Breaking the loop in social networks

Why do you love specific music genres and hate others?

Why do some people, companies, and cities yield more innovation than others?

Why can't you stand certain people, nations, and ideologies?

Your willpower does not matter.

Read on to find out why.

Disclaimer

This article is aimed at people with an open mind and critical thinking. This read could make some people very mad, but that’s fine, it’s elaborated why later. The ideas I’m demonstrating here are not new, we are intuitively aware of some of them. I’m putting it all together spiced with scientific facts to load the full context and look at the situation at the system level.

Introduction

Many famous thinkers have been trying to communicate similar ideas for quite a while now, some of them are: Eugene Wei, Tristan Harris, Roger McNamee, Zeynep Tufekci, Jaron Lanier, and Eli Pariser. In this read, I want to consolidate my thoughts to highlight the severe problems we have in the age of information and propose a solution. Awareness is the first step to improvement.

I love software engineering, designing systems, and science. The human brain is the most interesting technology. I was into psychology just to pick up girls during my teen years. Later I got very interested in concepts of emotional intelligence and critical thinking to improve my life. For the last 3 years, I was obsessed with studying group dynamics to build predictions, reading tons of literature on social sciences, ecosystems/platforms and cybernetics.

The current escalation rate in the world and the way people are happily cheering for ww3 is worrying. A big part of it is the content creators and famous people over-exaggerating the events to farm attention not really thinking about the consequences.

Social networks play a big role when it comes to our attention. Our attention is a scarce resource and we should be in control of it. Whoever has leverage over this resource has the most power. I’m going to use system thinking going forward to demonstrate the problems and what can be done to address them.

Mapping the system

We have humans and we have technology humans use to facilitate communication. To understand the problem we need to define the actors in this system, and what drives their behavior.

1. Understanding human

We were born with the same hardware, but we run different software

From the time we were born, our brain learns. Our environment, family, and friends program our core beliefs, values, personality, and behaviors. We are literally biological neural networks where learning data is the environment surrounding us and error function is the feedback we receive from our environment. This feedback can be positive or negative, and it helps us to adjust our behavior and decisions in order to achieve our desired outcomes.

If some new concept or idea is not compatible logically / doesn’t reinforce our pre-existing underlying ideas or beliefs - we are more likely to ignore it. That’s how we look and process the world around us, through the lens that our environment formed. The worst part is that the older you are, the less likely you will change your beliefs or opinions because your capacity to re-learn and adapt is literally decreasing, biologically.

Aspects of our lives that shape our beliefs, values, attitudes, and behavior.
Aspects of our lives that shape our beliefs, values, attitudes, and behavior.

Our hardware is associative

  1. Repeated exposure to something over and over again

  2. Associations are deeply hardwired once first established, making it almost impossible to completely rewrite.

  3. We are highly likely to accept concepts and thinking patterns if we met them previously and are compatible with our brain OS.

Dopamine system.

It is our motivation and mood generator. The dopamine system is the reason we can achieve big things in life, get addictions and depressive conditions.

The dopamine system visualized, it always returns to baseline, that’s why you have the desire to have more of something that gives you that dopamine spike (food, video games, gambling, memes, video content, any instant gratification source).
The dopamine system visualized, it always returns to baseline, that’s why you have the desire to have more of something that gives you that dopamine spike (food, video games, gambling, memes, video content, any instant gratification source).

Your brain will always strive to get dopamine release from activity that takes less effort. That’s why people with low self-control or at times of weakness tend to stick to smoking, video games, tv shows, drugs, and porn, that’s a quick fix and helps to mask pain.

The system will make you desire the least effort-demanding activity that releases the most dopamine over anything else (Big Win phase). That’s why multiplayer gamers lose interest in everything else around them - career, family, health. Over time, they develop tolerance and get less and less satisfaction playing the game until they can’t get any dopamine from it, leading to a huge crush leading to apathy, depression, and lack of motivation to do anything (the crash phase). After some time they recover and start to feel good and motivated again (slow replenishing).

The horrible thing is that you can break the system with a severe addiction for a prolonged period of time, that’s why some people who recover from addictions relapse under stress over and over again. They just automatically return to the activity that gives a quick ‘relief’ from the harshness of life.

The good part is that we can “reprogram” the system by replacing or switching to other activities, supported by habits and routines. That’s how we change our lives for the better. An interesting fact is that after people become disabled and if the condition is not worsening - the level of happiness returns to baseline.

Dopamine is replenishable at night, but it’s a currency to buy motivation during the day. And you decide where to spend it (on something productive and useful or on things that don’t matter). I personally think being aware of how the dopamine system works is extremely valuable for anyone who wants to build a better life, Andrew D. Huberman has good series of video podcasts on this topic, which I highly recommend.

2. Understanding groups of humans

Our environment shapes us.

We already talked about it a little at the beginning. You’ve probably heard this expression a thousand times: “You are the average of  5 people you are communicating with the most and 5 books you read”. Garbage in - garbage out. Gold in - gold out. You are constantly being influenced by your friends and acquaintances. People with the highest degree in any community - have disproportionate presence and influence.

Popular people disproportionately set perceptions and determine norms and behaviors.

Even people you don’t interact with but just observe around - also shape your character and your mood. That’s why coworking spaces and coffee shops give you the energy to work and create. If your neighborhood is a sh***ole you will bring some of that sh***olness into your behavior. No matter how much willpower you have.

Humans are social animals, we have a better chance of survival if we interact with others. We achieve more if we work together. Nature figured out mechanisms to orchestrate the way people create, foster and maintain relationships with each other. Homophily is one of the most important ones.

Homophily

"birds of a feather flock together"

This is probably the most important concept to understand. Homophily is a concept in sociology describing the tendency of individuals to associate and bond with similar others. It’s the very fabric and the glue that helps connect and build bonds between people. People naturally seek to connect with people who are like them and avoid/limit contact with people that are not like them. Homophily dimensions (from strongest to weakest).

  1. Race

  2. Ethnicity

  3. Sex

  4. Age

  5. Religion

  6. Occupation

  7. Behavior patterns

  8. Education

  9. Beliefs

  10. Values

  11. Attitudes

So the more you have something in common with a person and the stronger the dimension - the more likely you will build good relationships with that person. This is especially true about finding a life partner.

I want to demonstrate this concept with actual data:

The High School Network Coded by Race. The nodes with bold stripes are self-identified as being "Black," the nodes with gray fill are "white," and the few remaining nodes are either "Hispanic" (center dot fill) or "Other/Unknown" (blank). Source: Human Network by Matthew O. Jackson.
The High School Network Coded by Race. The nodes with bold stripes are self-identified as being "Black," the nodes with gray fill are "white," and the few remaining nodes are either "Hispanic" (center dot fill) or "Other/Unknown" (blank). Source: Human Network by Matthew O. Jackson.

Racism? No, this is our “default”.

Positive sides of homophily

Homophily is necessary for our civilization to function:

  1. It can help to create strong social bonds between people who share similar interests, values, and beliefs.

  2. Increased Social Support and reciprocity.

  3. Increased Understanding and empathy.

  4. Can help to create a more cohesive and unified society

  5. Helps foster a sense of belonging and community among people who are similar.

  6. Create a more efficient and productive workplace, as people who are similar are more likely to understand each other and work together better.

Negative sides of homophily.

There is also an ugly side to it. But it’s also necessary if you dive deeper into the why. Here’s the list of the most common side effects of homophily:

  1. Exclusion of minority groups: Homophily can lead to the exclusion of minority groups, as people tend to form relationships with those who are similar to them. This can lead to a lack of diversity in social networks and can limit the opportunities for minority groups to access resources and information.

  2. Lack of innovation: Homophily can lead to a lack of innovation, as people tend to stick to the same ideas and beliefs. This can lead to a lack of creativity and can limit the potential for new ideas and solutions.

  3. Groupthink: Homophily can lead to groupthink, as people tend to agree with each other and are less likely to challenge each other’s ideas. This can lead to a lack of critical thinking and can limit the potential for new ideas and solutions.

  4. Polarization: Homophily can lead to polarization, as people tend to form relationships with those who share their beliefs and values. This can lead to a lack of understanding and can limit the potential for compromise and collaboration.

  5. Discrimination: Homophily can lead to discrimination, as people tend to form relationships with those who are similar to them. This can lead to a lack of acceptance and can limit the potential for inclusion and equality.

  6. Misinformation - homophily is the main reason why misinformation spreads much faster than real information. People rush to share any information that reinforces their beliefs and triggers them emotionally without thinking to question it and check for facts. As you might have guessed, it’s especially prevalent in echo chambers.

Easy to control and manipulate public opinion - all it takes is just to blame a group of people who are not like the target group, push your agenda under the coverage of emotional statements, and do it repeatedly over 2-10 years - you can then lead those people to protest, go to war or conduct a genocide. It doesn't matter, the recipe is almost the same and it works all the time.

A retweet network on Twitter, among people sharing posts about US politics. Links represent retweets of posts that used hashtags such as #tcot and #p2, associated with conservative (red) and progressive (blue) messages, respectively, around the 2010 US midterm election. When Bob retweets Alice, we draw a direct link from Alice to Bob to indicate that a message has been propagated from her to him. The direction of the links is not shown.
A retweet network on Twitter, among people sharing posts about US politics. Links represent retweets of posts that used hashtags such as #tcot and #p2, associated with conservative (red) and progressive (blue) messages, respectively, around the 2010 US midterm election. When Bob retweets Alice, we draw a direct link from Alice to Bob to indicate that a message has been propagated from her to him. The direction of the links is not shown.

This illustrates that information isn’t really traveling from one eco chamber to another, it might travel but gets twisted so that the opposite side’s ideas and opinions are reinforced. People are just “jerking and virtue signaling to each other within a bubble they created”.

Here are the techniques political or thought leaders use to control groups leveraging homophily:

  1. Fear-mongering tactics

  2. Paints the other group as a threat to the safety and security of their own group.

  3. Implies that the other group is inferior or less worthy of respect.

  4. Says that the other group is responsible for the problems of the first group.

  5. Uses language that implies that the other group is a source of shame or embarrassment to the first group.

  6. “They are stupid, they are liars, they are laughable”

This concept is greatly depicted in one of the episodes of Black Mirror “Men Against Fire”. The leaders use all the tricks to make soldiers kill without hesitation and be proud of it. In this case, the protagonists call the bad guys “cockroaches” and literally have a real-time voice and face replacement for the bad guys through smart lenses and some neuro-link-like tech.

I would say we don’t need that tech to achieve the same result. We can just program our people with repeatable propaganda over an extended period of time.

“Men Against Fire” Black Mirror episode (season 3, episode 5)
“Men Against Fire” Black Mirror episode (season 3, episode 5)

Now think of what “the bad guys” are called and what language is used when talking about them in your environment, not far different right?

3. Information technology

Since communication is essential for the human species, everything that stands between the communicator and receiver can distort, misinterpret, reframe, and put other meanings into data or information (the broken telephone effect)

Messenger

Your informational environment is your DMs, private groups and public groups, and informational channels posting news. You are in full control of what you get, information distribution is predictable and deterministic. There’s no real problem here. Messengers are cool.

Social networking app

Here we discover, consume, and distribute content, maintain contacts, and discover new people. Stay in touch with the latest news and hot conversations. In all these activities algorithms play a crucial role.

Algorithms

They were created to solve this problem - as a network grows, more content gets created, signal to noise ratio falls, which means - the quality of content on average falls.

We went through several generations of content distribution algos:

  1. Page rank algorithm 1998 by Google - to show us the most quality pages.

  2. Feed algorithm 2006 by Facebook -  to show us updates from Friends.

  3. Feed algorithm with AI with hyper-personalized content delivery 2010+ (Implicit learning)

Since users have the freedom of shaping their own digital environment, they do it by following people they like, and unfollowing people/content creators they don’t like. This creates a filter bubble (echo chamber), where people only hear what they want to hear.

Social networks are good at capturing positive feedback only, some networks even removed dislikes (hello YouTube). In cybernetics - a system that only captures positive feedback and no negative -  will overfit on highly engaging and emotional posts. Algos try to figure out what content gives us a dopamine release and try to serve similar content as soon as possible to keep our attention. Our dopamine system is abused without us realizing it.

For example, POV: You watch a Mike O’Hearn meme once.
For example, POV: You watch a Mike O’Hearn meme once.

Business models and strategies at play:

Social network

  1. Primary revenue comes from ads

  2. Show more ads to increase revenue

  3. Onboard and retain as many users as possible.

  4. Learn more about users to target ads better, and get paid more per ad shown.

Content creators:

  1. Ad revenue and partnerships become a source of income. There are also non-monetary incentives of course.

  2. Pick your audience and produce engaging content.

  3. Use tricks to farm and retain attention:

    1. Engagement bait

    2. Curiosity gap and hooks

    3. Clickbait thumbnails and titles

    4. Language causing emotions

  4. Optimize your content for the algorithm to get better content distribution.

As a result, the network is flooded with this diamond of content:

POV: You click on political content once
POV: You click on political content once

4. The doom loop

Social networks bring a lot of value, but they also greatly amplify the ugly sides of human nature. By the term “doom loop” I mean a self-reinforcing cycle within the system, composed of individuals and social networks that they use.

The loop steps:

  1. A user engages on a social network, stares at content, likes, retweets, replies, adds/removes friends, etc

  2. Algorithms learn on this input and figure out the type of content you will like using all the scientific tools.

  3. Content creators, targeting a specific group/community use all the tricks to get the attention of a viewer.

  4. More similar content gets distributed to the user to satisfy the dopamine system.

Self-reinforcing cycle creating eco-chamber.
Self-reinforcing cycle creating eco-chamber.

This locks individuals and groups of individuals in an echo chamber, leading to negative externalities I’ll cover in a moment.

Since both social network companies and content creators are incentivized to farm more attention and engagement, they will keep optimizing for that. Algorithms are designed by the best in the industry with big science-heavy teams. Utilizing psychology, neurobiology, and network science to scan users and guide people without them noticing. Competition for distribution drives content creators to make up problems, rumors, and stories. This makes them money, but it harms both content consumers and other parties.

Optimized for one thing

Engagement. It’s not like the world is evil, it’s just the product of technological and economical design.

God-like power

The entity that dictates how the algorithm works and has the ability to change it - has god-level-like power over actors participating in this network. This includes very detailed real-time analytics of social dynamics and projections. Allowing the entity to know the future and control minds. I strongly believe that we should fight this disbalance of power.

5. The damage (negative externalities)

To get our attention, social networks and content creators are actively taking advantage of our weaknesses and greatly amplifying the negative effects of homophily.

In the real world, you have to deal with people you don’t like and disagree with, that’s how you learn about the world from a very young age by trial and error. In social networks, however, you only see what you already like, posts from people you like, and the rest is what the algorithm thinks you like. Given all we read so far, we can extrapolate what damage these algorithms cause.

Damage to an individual:

  1. Echo chamber screwed worldview, which leads to poor decisions.

  2. People straight up become dumb, because knowledge, beliefs, and values are not challenged ever.

  3. ADHD symptoms and short attention span.

  4. Instant gratification habits create addiction

  5. Addiction kills motivation and ambitions, the easiest path taken.

  6. Anxiety and depression as a result

  7. Hurts creativity and work performance.

Damage to youngsters

Can you guess what feedback they get from their digital environment? Only positive. This is similar to training a neural network on very biased data and expecting it to be able to generalize well. Read this again.

Damage to groups and societies:

  • Degreased innovation potential

  • Low tolerance towards unlike-minded people, with little to no civil discourse or debate, later leads to open conflicts and wars.

  • People get easily manipulated by internal or external informational campaigns

  • Susceptible to soft power.

Damage to civilization

  • Poor collaboration between nations in the face of a common serious threat.

  • Wasted resources on conflicts and wars.

6. What can we do about it?

Studies have shown that when people are exposed to different perspectives, they are more creative, come up with better solutions, and are likely to be open-minded and tolerant of others. This can lead to more productive conversations and better outcomes. This can help to create a more harmonious and creative society.

We cannot change human nature, but we can change technology that facilitates our communication and distributes information. By decreasing or completely eliminating the negative effects of social networks we will make a big step toward a better society.

On the individual level, willpower will get you so far, your environment should reflect and support the behaviors and lifestyle you want. The digital environment is even more important because it shapes your thoughts, mood, and ideas.

Heterophily - is completely opposite of homophily. It’s a tendency to connect with diverse groups of people and consume information from diverse information. That’s why tech companies fight for diversity - this breeds innovation the companies desperately need to stay competitive. You can also become creative by proactively consuming diverse ideas and talking to people that have different ideologies, beliefs, and values.

How self-aware people currently “fight” algos.

  1. Limit time spent on apps by using a screen limiter like “Screen Time”

  2. To get more creative - some people actively follow people they disagree with to have a balanced narrative/information stream.

  3. Ban certain words in Twitter settings.

  4. Deleting apps completely for the work days.

It’s sort of helpful, but we can do better. How about we explicitly tell the social network what our goals are and what we want to be fed as far as information and connections? We should be able to be in control of our cognition. Let’s work on human cognitive security.

Vision

We should solve this imbalance of power and democratize algorithms, making them transparent, controllable and work to benefit users. The development should be done the open-source way. Instead of showing black-boxed algos down our throats, we should be able to select them from an open market. Let the market decide.

4 principles for social network algorithms

  1. Transparency - user should be able to read and understand the source code of the algorithm

  2. Control - users should be able to have full control over whether to use or not use an algo, also the ability to adjust it to meet their needs.

  3. Trustlesness - the result of the execution should be verifiable (if the user asks).

  4. Immutability - Algo logic doesn’t change until the user decides to upgrade the version of the algo.

How to get there

  • Step 1. Free the data. (already being done with web3 social protocols)

  • Step 2. Transparency. Make algorithms open source (upd. Elon did it, but it’s not enough)

  • Step 3. Self-awareness. Give the users the best network analytics tools.

  • Step 4. Freedom of choice. Give people the ability to select algos or turn them off completely.

  • Step 5. Open development and collaboration. Enable developers to collaborate on algos and tools with fewer frictions possible. Make it very easy to go from Idea to Test.

Conclusion

Our digital life is real and it’s a huge big part of us, we should be responsible for not giving control over it to centralized parties. Power corrupts. Algos are in charge of our information consumption, mood, emotions and even dating life. Algorithms are de facto the directors of our lives, and yet they are black boxes we have no control over. We should take this power back, together. Cognitive security is a very important domain in the age of noise.

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