This summer, a debate broke out over the feasibility of regulating social media for the dissemination of false messages linking the death of an 11-year-old boy to migrant minors. It may seem like a passing issue, but the truth is that this will be the most important debate we will have to face this century. The challenge lies in a much deeper issue than the fake news or anonymity on the networks: are we really able to choose what suits us best in a world of infinite options?
After years of studying happiness, I’ve come to a somewhat disturbing conclusion about our ability to make choices: What we know we should do to be happy rarely matches what we want to do. We know that greasy burger won’t make us happy in the long run, but we don’t care, because what would life be without those occasional indulgences? The same goes for sugar, tobacco, cell phone use, and many other temptations of the modern world: the science of happiness can say what it wants about what’s good for us in the long run, but it doesn’t matter, because our brains are not designed to find lasting happiness, but to satisfy immediate pleasures.
Until now, we have been able to handle the consequences of this inability to control our impulses more or less well, but this is about to change. I personally realized this a few years ago when I opened a TikTok account to see if it was as addictive as they said. Within a few days, the algorithm understood what I liked without me having to tell it, and soon it offered me an endless stream of videos that captured my attention like no app had ever done before. The alarm bells went off one night when I decided to log on five minutes before bed, and ended up wasting three hours of my life watching police chase videos. I slept poorly, I felt increasingly irritable, but I found it hard to stop because the best time of day was precisely at night, when I finally lay down to watch those videos.
The system that governs our lives today is rooted in an idea that clashes head-on with my experience on TikTok and other networks: that we all supposedly know what we want in life. According to the current model, people vote and consume what suits them, and therefore, companies and parties that do not generate happiness will disappear, because no one will buy their promises. Without the need for intervention, the theory goes, the system optimizes our well-being. This is why we believe in democracy and the free market.
Unfortunately, given our online behaviour, it is hard to believe that this model still works. The algorithms of TikTok, Instagram or Twitter could care less whether we spend quality time with our families or vote in an informed manner – they just want us to spend as much time as possible on their platforms, and they are getting better at it. Our mobile addiction is so severe that many psychiatrists are convinced that the best way to treat the growing number of young people who come to their offices is to simply teach them to get bored again, to disconnect from the endless cycle of dopamine they are hooked on. We forbid our children to play slot machines, but then we put an infinitely more addictive machine in their pocket. It makes no sense.
The problem, however, goes far beyond the ability of the networks to trap us, as they have also become the main source of information in our society. We like to think that our judgments when voting are the result of a deep analysis of the available options, but the reality is that we choose based on a handful of superficial topics that are in fashion at the moment. This morning, the first thing you read on social media was one of those issues that will sooner or later influence your vote, but you have no idea why the algorithm showed you that news. If today Elon Musk decides to flood our walls with videos of immigrants committing crimes, 354 million users will see the same thing, and tomorrow you will end up talking to your brother-in-law about accompanied foreign minors even though neither you nor he has ever met any. In a world where we have all the information at the palm of our hand, the real problem has become knowing what we pay attention to.
If our lives and our governments are becoming increasingly mediocre because of the choices we freely make, are we consumers and voters really the best people to decide what is best for us? And if not, who and on what basis should determine what content we watch or how much time we spend on our phones? This is the central question we will have to face in the 21st century, and the answer will not be easy. I have never been in favour of forcing anyone to lead a perfect life, or of banning the use of the networks, because at the end of the day people have the right to make mistakes and be unhappy if they choose to be. But I do believe that we must seriously consider whether the system in which we live really helps us develop the capacity to make decisions that benefit us in the long term, or whether it simply takes advantage of our weaknesses.
Interfering in people’s personal judgment has never worked out well for us in the past, but we must be very aware that there is no turning back: if we do not take the reins of progress ourselves, the algorithms will take it over, they already have, and as far as we know, the only real objective of these platforms today is to generate profits for their owners, nothing to do with our well-being or that of our people.
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