All of us know not to trust everything we read online, but social media always feels a little different. After all, each user curates their online experience on social platforms. We choose who to follow, befriend, or consume content from. We may be able to control more of what we see, but that doesn’t mean it’s all truthful or trustworthy (even if our friends and fave creators are super great people).
Psychologically, there are a couple things working behind the scenes when people scroll social media. Let’s discuss these two tricks of the mind that can help make scrolling a little bit safer and more comfortable.
Your brain on social media
Social media is widely used by children. A 2024 Pew research study reports 96 percent of teens are on social media nearly all the time, with the top five platforms including YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook. Over half of children use social media a minimum of four hours a day, a Gallup poll reports.Social media is a tool. It’s a tool to gain information and connect with people online, and it has pros and cons. What really matters is our mindset when using social platforms. Be cognizant of the state of your world. Both personal stress and existential stress (for instance, an election year or in times of war, famine, or genocide) impacts how we perceive the facts, opinions, and content we encounter on social media.
Avoid accepting things as truth just because someone you know posted it. Instead, use some of the following fact-checking tips to determine whether information on social is accurate and trustworthy.
- Figure out if the account is verified, which will be noted with a blue checkmark. Fan accounts and copycats not only won’t sport a blue check, but they may have misspellings or extra punctuation setting their names apart from the real thing.
- Accept that media outlets have agendas and are biased. Even if they’re reporting facts, the angles and tone are deliberately designed to sensationalize and garner clicks.
- Check facts on your own by trying to replicate the information elsewhere, but remember that each media outlet is owned by a small handful of companies.
- Finally, beware the repost with notes, in that even when sharing perfectly factual information, individuals may also add an editorializing comment when reposting.
Your algorithm: Always on, always hyperactive
The bottom line? Your social media feed (also called an algorithm) responds to your actions. It’s not just what you consume, but how long you consume it for and on which platforms. The more time you spend interacting with particular content, the more the algorithm thinks you’re really into that topic. In other words, you don’t necessarily have to push the heart button and like each post about frogs—even slowing your scroll or watching a video for long enough will frontload your feed with frogs, because your habits communicated to your algorithm you do, in fact, love you some frogs.What can users do with this knowledge? Be aware of how you influence your own algorithms and make mindful decisions when you scroll. The algorithm is never going to take care of you, but rather make you spend more time interacting with its application.
Make social work for you
Some cool considerations to make social media more illuminating again:- Take a screen detox for a weekend.
- Prioritize human-created content instead of AI slop.
- Use the block, restrict, or “not interested” buttons liberally to actively manage your algorithm.
The wild world of the internet continues to get stranger and stranger. Luckily, real life humans will stop at nothing to be social.
Follow-up resource: Social-emotional learning matters
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Lexi Beecher Edtech Thought Leader |
