What Have We Done to Ourselves? How Social Media Changed Everything

We hand social media our memories, our businesses and our identities, and trust it to keep them safe. It does not.

In this video, the start of a series on social media, I look at the hidden costs of the platforms we live on: our mental health, our privacy, our attention spans, free speech, and how they feed division.

Chapters

1. 0:00The state of social media
2. 1:08Defining social platforms
3. 2:33From connection to retention
4. 3:45The psychology of engagement
5. 5:06The cost of short-form video
6. 7:25The dangers of ad models
7. 9:40Data manipulation and AI
8. 11:08Algorithmic control
9. 12:29Proposed alternatives

Watch next: Social Media Is Altering Your Reality

References

Mental Health Impact of Social Media

Free Speech Censorship

Fostering Divisiveness

Vine

Attention Spans And Social Media

Censoring Criticism