Not just a tool: why social-media use is bad and bad for us, and the duty to quit

ABSTRACT

With an eye on the future of global ethics, I argue that social-media technologies are not morally neutral tools but are, for all intents and purposes, a kind of agent. They nudge us to do things that are bad for us. Moreover, I argue that we have a duty to quit using social-media platforms, not just on account of possible duties to preserve our own well-being but because users are akin to test subjects on whom developers are testing new nudges, and we ought to deprive them of their test subjects.

KEYWORDS:

• Social media
• nudge
• choice architecture
• tool
• agency

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 See, for instance, Castro and Pham 2020, who argue that the attention economy is morally noxious.

2 This information comes from Tristan Harris, a whistleblower. See Lewis 2017, ‘“Our minds can be hijacked”: the tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia,’ The Guardian October 6, 2017 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/05/smartphone-addiction-silicon-valley-dystopia Accessed September 25; 2023.

3 See Sunstein 2012 and 2015 for more on the larger philosophical view within which nudges are a part. Nudges are the preferred tools of libertarian paternalists, who opt to employ them to promote the well-being of the person who is nudged (for which reason they are paternalists), without using coercion (for which reason they are libertarians). This view is distinguished from coercive paternalism, which regards coercion more favorably. (See Conly 2013 for an example and defense of coercive paternalism.)

4 See Campbell (forthcoming) for a more-detailed analysis of the choice architecture of online life, especially in e-commerce contexts.

5 For more on these problems, see Parsell 2008; Sunstein 2017; and Campbell 2023.

6 In this sense, it is akin to saying that we should avoid light use of addictive substances, such as cigarettes, even though most of the harm occurs only with heavy usage.

7 See Simpson 2022 for an overview of the privilege-based objection to the duty to quit using social-media apps.

8 See Parsell 2008 and especially Sunstein 2017 for arguments concerning costs of social-media apps that all of society pays.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Douglas R. Campbell

Douglas R. Campbell is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Alma College, where he researches and teaches both the history of philosophy and applied ethics, especially the ethics of social media.