Or how I learned to start worrying and hate that interaction and sociability have been diluted to such a robotic term as engagement.
Already, our society has devolved into a robotic existence where the interactions of “friends” are reduced to swiping on a device; where even fifteen seconds is too long a time to expend on another. It was clear that social media platforms were never created to “bring people closer” but rather to drive them apart and dehumanize the way we interact with each other. However, with every new addition, a further desensitization, and dehumanization takes place.
Where (years ago), a friend would have taken a moment to call you if they had not heard from you in a while, now the situation is very different. Though people may view your “posts”, photos, and “stories”, they rarely actually interact or engage with them, or you.
They will rarely offer unprompted interactions. What are prompted interactions then? Well, prompted contact comes as a result of seeing a “story” or post and then choosing to engage with that person, ask how they are feeling, check in on them, or simply interact with them.
In a time of constant uploads, “story” shares and perfectly timed posts, if you do not post, you may well become invisible. And you may likely become very invisible, very fast.
But the question is not just why, but who? Who would you become invisible to? Automated, electronic “people”? Humans so detached from their true sense of interaction that they function more as bots than actual beings?
For human interaction has now been reduced into small windows of a few seconds. Where people, especially those who call themselves your friends, are contented with “checking in” simply by viewing 15 seconds of your life. What is more concerning, however, is that statistics and personally verifiable data shows that almost 100% of people viewing your story will ordinarily spend less than the full 15 seconds on each slide. The “insights” category, accessible to users, will demonstrate how many of those that have viewed your story, have clicked to move “forward” on it. Universally, almost everyone will “skip forward” on stories, meaning they spend, and want to spend, only less than 15 seconds viewing what is shared.
When the only interaction is to view a 15 second story, and even that interaction is reduced to one consuming the least amount of time possible, we must realize that “social” media is anything but.
Instead, it furthers only a robotic existence lacking in normal human interaction and socialisation. Though there are several issues with social media, all of them substantially detrimental to mental, societal and human health, this essay will solely focus on how human sociability and attention spans have been reduced to infinitesimally brief mechanical states of interaction, lacking in feeling, emotion and depth. It has been reduced to automated actions, which universally inspire non-responsive physical real-world reactions, and at best, (and highly concerning) what I call “push-button engagement”.
For indeed, the newest addition to “stories” was to have a selection of easily clickable “emoticon reactions”. You no longer even have to type, or sift through a range of hundreds of emoticons in order to express yourself. You simply tap. Tap. Tap.
Of course, emotions reduced to emoticons are already by no means extensive or fully inclusive, they are brief representations of how you may truly be feeling – though how often will people share the “crying laughing face” and be, at best, smiling? How many memes exist depicting this situation?
Implementing a one click “interaction” or “engagement” function within “stories” is one of the most insidious ways to encourage people to not only be comfortable with their minimal exertion in sociability, but to consider such “interactions” normal. Furthering desensitization. Encouraging dehumanization.
“Push-button engagement”, this is the best you can hope for. At the very best, a user may stop on your story to simply and easily “react” to it with a set of 6 predetermined emojis. And push-button engagement is ever encouraged with each newer feature, each new app, each new trend; continually dehumanizing our basic responses.
Consider again the hugely popular meme just mentioned: where people will text or respond with “laughing crying” face but are, in real life, at best smiling. People continuously have less and less real-world reactions and emotions to what they observe on screen.
Such a lack of real-word response and physical reaction can be attributed, amongst other things, to both an overload of constant information, and of course as just described, the way social media has been engineered to reduce contact and interaction to the most minimal, robotic sense.
With regards to an overload of constant information, this invariably happens upon signing in. The top of your “feed” (whether hungry or not the “feed” is always available!) is littered with “story” after story of friends posting a myriad of things. Usually personal or ego based “shares” (my new clothes, what im wearing, my this, my that), sometimes information, sometimes jokes.
However, regardless of the content, (though content can also be harmful, both for those sharing – as it can perpetuate ego, and for those seeing, where it perpetuates comparison), it is the amountof content which contributes quite supremely to desensitization.
People want to keep swiping. They want to see the next person’s story. They just need to keep scrolling. They want to see the next person’s post. There is no time to waste. There is not enough time to engage. “How can I drive engagement?”, businesses and individuals will ask themselves. This, I fear, is the question of the internet generation and the insidious problem present in society as a result.
Unfortunately, real depth of engagement or personal investment in a situation/story/post is quite largely eliminated; and even minimal, push-button engagement is very, very unlikely to occur. (see statistics pasted at the end of the essay).
Desensitization, and a lack of real-world response and emotional investment, is further enforced by the reality of being physically separated from the situation, moment and emotion by a screen, typically hundreds or even thousands of miles away from the person/image/video you are viewing. As such, not being present, you are not fully impacted by the person/image/video. Are the people in the video laughing? Would you be only (at best) smiling if you were present in front of them? Or would you also be laughing along with your friends as they laughed around you? Are they upset or angry? Would you feel detached if you were sitting right next to them? Would you “skip forward” in real life? How would that happen – would you leave?
Simply by the mere reality of being physically detached, you are unavoidably emotionally detached. You cannot as fully engage, and be completely emotionally invested in, a situation where you are not physically present, or even fully mentally present. That is not to say it may not have some type of effect on you – the point is that the effect is diminished.
Indeed, why do so many of the world’s religions emphasize a need for being present? If we are not present we are nothing, for there is nothing real but the current moment. Social media continually and vehemently enforces the destruction of the present moment, (amongst other things) by detaching you from the situations you are viewing, and simultaneously detaching you from your current reality.
And it is this point, this detachment, which results in the diminishing of true feelings and interactions. It results in the lack of real-world response (think back to the meme); it results in the lack of even online engagement the only place where engagement (forget calling it sociability or human interaction) currently exists!
Statistics demonstrate that 0.00033% is the typical engagement rate on Instagram stories; and 3.3% is the absolute best engagement rate you could possibly hope for. Out of 10,000 people, only 3% of people - at very, very best, will actually reply to your story.
Unquestionably, the desensitization of humanity, into largely unfeeling and automated machines, is very real.
So in an age where engagement is, quite clearly, no better acquired by continuously actively engaging, perhaps it is best to disengage. Largely step away from posts, only doing them occasionally, and remove story posting all-together. Could it be, that this way perhaps, your friends will realize you have been silent? Will any question why? Will any of them check in to make sure you are ok?
Or will they wait for the next “story” that they believe must surely be coming. Have they even noted your absence?
No longer will a riveting compliment be “Your smile lights up the room”; “I always notice when you are not there”; but rather, “you sure do have a lot of followers!”
“Boy, you sure can drive engagement on your posts!” You mustbe doing something right.
Stat excerpts:
(NY Times and a 2020 study of social media usage/engagement featuring 29k stories and 145k frames)
“There are some people whose Stories I watch where if I accidentally thumbed them some clapping hands emoji or a 100 emoji I wouldn’t really care. But for the most part, I watch Stories from hundreds of people every day who I’ve never spoken to and with whom I don’t want to interact.”
“Instagram Stories were made to move fast, and with so many to see, your audience doesn’t have all day. The median tap-forward rate at 5 frames per day is about 75%. If you’re posting more than 12 frames, your viewers are tapping forward on 80% of your frames–ouch.”
“The median tap-back rate is about 3% which is incredibly close to last year’s data. The top 25% of brands see tap-back rates at 4.6%, so if you’re looking at tap-back rates close to that, you’re doing great.”
“Our analysis shows that users mostly don’t reply to Stories—particularly the bottom 25% of Stories, which has a 0% average reply rate.
But luckily for high performing brands, the average reply rate has increased in 2020. The top 25% of brands in this study saw a 47% increase in Story replies. Median reply rates also grew, about 40%.
Those high levels of change don’t necessarily mean jackpot success, but that the average brand gets a reply from 0.00033% of viewers or 3.3 of every 10,000 people watching their Story. Messages and emoji reactions, launched by Instagram in July 2018, are included in reply rates and contribute to the uptick for 2020.”