Social media’s Dorito problem

If social media is the junk food of content, let’s be real about why people consume it in the first place.

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🎧 Listen | 6:39 mins

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Last week, the social media debate came back to the top of newsfeeds. Two US courts held Google and Meta responsible for harming youth. After Australia banned social media for people under 16, it was expected that more countries would follow suit with rulings and policy changes against tech companies.

I’ve been in this field long enough to stay calm through the tides and turns of tech discussions. These are important and hard questions, and it’s a good thing that people care.

What concerns me is how much expert commentary about social media uses the same kind of emotionally charged language that media literacy teaches us to be wary of. Scolding platforms and shaming users may sell books, but it oversimplifies the very complex issues at play.

Take the recent New York Times op-ed, There’s a Good Reason You Can’t Concentrate by Georgetown professor, Cal Newport. His argument is valid — digitization affects attention spans. We should be more intentional with our phone use.

But when Newport labels TikTok videos digital Doritos and writes bluntly, don’t use TikTok. Don’t use Instagram. Don’t use X, he’s missing the point. He focuses on individual behavior while glossing over the structural issues behind it.

If we’re comparing social media to ultraprocessed food, let’s follow it through. Because the reason people eat Twinkies and Pop-Tarts isn’t due to lack of willpower or knowledge, as Newport suggests. It’s that the world we live in gives them limited options. The same is true for how we consume information.

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First, there’s time. Convenience foods and packaged breakfasts didn’t arise because people were lazy or ignorant. In fact, it’s the opposite. They developed because of how the workday was restructured during the Industrial Revolution.

Short-form content serves a similar purpose. Many people work multiple jobs and pick up extra shifts to make ends meet. Outside of work, personal responsibilities and schedules keep getting busier. That leaves people with limited time and mental energy to process in-depth information. So in many ways, the rise of short-form content simply reflects modern realities.

It’s easier to blame those damn TikTokers than it is to blame the fact that people don’t have the leisure time to read a whole newspaper anymore … I get focus for about 20 minutes before (people) go to bed or when they’re in the bathroom or if they’re on a break. - V Spehar, Under the Desk News

Next, there’s availability. Just as food deserts deny communities healthy food options, information deserts leave people without relevant information. That’s how platforms got popular in the first place — they filled gaps that the mainstream left open.

LGBTQ+ youth find online communities that don’t exist in their physical environments. Women find validation and advice with health questions that traditional sources lack. Minority language speakers find any content at all in their own language. Until those needs are met in the real world, digital spaces will remain crucial.

Now, let’s talk about skills. We urge people to eat fresh food, but don’t teach them how to cook. The same goes for content consumption.

Like Newport, I’d love for people to read more long-form. A good starting point would be improving their ability to read. With over half of American adults reading below a sixth-grade level, it’s unproductive to frame their engagement with simpler content as a personal failure.

And as a communicator, I’d argue that short-form is its own discipline and intellectual exercise. In my previous life, I was trained to write research papers and policy briefs; flowy sentences were my jam. Now, I’m writing for broader audiences online, and it’s given me a whole new appreciation for brevity as a skill.

Finally, environmental factors matter. Our culture simply doesn’t support analog life anymore. We shouldn’t be made to feel guilty about using our phones when daily life revolves around them – they’re how we pay bills, call our families, and yes, read books.

You can see this both at work and at school. TL;DR became standard email etiquette because coworkers stopped reading long memos. Presentations replaced documents because visualizing your points works better in meetings. And while schools move to ban phones, nearly all of them give students devices like Chromebooks and iPads to do coursework on – without making digital or media literacy a standard part of teaching.

This is where much of the expert discourse on technology falls short. We focus on the behavior — what people are consuming, how often, and for how long — without fully accounting for the conditions that shape those behaviors in the first place.

When expert discourse ignores people’s realities, it reinforces a growing disconnect from the people it’s meant to serve.

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I understand why people are celebrating the court rulings against Meta and Google. Accountability matters, and platforms should be held to higher standards.

But we’re kidding ourselves if we think that’s enough to address the real issues young people face with body dysmorphia, loneliness, bullying, and anxiety. These aren’t just tech problems — they’re human ones. And I really don’t want to delegate the responsibility of solving some of humanity’s most complex issues to tech companies.

If courts and policymakers want to negotiate delaying access and changing product features, they have real momentum now.

In the meantime, let’s focus on our roles as experts, public servants, and educators to address the underlying dynamics. Here are some suggestions to start:

• Standardize digital and media literacy education for K-12 students. We can fund it by taxing the platforms.

• Include digital literacy in medical and graduate programs, so the next generation of experts can navigate how changing information flows impact their work and how they can use technology as a tool.

• Prioritize public engagement from institutions and experts. We can’t improve public knowledge by wishing people sought traditional sources. We need to meet them where they are.

• Elevate high-quality content online. Platforms are designed to reflect users’ engagement – but when only 10% of people like, comment, or share, they skew the signals for everyone else. Intentional lurking is how we change what these spaces reflect.

If you’re an expert, this is the work in front of you: not just sharing knowledge, but participating in how people build understanding about your field. And making intentional choices about how (and whether) you show up.

Holding tech accountable is essential, but it’s just part of the solution. It doesn’t absolve the rest of us. Because if we keep centering technology in solutions to human problems, we’re entrapping ourselves in it even more. ◾