Making Sense of Social Media and the Information Landscape | Episode 8 of The Essential Sam Harris

220 snips

May 5, 2023

Tristan Harris, a former Google designer and advocate for ethical technology, discusses the detrimental effects of social media on individual and societal well-being. He shares insights from his documentary, The Social Dilemma, focusing on how algorithms promote division. The conversation includes perspectives on content moderation and corporate transparency from Jack Dorsey, while Jonathan Haidt reveals alarming mental health impacts, particularly on teenage girls. The episode concludes with a look at the political ramifications of social media, emphasizing the urgent need for solutions.

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INSIGHT

Human Downgrading

Social media undermines human weaknesses like our limited working memory and susceptibility to addiction.
This "human downgrading" is a gradual erosion of the social fabric, similar to climate change.

INSIGHT

Asymmetry of Power

Smartphones are the primary routers for our attention, and social media algorithms exploit this.
These algorithms, backed by massive computing power, predict what will keep us engaged, creating an asymmetry of power.

INSIGHT

The Cost of Free Information

The idea that information should be free is a dangerous misconception.
Information has value because it's tied to human experience, which is finite and vulnerable to exploitation.

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In this episode, we examine a series of Sam’s conversations centered around social media’s impact on the information landscape.

We begin with Sam’s second conversation with Tristan Harris, which was conducted shortly after the release of Tristan’s documentary, The Social Dilemma. The documentary lays out Tristan’s thesis on how social media is causing the deterioration of both individual and societal welfare. Author and technologist Jaron Lanier follows, echoing Tristan’s concerns and shifting the conversation to social media’s unique business model, addressing how perverse incentives reliably produce such detrimental outcomes.

We then hear from Jack Dorsey, the former CEO of Twitter. Sam and Dorsey’s conversation took place when Dorsey was still working at Twitter, and Sam still had an account. However, the questions they pose—relating to issues of content moderation and corporate transparency—are even more relevant today.

Next, psychologist Jonathan Haidt presents the alarming findings from his research on the psychological effects of social media, detailing how teenage girls are bearing the brunt of a mental health crisis.

Shifting to a more political lens, Sam and Cass Sunstein discuss Sunstein’s book, #Republic, and Sunstein addresses one of Sam’s most pressing fears of the last seven years: how social media is warping our opinions on politics. We then narrow down on this issue, with Zeynep Tufekci explaining the real-life consequences of social media’s influence on protest movements.

Finally, Sam and technology analyst Nina Schick dive into one of the most urgent concerns of the AI boom: deepfakes and how they might be weaponized to further pollute and degrade our information landscape.

About the Series

Filmmaker Jay Shapiro has produced The Essential Sam Harris, a new series of audio documentaries exploring the major topics that Sam has focused on over the course of his career.

Each episode weaves together original analysis, critical perspective, and novel thought experiments with some of the most compelling exchanges from the Making Sense archive. Whether you are new to a particular topic, or think you have your mind made up about it, we think you’ll find this series fascinating.