instagram, you can count on me joining in on that. It’s not hard, just sad. But hopefully, by the time we get to that point, I will have built out our other ways of connecting a little bit more and you guys will already be used to connecting with me elsewhere.
I appreciate you reading this and taking the time to understand this issue. If you are looking to become better educated on the subject, please watch the documentary film The Social Dilemma on Netflix and get check out The Center for Humane Technology’s website here.
Thank you for being on this journey with me and being part of our community,
Annie Bowles