How Social Media Exploits Our Brain’s Reward Systems to Keep Us Hooked

Written by Shawn Funk

“[t]he assumption that making something easier to use is better for humanity was dismantled by that invention. . .I should have spent more time thinking about the philosophy and the responsibility that comes along with the invention” (Cohen, 2021). Auto-scroll exploits the uncertainty factor by lopping off the end of the story. The reward comes when we find that unexpected headline or video, yet the feeling is fleeting, and you continue to scroll for the next reward (like Heroin Hero: you never catch the dragon). This pattern puts us into the dopamine feedback loop that gets us addicted.

The like button was introduced to Facebook in 2009, and later in 2016 “reactions” were added, giving the user more ways to interact with content (Ozanne et al., 2017; Fox, 2018). Research on “liking” behaviour suggested that it is used, in part, to build an image (Ozanne et al., 2017; Eranti & Lonkila, 2015; Swart, 2021). Eranti calls this “face-work.” The creation of the ideal self; “when users are acting (liking, posting, commenting) on Facebook, they are simultaneously trying to build an idealized image or face of themselves” (Eranti & Lonkila, 2015). The “face” of the user requires validation; therein lies the source of the dopamine release. North, a professor of digital social media, indicates that people “are looking for social engagement and validation online, and an emotional twist like using reaction buttons will give more power to that element” (Fox, 2018). A “like” or a “reaction” is a gratifying and vali-dating reward. When you post content, you anticipate others’ responses, uncertainty is high, “will they like it?”. When your content is liked it validates the image you have projected, leav-ing you with a feeling of euphoria that quickly subsides. The like button exploits the uncertainty of reward mechanism too because likes can happen at any time from any person in your friends list. I am suggesting that not all likes are equally liked. A like from your partner might elicit a greater reward than a like from your crusty roommate.

FOMO (fear of missing out) is not a new phenomenon, but it has been linked to many addictive behaviours online (Elhai et al., 2021). Social media companies, by no surprise, continue to capitalize on FOMO. It is, I believe, the reason why notifications were invented. Have you ever tried to ignore a notification from an important source? Why is it so hard? The answer is FOMO. If you have your notifications set to maximum, you might never miss anything again. Constant notifications trigger FOMO, flooding the system with dopamine in anticipation of a reward. The reward, that is, the thing that you almost missed on social media, is uncertain and spontaneously occurring, meaning that the brain is always anticipating the next hit, and when the notification dings, you get your reward, putting you into the anticipation/reward feedback loop that leads to addiction (Burhan & Moradzadeh, 2020).

Algorithms are what hold everything together for social media companies, curating our experiences online by choosing content that aligns with the information they receive based on the groups we are in, the things we “like,” our friends list, etc. (Swart, 2021). Algorithms work in concert with the addictive features, some of which I have mentioned above, to frame your experience to your preferences. It is interesting to note that as we build our own profiles, Facebook and other platforms are building their algorithmic profiles on us through the information they receive from our activity (likes, posts, clicks, groups, etc.). Eranti and Lonkila (2015) suggest we use social media to create our “ideal” selves, but what happens when that ideal self is consistently reflected back upon us? Do we recognize ourselves in it? What is the significance of this reflection?

The ancient Greek myth of Narcissus carries some weight here because, in a sense, he becomes addicted to his own reflection. Upon discovering his reflection in water, Narcissus became enthralled with what he saw, leaving the real world behind for the fantasy in the reflection. It is told that Narcis-sus loved no one until he met his image. He met his demise staring into the pool of water, unable to avert his gaze. I must ask, why was he so captivated by his image? I speculate that it’s because he had little idea of what he was looking at. He could not process the information in the reflected image, yet he thought it was beautiful. Indeed, he was in love with himself; he just didn’t know it. In a similar way, the information in our personalized algorithm reflects our being through a differ-ent medium. I am suggesting that our personal algorithm is analogous to Narcissus’s reflection. Like Narcissus, our minds cannot process every byte of information in the reflection. Thus, it is not as easy to recognize ourselves in the automatic scroll as it is in a mirror. Nonetheless, we are in there, in a mythological form, and that is why we are so fascinated by it.

The features and underlying algorithms on social media platforms are addictive, and they are made purposely so. Indeed, there is an unmistakable parallel between the images of Narcissus staring into the pond and contemporary folk staring into their phone. It is possible that social media companies have picked up on the fact that what we love best is ourselves.

References Burhan, R., & Moradzadeh, J. (2020, November 27). [PDF] neurotransmitter dopamine (DA) and its role in the development of social media addiction: Semantic scholar. Journal of Neurology and Neurophysiology Retrieved March 18, 2023, from https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Neurotransmitter-Dopamine-%28DA%29-and-its-Role-in-the-Burhan-Moradzadeh/03e257521498dfe4639ba82bf88b3e09b276796a

Cohen, D. (2021, June 30). He created your phone’s most addictive feature. now he wants to build a rosetta stone for animal language. GQ. Retrieved March 18, 2023, from https://www.gq.com/story/ aza-raskin-interview

Elhai, J. D., Yang, H., & Montag, C. (2021). Fear of missing out (FOMO): Overview, theoretical underpinnings, and literature review on relations with severity of negative affectivity and problematic technology use. Brazilian Journal of Psychiatry, 43(2), 203–209. https://doi.org/10.1590/1516-4446-2020-0870

Eranti, V., & Lonkila, M. (2015). The social significance of t he Facebook like button. First Monday. https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v20i6.5505

Fox, J. (2018). An unlikeable truth: Social media like buttons are designed to be addictive. they’re impacting our ability to think rationally. Index on Censorship, 47(3), 11–13. https://doi. org/10.1177/0306422018800245

Ozanne, M., Cueva Navas, A., Mattila, A. S., & Van Hoof, H. B. (2017). An investigation into Facebook “liking” behavior an exploratory study. Social Media + Society, 3(2), 205630511770678. https://doi. org/10.1177/2056305117706785

Swart, J. (2021). Experiencing algorithms: How young people understand, feel about, and engage with algorithmic news selection on social media. Social Media + Society, 7(2), 205630512110088. https://doi. org/10.1177/20563051211008828

Wise, R. A., & Robble, M. A. (2020). Dopamine and addiction. Annual Review of Psychology, 71(1), 79–106. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-010418-103337

Written by Han Slater

Nothing in this world could prepare you for the gauntlet that is post-secondary. The reality is that post-secondary education is all-consuming and will attempt to swallow your sanity. Depending on the length of your degree, the workload, living conditions, and mental health going into post-secondary, it can be overwhelming. There is something cathartic, though, when you finally cross the finish line, you shed the stress and worries of university life, a sense of relief that you will never have to endure such a life again. The rushing freight train that is the obligations of real life and the reality of the workforce interrupts the euphoria. With a comprehensive university or college education, the workforce should be an easy minefield to traverse, right? Post-secondary education opens doors to jobs that were previously shut. Post-secondary education is becoming a shining beacon of hope that will lead you to a successful career and life. The reality that faces most people that graduate from post-secondary is grueling hours of work, fields not associated with their studies, and lack of benefits or none at all. The reality is that students graduating in a post-pandemic world are fearful for their future careers and lives (Frenette, Handler, & Chan, 2021). A reasonable concern considering the job market has been in recovery for years, and the Covid-19 pandemic resulted in a record high of youth and young adult unemployment at 29.4% (Frenette, Handler, & Chan, 2021). How does one stay hopeful going into the workforce? With a decrease in jobs because of the pandemic, will there be a stable return to Canada’s economy? When leaving post-secondary, many questions come to mind, and the looming anxiety of re-entering society hangs heavy. This article will review the challenges stu-dents face in re-entering the workforce. A disclaimer will be placed here that conversations surrounding the pandemic of Covid-19, the Freedom Convoy of 2022, discrimination, and mental illness will be explored in this article; if this exhausts you, dear reader, please, take time for yourself before reading on.

Post-Pandemic Anxiety

After three years of the Covid-19 pandemic, the fourth year is upon Canadians, and the constantly mutating virus forces everyone to adapt or sink. According to the University of Alberta’s Dr. Lynora Saxinger, hospitalizations are on the retreat, but the virus mutates and brings death and disabling conditions (Kaufmann, 2023). With this in mind, how does the Canadian economy continue to adapt to a constantly changing situation? Humans can handle much more than people give them credit; having no knowledge of Covid-19, expediting effective vaccines is a testament to humanity’s technological advancements (Lee, 2023). However, advancements for humanity meant a loss of trust and suspicion around individuals that took steps to work in their chosen field of study. Timothy Caufield is a Canada Research Chair in health law and policy at the University of Alberta. He speculates that revisionist history is altering the reality of the last three years of the pandemic (Lee, 2023). In an interview with Jennifer Lee from CBC News, Caufield ruminates on whether “governments will have the political will to act if a new pathogen emerges” (Lee, 2023). The following is a direct quote from Caufield from Lee’s article “Three years later: What has COVID-19 taught us, and are we ready for the next big threat?”

“There’s so much distrust now. There’s just so much polarization. There’s so much leveraging of uncertain science to really foster distrust in an unjustified manner that it leaves us in a very vulnerable position.”

Truthfully, in my biased opinion, Caufield is correct. After the Freedom Convoy of 2022 drove down to eastern Canada and parked at Parliament Hill, it became a symbol of distrust and civil unrest within Canada. Despite the convoy being smaller in actual numbers, consisting of only 3,000 big rigs and 15,000 anti-vaccine protestors, the significance of the Convoy left a lasting impression on Canadians because of their strange, illegal, and discriminatory display of protesting in Ottawa (n.a., 2022). It is reasonable to determine that when another wave of Covid-19 strikes, or a different strain of a virus, governments will have a more challenging time managing the public and its policies. However, how does this affect the job market and students leaving post-secondary?

Whatever one’s beliefs about vaccinations are, many jobs require individuals to have at least two doses of the Covid-19 vaccine. Especially if one is to work for the government or local municipalities, two doses of the vaccine is a minimum requirement for job postings. Many may ask why they must be vaccinated to work in governmental systems. It is because most of these positions require close interaction with the public and work with the departmental team that they are applying to. It is reasonable for people not to want to be sick or exposed to sickness in the workplace, and employees and employers are responsible for providing a safe work environment. However, not all job sites require two vaccine doses against Covid-19, and many jobs in the job market do not require proof of vaccina-tion. This is not to take a stance on how the job market should or should not run, but rather this is something that students graduating may face upon re-entering the workforce.

Credentials and Experience

Now that university or college is over, the world is open to you and is meant to be explored with curiosity and a heart full of confidence. It would be if the supposedly open door of opportunity did not lead to a brick wall of confusion and doubt. The problem most graduates face in the workforce is the requirement for experience. Jobs that were supposedly open are gated by the requirements of already having working experience in the field. If one has the credentials and the gumption to commit to a job, should that not be enough to give that individual a chance? According to an article by Kate Morgan of the British Broadcasting Corporation, an analysis of close to 4 million jobs posted on LinkedIn since late 2017 showed that 35% of postings for “entry-level” positions asked for years of prior relevant work experience (Morgan, 2021). That requirement was even more common in specific industries (Morgan, 2021). Over 60% of entry-level software and IT services job listings require three or more years of experience. In short, entry-level jobs seem not for people just entering the workforce, a strange and backward reality for post-undergraduate students (Morgan, 2021). Attempting to start in an entry-level job is not feasible for many now, despite its entry-level title. According to Morgan, an ever-growing market for internships and students wanting to build their work experience while still in post-secondary education has been increasing. While this is not necessarily bad, many students sacrifice their mental and physical health, trying to balance work, full-time studies, a social life, and their home lives. So this begs the question of what is more important while in school. Is it more important to gain work experience while in school? Or, is it more important to focus on one’s studies and time in post-secondary? I leave this question open to you, dear reader, to discuss amongst your peers and for your consideration.

Conclusion

As Covid-19 policies continue to change and cases reported fluctuate, the job market and the flow of students entering and exiting school will also vary. This article may have provided some daunting insight into the job market and the reality that many young people may struggle after returning to society after spending years in the academic world. I hope not to daunt you or intimidate you, dear reader, but rather inform you of the struggles I wished I would have been enlightened to before reentering society. Covid has altered how the job market will run, and people’s workplace expectations have changed. Some workplaces are more lenient, and some are unreasonable in their expectations. Some workplaces offer bare minimum working hours to be classified as part-time, and some are called parttime and will work you forty hours a week with minimum pay and no benefits. Some of these things are not new, and some conditions have worsened or improved because of the Covid-19 pandemic. I implore you to remember your worth and that life has more to offer than simply working in a rotten environment. Know your worth, and demonstrate it for those to see when re-entering society because you paid for expensive schooling to play in the game that is the workforce.

References

(2022). “Timeline of the ‘Freedom Convoy.’” Toronto Star. https://www.thestar.com/ news/investigations/2022/02/22/timeline-of-the-freedom-convoy.html?rf.

Frenette, M., Handler Tomasz, & Chan Winnie Ching Ping. (2021). “Leveraging postsecondary student employment into a career: The importance of remaining in the firm after graduation.” Statistics Canada. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/81-595-m/81-595m2020002-eng.htm.

Kaufmann, B. (2023). “Entering the pandemic’s fourth year, Alberta deaths surpass 5,600 while hospitalizations plummet.” Calgary Herald. https://calgaryherald.com/news/ local-news/after-three-pandemic-years-alberta-deaths-surpass-5600-while-hospitalizations-plummet.

Lee, J. (2023). “Three years later: What has COVID-19 taught us, and are we ready for the next big threat?” CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/covid-19-threeyears-later-lessons-1.6775259.

Morgan, K. (2021). “Why inexperienced workers can’t get entry-level jobs?” BBC. https:// www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210916-why-inexperienced-workers-cant-get-entry-level-jobs

In the first half of this article published in last month’s issue, I examined the year since the 2022 University of Lethbridge Faculty Association strike through a broad lens. I featured interviews and statements from the University of Lethbridge Students’ Union, the Faculty Association, and from the University president. Examining those three perspectives, a picture began to form of the struggle between a confident and united Faculty Association and an overbearing University administration. The narrative I was told was of a sympathetic Faculty Association fighting for their respect and rights and in the best interest of the students. Though, as I began to peel back the layers and include more voices in my investigation, I found that the circumstances of the 2022 strike and the year since are much more complex than that.

Amy Cran

Amy Cran is a student at the University of Lethbridge and was a member of the Anthropology Club executive leading up to the strike. Her club organised behind their faculty and spent days leading up to the strike participating in a letter-writing campaign, “urging the Board of Governors to reconsider [their] positions and expressing our support for our faculty and university.” Her clubs’ efforts culminated in the kickstarting of the U of L Student Solidarity and Action Council, a group with the goal of “getting information out to students and encouraging them to recognize the power of our collective voice.” This level of involvement gave Cran the unique opportunity of being closely tied with members of the Faculty Association during the strike.

“From my perspective, this was a very difficult time for our professors and one full of a lot of frustration and uncertainty.” Cran spent time o volunteering alongside her professors on the picket line as she felt that the administration’s actions were directly harming her and the faculty. “Like many students, the strike was a very difficult time for me and easily the lowest point of my university experience in terms of my mental health … I was also working as a Research Assistant at the time, and at one point, there were no clear steps for how students would be paid if negotiations went on any longer; those few days of uncertainty definitely caused unneeded anxiety.”

The anxiety surrounding the quality of Cran’s education and the future of her research reminded me of the statements that ULFA president Dan O’Donnell made to me in my last article. O’Donnell’s argument was that while the strike seemed inevitable, by halting research and progress on grants, the administration

Written by Daly Unger

and the board of governors were doing too much.

University of Lethbridge Campus Security

While writing the first part of this article, featured last month, I contacted members of the administration, the board of governors, and the U of L security staff for a statement about the University’s intention in:

1.Hiring external security staff,

2.the cost of hiring that staff for the duration of the strike,

3.the purpose of having them watch the strikers,

4.and clarification as to whose decision it was to bring on this extra help.

In my interview with ULFA President Dan O’Donnell, he shared his frustration with how the Administration and Campus Security handled the strike.

“The university and the board of governors made a number of mistakes,” O’Donnell told me, “one of [their mistakes] I think was the external security, I think it was an attempt at intimidation, and I think it was a mistaken attempt that did far more harm than good to the university … We offered several times to have strike protocols in place to govern this sort of thing, but again, the university had said no to that.”

Since the publication of the first article, the University of Leth-bridge’s Chief Safety Officer supplied a brief statement to me to help shed light on their decisions:

“The safety and security of our campus community are of the utmost importance and private security were enlisted throughout the duration of the labour disruption to augment the work of ULethbridge security officers and ensure the safety of those who were picketing, and those who were required to cross picket lines.

Contracting private security is a common occurrence when events outside the day-to-day operations of the University are beyond the operational capacity of our security team. At no point were private investigators contracted.”

Alex Dodd

During the forty days of the strike Alex Dodd took it upon herself to act as someone that students could get legitimate information from. Dodd had prior relationships with the faculty and many of her fellow students from her undergraduate and graduate assistant experience in the Fine Arts department. She visited the faculty on the picket line regularly to talk with them about the strike and to hear their perspectives during it.

The story that Dodd shared with me was one I think most U of L students will find relatable. As a student, she was not subject to the challenges that ULFA and the University faced. Instead, the persistent effect of the strike on her is mental and financial.

“It took a severe toll on my mental health, and even though I was an active supporter of the faculty and tried to keep myself busy, it quickly got old,” Dodd told me “The pressure put upon students to come back at the snap of a finger to complete their courses was a pressure I personally felt, and I had to drop a class I wanted to take badly, but that was an elective to handle the load of classes I had to have.”

Anonymous Faculty

I spoke to five professors from five different University of Lethbridge departments who experienced a very different strike than the one that ULFA advertised and that O’Donnell told me about. Instead of an exercise in unity and cohesion, these professors felt that the strike was when they lost control of their careers and were forced to participate in a job action that they did not feel was necessary or fair. The faculty members I spoke to will remain anonymous in this article.

“There was no option to say no to the strike,” an anonymous professor told me, “I think it was a manipulative ploy put on the union members. They said, “Yes or no? And if you vote ‘no,’ you’re weakening our position, which means the strike will go longer.”

This professor felt that they were coerced into an unfair position, a sentiment shared by some of the other like-minded professors I spoke to. When speaking to Dan O’Donnell earlier in the semester, he spoke highly of the regular polls that ULFA gave to its members and was proud of the “86% favour” that he says was maintained throughout the forty-day collective action.

“The first day of picketing, I cried; I cried the whole time,” a fac-ulty member told me. “I didn’t want to be there, I was really up-set about the whole thing, and the atmosphere was that you have to be in favour of [the strike].” Unfortunately for those ULFA members involved who were not excited to be there or felt that they had been wronged by their union, they were required to be on the picket line, or help the strike in other ways over multiple shifts per week for the entire six-week duration.

Some of the faculty told me that as they have reflected on the strike in the year since its summation, they have found that ULFA was misguided in its attempts to villainize only the administration. “There were almost no criticisms of the provincial government cutting our funding, for example, or how hard the pandemic was for everyone, but a lot of disgusting personal attacks on the President and Provost. For a couple of weeks, there was a sign on one of the University Drive porta-potties that said “BoG” (in reference to the University of Lethbridge

Board of Governors who ULFA was negotiating with) – not, interestingly enough, “UCP.”

The perspectives of the faculty that I spoke with varied drastically. I found that while some felt completely betrayed and misrepresented, others had nothing but appreciation for ULFA and how they were represented during the strike. The one place where I found the faculty agreed with each other was regarding their general disagreement. “We are academics, it is our job to deliberate and interrogate our own and others’ actions argumentatively.” Another anonymous faculty member told me. “We would be doing this job badly if we ever followed a leader, and complete agreement among a group of academics, essentially paid to think critically, would be a sign of a rather bad group of academics.”

The same faculty member quoted above felt that while it was unlikely that academics would or should ever agree, they found the strike a necessary challenge and something they do not regret participating in. “We went on strike because we perceived that all of these interests were being threatened and that the only way to defend ourselves was to demonstrate our strength and ability to defend ourselves. We were aware that this required us to be united, and we were united in our will to see things through. We still are, should the need arise again. And we still are united in part because we discuss individual de-cisions and make space for various opinions. But also because the faculty’s general perception was that the ULFA leadership acted in good faith towards our interests, attempting to balance the various demands this made on them. At least, that is how I see it.”

Just as in my conversation with ULFA and correspondence with the University of Lethbridge administration, emotions were still high among faculty members. It was clear in talking with some of them that the events of the strike and the way they feel they were treated by either their union or their employers are still affecting them now. What became clear to me throughout my search for a wider array of perspectives is that there is no consensus within ULFA, there is no solidarity in an issue this divisive, and that the “86% favour” that is common in the narrative can do little to represent the true opinions of a diverse academic faculty.

Concluding Reflections

The aftermath of the 2022 ULFA strike has brought about a tumultuous year for the University of Lethbridge, marked by division and conflict. Despite the passage of time, distrust and friction continue to plague the relationship between the administration, student body, and faculty association. The emotional wounds inflicted during the strike have yet to heal, and those on campus have been slow to forget the perceived wrongs they endured during the period of collective action.

My interviews with the University of Lethbridge Faculty Association revealed a union that remains steadfast in its pursuit of respect and the recognition of its demands. ULFA President Dan O’Donnell and his colleagues continue to express frustration with an administration that has been inflexible and sluggish in its response to the union’s demands.

As I delved deeper into ULFA, however, I discovered a more complex and diverse range of perspectives than the homogenous narrative presented by the union. While the faults and flaws of ULFA cannot excuse the administra-tion’s missteps, including the lockout of the entire faculty and the employment of private security, it is clear that both sides share responsibility for the ongoing dysfunc-tion and stagnation that has marked the past year.

Ultimately, the students have suffered the most from this conflict. Caught in the crossfire of a fight for respect and recognition during economic hardship, they have been forgotten and used by the very institutions that represent them and their educators.

Despite this sombre reality, however, there is hope for the future. ULFA and the administration are undergoing significant turnover and reshuffling, with promising new leaders taking the helm. There is an opportunity for this new leadership to pioneer a direction away from the last year’s stagnation. It is my sincere hope that these individuals will learn from past mistakes, listen to diverse voices, and work together to move forward toward a more posi-tive and productive campus in the upcoming semesters.

References (n.a.). (2023). https://www.ulfa.ca/faqs-for-studentsabout-ulfa-and-job-action/.