Diving deep

I’m reading a new book by NYU professor Jonathan Haidt titled “The Anxious Generation.” Usually, I’d wait until I finished a book before I recommended it, but this one hits several points early on relative to educators and parents.

Chock-full of research and important data points, the book navigates the onset of this epidemic of anxiety facing our youth. Haidt insists the epidemic has roots in the creation of the smartphone and subsequent apps that allow for an entire universe of social media to be carried in one’s pocket. In a child’s pocket.

I think parents ought to read this book. I think grandparents should read it and badger their adult kids with the data. I believe educators will find it’s an encyclopedia of why their students are who they are.

That’s not what I’m writing about today, however. Maybe I will in the future, but today I’m writing about certain parts of the research that made me understand more clearly the importance of local newspapers. Bear with me.

Haidt takes pains to describe the allure of social media and how it’s designed to capture attention and hold it. He comments on details released by whistleblowers who describe how executives within social media companies employ behaviorists to better understand how to make their product more addictive.

Let that sink in.

It seems those under 30 — those who were kids when smartphones and social media became mainstays — are especially affected by this in terms of focus.

I saw this in person at an intriguing lecture at the Clinton School last week where I noted that most older attendees listened intently. Some even had journals out, taking notes. Then I noticed a handful of younger folks scrolling through phones while the panel spoke. Their hands moved so fast it was obvious they weren’t doing a deep dive into research — they were likely doing a thumb dance through social media.

Maybe I have heightened awareness because of this book and I’m overreacting. Or maybe those younger attendees really face an addiction and can’t fight off the lure of their phones even during a lecture that used terms such as “crisis response” and “vital voices.”

Among the ways that social media causes this unhealthy fixation is by encouraging audience capture. That means users are trained to seek attention for their posts via like buttons or repostings by telling audiences what they want to hear. How do you get more likes or repostings? Extremes. By tapping the human need to feel a jolt of emotion, social media companies have taught us that factual reporting is boring. They must use descriptive color and noise to get attention.

Now, understand that I’m on board with descriptive color and noise because any good fiction reader understands the need to describe fully and interestingly. Same goes for writing nonfiction. However, social media has taught us that good descriptions are not enough.

Extremes get all the attention. The more provocative, the more response you get, the more dopamine released and that jolt you feel when someone likes your post — or even criticizes it in some cases — increases. This encourages otherwise good observers of life and politics and sports and whatever else to post the overly critical or overly extreme so that users will look their way. The users become addicted to these extremes. The posters become addicted to the attention. The extremes deepen.

A few days ago, U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel underscored this with a reaction to an Axios article detailing the amplification of divisions on social media. Writing about a 1,000-mile bike ride he took, he said, “The worse the cellphone coverage is, the nicer people are. It’s just that simple. If it’s spotty, people are actually decent.”

Many in the youngest generation of adults now crave short reads that emphasize the extreme joy or extreme disgust that comes with reading these posts. To many of them, reading a well-written non-emotional, fact-based, void-of-opinion news story is, well, boring.

Which takes us back to local newspapers.

Satire is centuries old. Columnists with a bite have historically been among the most read, most vilified, and most loved writers. Investigative journalism has made careers and broken them. But no one has ever found themselves addicted to newspapers, though folks like you and me read them every day. This nuance, though seemingly insignificant, is profound.

It takes patience and concentration to read. Overuse of social media rewires young brains and alters their ability to focus. Newspapers do the opposite — there is no algorithm’s siren song leading readers toward rocks of destruction. No one pulls out a newspaper during an intriguing lecture.

The local paper, the one I started reading in fifth grade, offers award-winning reporting alongside interesting commentary. Local sports remain a fascination for me, and I’ll always scan high school scores to find players to watch. Our area beautifully unfolds before us without any baggage. To take advantage of this, one must understand that reading is a deep dive that’s worth it.

Professor Haidt’s research suggests that social media rewires young brains and makes it virtually impossible for them to do these deep dives, evaporating their willingness to do the work real curiosity requires. For now, I’m just thankful that folks still read newspapers and ours is surviving the wave of passivity that drives folks to their feeds.

Of course, you’re reading this, so you know what I mean. Now, share a long, interesting article with someone under 30 and judge for yourself whether we have a problem.