“There are only two industries that describe their customers as ‘users,’ ” said Yale professor emeritus Edward Tufte. “Illegal drugs and software corporations.”
Recent research proves his point: The more that “heavy users” of social media engage, the more automatic and unthinking their online posts change into.
Over time, these heavy users change into desensitized to the positive feedback — likes, shares and comments — that motivates other people.
As such, heavy users post information that recent or infrequent users might consider inappropriate.
“They’re not only ignoring the likes, they’re also ignoring the implications of posting, which is how misinformation starts to spread,” study co-author Ian Anderson, of the University of Southern California’s Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, said in a news release.
Researchers examined metrics from Instagram and Facebook to check frequent social media users with infrequent or recent users to see if social rewards (likes, shares, etc.) motivated the 2 types of users the identical way.
In addition they checked out whether habitual posting on social media happens without social rewards.
“In other words, do these frequent users just post regardless of in the event that they are receiving likes or comments from their posting? Or are they posting just out of sheer habit?” Anderson said.
The research, published within the journal Motivation Science, revealed that social media users on Instagram and Facebook develop posting habits that modify depending on how often they use the platforms.
![woman reading on cellphone](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/08/NYPICHPDPICT000020492613.jpg?w=1024)
Individuals with a day by day habit of use, they found, progressively shift from posting with a particular goal in mind to posting robotically, with little thought concerning the content or its potential impact (or lack thereof). That behavior often results in a virtually “addictive” craving to share content regularly.
Moreover, researchers discovered that social rewards comparable to likes increased engagement mostly amongst recent or infrequent users, but had little to no effect on day by day or habitual users.
Much of the way in which people employ social media, the researchers concluded, relies on habits formed over time.
“Given the design of social media sites, users form habits to robotically share essentially the most engaging information regardless of its accuracy and potential harm,” Anderson and his co-authors wrote in an editorial published by UPI.
“Offensive statements, attacks … and false news are amplified, and misinformation often spreads further and faster than the reality,” the authors added.
![person typing hate speech on computer keyboard](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/08/NYPICHPDPICT000020492525.jpg?w=1024)
But most social media platforms, the researchers contend, are designed to reward sharing content that’s already been shared, making outrage a marketable commodity.
Indeed, Facebook’s internal research has shown that the power to distribute already-shared content with a single click fuels the spread of misinformation.
“Some 38% of views of text misinformation and 65% of views of photographic misinformation come from content that has been reshared twice, meaning a share of a share of a share of an original post,” the editorial authors wrote.
The researchers concluded that to deal with issues like misinformation, hate speech and mental health, social media corporations must also reshape the structure and programming of their platforms to vary the way in which habitual users interact with social media.
“Interventions that work for one type of user just don’t work for the opposite,” Anderson said. “There could have to be something really disruptive structurally on these social media sites to vary the behavior of habitual users.”