The Placebo Effect: Exploring How Social Media Is Only "Addictive" To Those With High SMV

It seems everywhere I turn these days, commentators are bemoaning the addictiveness of social media and further using this assertion as a corollary to append arguments to.  Even Healthline generalizes it as a “behavioral addiction” while strategically avoiding social/class qualifiers relative to gender, race, etc.  Instead, the article opts for a more general analysis, using the pronoun “you” 94 times. 

Truly, sites like Instagram and even Tinder aren’t so much a source of dopamine as they are frustrating to most people.  Rather, platforms such as these specifically reward youth, femininity and, of course, Eurocentricity.  Further, any attempts to generalize the entertainment factor that social media provides are merely attempts to downplay the currency that it’s becoming in this sexual/genetic dystopia we exist in.

Indeed, it’s unlikely most men find social media deliciously addictive.  Moreover, the fact that sexualized photos get more likes isn’t just obvious but can also be discerned from the abstract of studies by both Bridgewater State University and Seoul National University.  Now, it could be argued that “sexualized” doesn’t imply a gender.  But, correspondingly, when contrasted with the reactions of homosexual men, one study reported women found unsolicited dick picks unwanted or harassing.  Thus, we can deduce if a sexualized photo is getting likes, it’s probably a woman’s.  It can further be deduced that if a person’s sexy photos are seen as offensive vs pleasant, they aren’t going to find social media addictive; why would they?

            Likewise, it’s obvious white humans benefit from social media more abundantly.  And no citations are needed for this claim: a few web searches will reveal that the top non-actor/musician/athlete influencers across every platform, from TikTok to Twitch, are Eurocentric. Thus, users who fall into that demographic are likely to be addicted to those platforms. 

            Still, the status quo effectively quells dissent by convincing the populace that certain threats affect us equally.  Though, that’s far from true.  It’s also part of the reason, for example, I stopped listening to NPR at the start of the Covid lockdowns: they kept insisting we were “all in this together.” However, given the pandemic enforces racial/class segregation better than Jim Crow laws ever could, I can see how white journalists think everyone is as chill about it as they are.

     Similarly, convincing the public that social media is equally addictive (i.e., fun) to everyone, but glossing over the inequity it propagates is a way for its top beneficiaries to covertly shift society to an economic model where femininity and Eurocentricity are the new currency, while keeping anyone who lacks this new social capital (i.e., non-female and/or non-white folks) complacent.  

     In brief, social media’s results vary too much for claims of its addictiveness to be generally true.  This is in contrast, for example, to drugs and alcohol: substances whose ability to induce euphoria isn’t conditioned on the user’s gender or race.  So, the next time you hear some pundit lament about social media’s “addictiveness” without qualifying who it’s addictive to, understand it’s an attempt to downplay the caste system being replicated online via social media.  With that said, thanks for reading, and stay pissed.