The Social-Media Swamp

Why is it that whenever I am recommended a group of people whom I should become friends with, network, or follow, most of them are members of the opposite sex, single, and half my age?

Just what exactly am I expected to do with them?

I would like to tell you how I boldly resist the temptation to look at these suggested matches, but I’d be lying. I look at them. I have no choice. Part of my job is to spend hours a day on social media linking up with people in my industry.

Hi-tech, where women are making phenomenal strides, is still over two thirds male. How is it that the people I am recommended to meet are two thirds female? Everything is done by algorithm. The computer is given a set of rules by the people who run these sites, and it follows those rules exactly without deviation or interpretation.

People want to make an impression. They post photos of them at their best. For career oriented social media sites, can you blame them? Still, just looking at these images stirs up thoughts that suffocate the soul.

I never realized how bad it was until I was forced to do something drastic.

I downloaded a Chrome app called “no-images.” Going to the chrome://extensions/ URL, I can enable and disable it at will. When I spend my 2 hours a day on social media, I turn it on. When a page loads, after 2 seconds the pictures suddenly disappear. I can still see the page fine, but with no graphics. When I am reading the paper, I turn it off, but when I am on sites where I just see faces and faces, it’s best to see names, jobs, and descriptions. I feel like I get to know them better. I can do my job, and not be bombarded with the landmines facing anyone who sits in a cubicle hours a day with nothing else to do but think.

It works.

My mind is clear. But then I realize something terrifying: It’s been said that a third of all divorces are a result of social media. Social media has made it simple to chat with someone of the opposite sex for hours without actually meeting them. By the time you do see them in person, the relationship has progressed to the point that anything can happen.

The people running these sites could take responsibility for the lives devastated by this and do something, but they won’t. They probably couldn’t even if they wanted to. The biggest social media site is 20% owned by the largest investment bank.

An algorithm can be developed to discover the correlation between who a married person friends in and the chances they will be divorced within 5 years. With the greatest of ease any social media company can use that algorithm to direct its database not to suggest to anyone who’s personal status is married, or in a relationship anyone who statistically is most likely to break up the relationship.

In a simple boardroom decision divorces could be reduced by at least 20%.

It doesn’t happen because the biggest social media company is worth $300 billion. It racked up over $12 billion in sales last year, and their stock price is up over 35%. The decision makers care about one thing, and one thing only.

It’s not your safety or the welfare of your children.

The same way a cigarette company reels you in by getting you addicted to nicotine, the social media companies reel you in with something less obvious but more addictive.

You have to be very careful.

In an ideal world none of us would be on social media. We will find better ways to interact with people, both physically and digitally, without any whiff of infidelity to our spouse, our children, and to Hashem, our G-d.

But for now we live in a tough reality. For the benefit of the people you love, try to disable the images while you are on social media. It’s the most effective way to make sure the technology at your fingertips serves to make you a better person, and not a broken one.