How Social Media Poisons Dialogue
Narcissism, Psychopathy, and Other Interpersonal Perils of Social Media (Vol. 5; Issue 28)
No one denies the efficiency of social media and the advantages of being able to spread information instantaneously. But these platforms also have serious social drawbacks. They foster narcissism, encourage one-way communication, invite antisocial behavior, establish informational silos, and create social isolation. These dangerous side effects share one commonality:
They discourage actual interpersonal dialogue.
Such dialogue, crucial to social maturity and emotional intimacy, was already difficult for all of us. However, since the introduction of social media around 30 years ago, our ability to converse has declined.
A simple sentence written by the psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott (1965), a pediatrician-turned-psychoanalyst, beautifully captures the trouble we all have with dialogue. He writes:
It is joy to be hidden but a disaster not to be found.
It is hard to imagine that a collection of just a few words could so aptly describe our fears of social relatedness. On the one hand, we can always retreat into a corner in our parents’ house, our dorm room, or our homes. The withdrawal can bring relief; it can even bring feelings of glee. On the other hand, to not be seen, known, or understood is tragic. We need others to witness our lives; we need to love and be loved.
We humans walk along a tightrope with fears of rejection on one side, and isolation on the other. It is difficult to make conversation, to feel safe, or to be emotionally open. But retreating, except for the usual respite, brings the kind of loneliness from which so many around the world already suffer.
Why does social media sabotage our capacities for engagement?
Because it literally discourages mature dialogue. Worse, it encourages the worst social behaviors in all of us. The narcissism social media has created is breathtaking. Christopher Lasch (1991) anticipated a pandemic of it in his famous book, The Culture of Narcissism, nearly 40 years ago. But the degree of infection exceeded his wildest dreams (or, more accurately, nightmares). People receive pictures of shiny, smiling people holding hands, of delicious-looking plates of food in restaurants, and of spectacular parties; they never receive pictures from the bedsides of dying friends or from funerals. It’s all about the self, the bright, the positive. Look what I did, who I saw, where I went! That’s not how the social world actually works.
The opposite of dialogue, namely one way communication, directly flows from the narcissism theme. Your “friends” on FB or Instagram are not dialoguing; they’re making proclamations. Yes, these platforms allow for some messaging and the like, but these minimal dialogues are greatly overshadowed by one-way broadcasts.
Social media also elicits antisocial behavior. The anonymity it allows, in particular, causes people to write racist, cruel, threatening, and even violent posts—particularly on platforms like X. Perfectly virtuous people can say horrid things via social media that they would never say at a dinner table.
The way social media creates informational silos also contributes to impaired capacities for dialogue. As technology continues to invade humanity, people live increasingly in the equivalent of media tunnels. Leftists get fed news about the left, right wing people get their viewpoints pushed further to the right, and the same occurs for every group on social media from humanists to jihadists. This phenomenon, too, prevents people from developing the capacity for empathy and openness required to engage in mature dialogue.
Finally, and an obvious conclusion following from the discussion thus far, these varied social media outlets foment isolation. More and more individuals spend hours at a time scrolling through the various feeds on their phones. We can get our news, believe we’re having social connections, look at other people’s photos, read their stories, watch 10-second videos of dogs running down stairs, and on and on.
Two potential solutions are possible, but they both require walking the tightrope described by Winnicott’s sentence. First, we could actually NOT use these platforms. Some individuals already avoid doing so. And, thankfully, some states are passing laws making it illegal for minors to engage with social media. Imagine the power of thousands, hundreds of thousands, and then millions simply stopping using these regressive and exploitative technologies.
Second, and who would’ve thought, we could actually make plans to see real people, in coffee shops and restaurants, or in libraries or museums. And, what ever happened to dinner parties at people’s homes?
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References
Lasch, C. (1991). The Culture of Narcissism. New York: Norton.
Winnicott, D. W. (1965) Communicating and Not Communicating Leading to a Study of Certain Opposites. In: The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment: Studies in the Theory of Emotional Development, 64:179-192