My elderly relatives in India use social media far more than I do. Some are in their 80s and extremely active on WhatsApp, Facebook, and YouTube (i.e., they have their phones with them and are checking their feeds and posting regularly throughout the day). For some in my family, social media has been a way for relatives to communicate daily and be up to date with life “back home” and abroad. When I speak with transnational/diasporic friends, social media is generally not branded as a threat but is labeled as a complete game changer for maintaining their kinship links (i.e., integral to connecting family spread across thousands of miles).
This is in stark juxtaposition to some of the conversations I get pulled into where social media is blamed for: teenagers not communicating with their parents, pressures to update social media throughout the day, and the erosion of public and private boundaries. Sometimes, these escalate into larger trends (e.g., around teen social media addiction and dangerous TikTok challenges). Interestingly, some of the critical debates around updating that we see today were made in the past against traditional broadcast media—such as television and radio—framing them as dangerous. Even the telephone was labeled by detractors in this way, and when Polaroid photography reached a critical mass in the U.S., some were anxious that the instant photo could interrupt the social (e.g., a family dinner or a barbecue). Just like a Polaroid, using one’s smartphone can be pro-social, but can also be antisocial. For example, a minute-long looped video on TikTok could encourage an attempt to groove like an influencer amongst friends, but could be viewed as rude in other circumstances. Both responses are hugely dependent on cultures and contexts.
Some have argued that social media is a significant “instrument of panic production,” while libertarian and techno-utopian positions strongly disagree. Notwithstanding the need to maintain a critical lens toward social media, I think it is most useful to start with the premise that social media has changed the world in complex ways. In the early years of social media, some viewed social technologies as almost metaphysical, enabling connections at dimensions we did not think possible. Algorithms undergirding major social media platforms are actually often simple in principle. Their power stems from having access to large amounts of data that even elementary algorithms can digest to make quite useful (and, let’s be frank, sometimes scary) recommendations in terms of people to connect with or content to see. Add misinformation and disinformation to the mix, and social media search and recommendation algorithms can nudge us to consume harmful content.
The book I am currently writing is about how we update on social media. It asks whether cultures of digital updating have transformed society, and if new forms of collective social engagement via social media updating are part of a response to larger structural forces. I first started researching social media 15 years ago, a time when many with whom I spoke thought that social media like Twitter was a dot-com fad that would pass. I wrote my book about Twitter while wondering whether it would be a tenure dealbreaker. Fast forward and the platform had become so popular I was asked to write a second edition of the book (Wiley, 2018). Twitter was at the center of the Trump presidency, has been seen as a key facilitator for revolutions in the Middle East, and, at the more banal level, has allowed us to learn what our neighbor had for lunch.
Over the years, I expanded my initial ethnographic work on blogs, forums, and early social media platforms into mixed and computational methods as I realized just how much data we were creating that were publicly accessible. Smartphones had gone from a device for calling others to an ultrafast, ubiquitous handheld computing device that enables us to update people around the corner or around the world 24/7. So, how did we get here?
Updating in the Past and Present
We update to keep people up-to-date and are likewise updated by friends, colleagues, and strangers regularly through a variety of social media channels. Though updating is so ubiquitous today, “update” is a relatively new term. Indeed, the Oxford English Dictionary did not contain the word until the 20th century. It was really technological mediation in the 1940s with the telegram, mass-produced telephones, and relatively quick postal systems that led to “update” becoming a commonly used word.
The book I am writing explores how generations have gradually become more comfortable with sharing their personal thoughts in written form—a process particularly marked in modernity by letter writing, postcards, and telegrams, but now a core aspect of social media. The use of computer-mediated communication changed not only how we are able to update, but, importantly, the speed, reach, and publicness of updates. One way to think about this is as a shift from private media (e.g., letters/postcards) to social media, which can be public, semiprivate, or private. What is an interesting genesis from earlier forms of updating is that much of social media updating—though it is very public—is often intimate, much like the content of letters and postcards. This is evident in posts about one’s love life or emotional state. What emerges is an argument that though social media is ostensibly public, user-generated content remains personal. Algorithms can also nudge us to regularly produce and consume more personal content—a move which encourages users to check into platforms throughout the day to remain up-to-date socially.
Letters and postcards were unidirectional, had a single addressee, and generally took quite some time to reach their destination. Social media keeps us continuously up-to-date every day, and this has changed aspects of our sociality. I am reminded of Theodor Adorno’s observation of how values (he is referring to aristocratic ones) end up ceding to “egalitarian terms and the jargon of unlimited communication.” Was Adorno’s comment prescient? The difference between updating someone via a once-a-month letter and unlimited streams of snaps, TikToks, tweets, and Facebook status updates changes our social communication. And we are feeling it! Numerous comments made to me echo the pressures some feel to regularly update on social media. While others (like my relatives) are thrilled to be bombarded by family photos on their social feeds, which create a feeling of telepresence, almost being physically present.
Changes in Social Norms
Ultimately, we are disclosing more than we ever have to often unknown, public audiences. Our lives are more searchable and knowable, and it is tough to maintain personal privacy. One response to this has been the creation of anonymous or ephemeral social media (e.g., Snapchat). On the other hand, some have embraced the blurring between the private and the public. Indeed, apps focused on meetups and dating, such as Bumble, actively identify individuals who an algorithm thinks we should meet based on proximity. Those who have embraced more of this blurring publicly update more of what Erving Goffman calls the “back stage,”—our intimate lives behind the curtain. Part of the increase in this type of disclosure is due to the fact that sharing publicly has never been so easy.
What individuals consider acceptable to share on social media platforms has shifted dramatically from even 20 years ago. Furthermore, the norms around smartphone use have changed substantially during this time as well. For many around the world today, social media ubiquity is not equated with anti-sociability, rather we are increasingly social through social media. That being said, the social is often heavily branded and marketed, as well as being influenced by algorithmic decision-making that is largely beyond most people’s control or understanding. More and more, our experience of the social is mediated by large group interactions, which changes the politics of everyday life. This can also mean that social judgment or encouragement is increasingly determined by “likes” and comments made by nebulous, networked audiences.
While some embrace these shifts in social norms and want to actively participate in these new forms of sociability, others desire obscurity away from public mediation. For some in the former camp, having updates liked by followers becomes socially important, and one may even feel the update never really existed at all if it has not received public engagement (think: “When a tree falls in a lonely forest, and no animal is near by to hear it, does it make a sound?“). The opinions of strangers can be important to individuals (e.g., “Funny t-shirt!’ or “Cool shoes!” said in passing). Social media platforms not only quantify this, but, by their networked design, multiply our interactions. Moreover, our updates can be commented on as well, increasing modes of social approval. Some of these changes in our social norms have been driven by pushes from users, while others have been driven by the need for technology companies to keep growing their earnings.
Capital Changes Our Online Sociability
When our desire to update is framed as an individual issue or as an unavoidable aspect of modernity, we downplay the role of macro-sociological processes, particularly socioeconomic forces. Social media updating is ultimately a reflection of digital capitalism. The platforms we use to update our friends, family, distant relatives, and various publics encourage us to update because this is their business model. As we update, we produce content that is a commodity. Moreover, as we update, we are subject to targeted advertising—a stark departure to letters and postcards. Many social media algorithms are designed to increase the time we spend on their platforms. Therefore, the reasons for our updating are not as simple as wanting to keep our friends, family, and coworkers, and the world more broadly up-to-date. Though this is obviously part of it, most do not see an Instagram or TikTok post as digital labor. Of course, influencers who make a living on these platforms are keenly aware of the economics at play.
If you download all your data from Facebook or from another social media platform, it will quickly become apparent that: (1) there are literally thousands of pages of data on each platform we are active on, and (2) what we are producing, as well as consuming, is generally not singular in focus, but encompasses the varied nature of our personalities and interests. For this reason, advertising-driven platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube are able to use our data to become immensely profitable.
Moreover, additional features, particularly those using artificial intelligence (AI), keep expanding social media’s capacity to interest us. Though far from AI, an example of telephone expansion from 1877 as explained in the Ohio paper Wheeling News-Register helps explain capitalism’s urge to keep expanding in terms of technological capacity: “An experiment […] demonstrated that the current one telephone would divide itself into numerous smaller currents, sufficiently strong for at least six telephones.” Such discoveries enabled the telephone to have much greater reach as offices that had a single telephone could have telephones dedicated to specific departments and apartment buildings with a single pay phone could have phones in each unit. This represented a step change in terms of the telephone’s presence in economic and social life.
The fact that billions of dollars are motivating how algorithms are designed means that our experience of the social online is highly influenced by global capitalism and holding platforms accountable is a form of public sociology, which I hope more engage in. Sadly, many researchers seeking to support these forms of accountability are being blocked from data collection. For example, Facebook recently deleted the accounts of a team of NYU researchers studying political advertising on the platform (article requires login) in the name of user privacy.
Ultimately, the ubiquity of social media updating is not without its detractors. Some see this move as a shift toward banality. However, it is clear that social media is here to stay (or another technology replaces it). Looking at historical predecessors to social media can help us keep a more balanced view toward some technologies that we don’t even understand. As new platforms emerge and attempt to woo users with new approaches to producing content and reaching audiences (e.g., TikTok’s use of very short, looped videos), it is likely that our norms will continue to shift, as Norbert Elias has so eloquently documented in the historical evolution of manners. It is also important for us to put ourselves in the place of diverse others, who may see these technologies in very different ways.
The banal on these platforms can be used as ammunition to write off these platforms, but they are important sites for the performance of the social (and to study the sociology of everyday life). The banal is not only profound to some, but integral (like my transnational diasporic family). On the other hand, it is equally important for us to continue to be critical, particularly questioning AI and the algorithmic hands that control it. Moreover, just as social media can foment positive social change, the same technologies can (rapidly) organize change that is disruptive to democracy (e.g., Parler’s pivotal role in the January 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection). Therefore, now more than ever, we need to critically think about social media sociologically.
Any opinions expressed in the articles in this publication are those of the author and not the American Sociological Association.
