Homosapiens in the Age of Technology (special edition)
Welcome back to Facty Friday from the DRG Bureau's Evidence and Learning team! This special edition of Facty Friday highlights psychology research into how humans evolved over time in small groups and insights from brain science to shed light on why people react differently to each other and content online. This is relevant to how we think about cooperation, problem-solving and human dignity, which are core concerns for anyone working on democracy, human rights and governance.
The scale of extreme content online desensitizes us and makes it easier to shame others.
Why is it so easy to shame others online? The authors of this article argue that the evolved behaviors that helped humans survive in small groups (such as detecting violations of care and upholding cooperation norms) are ill suited for today’s online world. For almost 99% of human history, people have lived in small semi-nomadic tribes. Today, estimates suggest over 5 billion people are connected and use the internet regularly, spending almost 7 hours a day online--almost as much as they do sleeping. An overabundance of stimulating content (i.e. tweets that contain emotional language) that tends to be more extreme (i.e. small subset of users with extreme views tend to be most active online) artificially inflates people’s perception of wrongdoing and animosity. This can lead to a reduction to empathy and compassion for others in online interactions. In addition, the sheer number of people online can make punishing perceived wrongdoings easier and more intense. In small groups, punishment is bound by vested interests in fostering group cooperation. Online, where the scale of users is so much greater, public punishment costs very little and may focus on retribution rather than rehabilitation and upholding cooperation. We might extrapolate this dynamic to explain why there is an increase in polarization and a decrease in the tolerance for divergent views--both of which undermine democracy.
The distance between users online can lead to ineffective collective action.
While the internet is credited with spawning successful protests, the authors suggest that online activism might also prioritize shallow, low-cost forms of collective action that may not be effective in achieving long-lasting change. Psychological distance that separates individuals online may cultivate broad but shallow interest. Furthermore, the internet can make it easier for individuals to engage in a cause for cosmetic purposes-- to signal virtue rather than demonstrate a deep and abiding commitment to that cause. This suggests that understanding how the internet is a tool for social change and not the social change itself is critical to sustaining long-lasting gains in protests and social movements.
Social media is effective at leveraging brain science to trigger responses in users.
Research summarized by the Center for Humane Technology suggests that persuasive technology leverages human vulnerabilities to promote behaviors that could compromise our well-being. Those include making the trivial seem urgent, encouraging seeking without fulfillment (i.e. the brain circuit involved in wanting is much more powerful than the brain circuit involved in enjoyment), forced multitasking (i.e. attention is limited and “attention residue” in switching from one task to another makes focus difficult), weaponized fear and anxiety (i.e. evolutionarily, fear-related stimuli kept us alive so it is easily triggered), encouraging constant social comparisons, and telling us what we want to believe (i.e. “confirmation bias”). The graphic by the Center for Human Technology below maps some of the vulnerabilities.
One final parting thought comes from Dr. E. O. Wilson, an American biologist, naturalist, ecologist, and entomologist known for developing the field of sociobiology, on humans and technology:
“The real problem of humanity is the following:
We have paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and a God-like technology”.
Got a study we should share for Facty Friday? Email drg.el@usaid.gov!