How the social media business model relies on social media addiction

Today, we live in a world dominated by the presence of social media. Almost all of us use social media for various purposes from entertainment to education, news and even something as basic as communication with our friends and family. We all know the countless benefits social media has brought to us, however as Sophocles has wisely said, “Nothing vast enters the life of mortals without a curse.” It is a well-known fact that social media is a two-faced coin, and while it has revolutionised our lives and is one of the most crucial inventions of mankind, it has brought upon some serious threats to society. These threats are serious enough to change society the way we know it, issues like addiction, depression, fake news, and many more are just some of the issues brought to light.

Now, we often hear social media sites updating their software and algorithms in order to fight fake news, and how it seems to be working, as social media sites have come a long way since the time they were created, and are far more mature these days, moreover, users are able to rely on credible news sources. However, what we don’t hear is changes in the algorithm to make it less addicting, and there is only one major reason for this- MONEY.

How could this be? One might ask, and well this is how their business model works. Most social media sites are free, and well, being students of economics, we know that nothing in this world is for free. “If you aren’t paying for the product, you are the product.” This quote is appropriate to our relationship with social media as consumers, since we do not pay, and so the question arises regarding who pays, the answer is advertisers. They are the clients of social media companies, and us consumers are the products, well more specifically our data, mainly because they want to advertise products and services you are more likely to purchase. As a result, everything you do online is tracked, even activities as basic as staring at a picture, the time you spend staring at it is monitored, all this to make sure that the most suitable ads are shown to you. Social media sites are also designed in a way that they appear fun and hence are addicting, this is done to ensure you spend more time on the app or site, as this way they can get you to look at more ads, and in turn click on them.

The more the traffic on the site, the more the advertisers will invest in it, and so it has turned into a race, and the most successful social media sites, are often the most addictive ones, take for example Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and many more. These companies are now some of humanity’s most valuable companies, and interestingly, they are also sites where people spend most of their time on, it isn’t your fault, these sites are designed to be addictive, this is how they rake in investments from advertisers. Their business model relies on the site being addictive, and so we hear many stories of how more and more people are getting addicted to social media, one must be careful with their time, and understand how to use social media beneficially. As the addictiveness of these sites is just bound to increase, and we must realise that social media isn’t the product, we are the product, our data is the product, and our time is the product that is being sold here.