Warning Signs

Nowadays almost every dangerous or toxic product wears a warning sign advising consumers against drinking paint thinner or attaching their pet to the top of their roof rack.

However, there is no warning sign affixed to our technological devices or social media applications. There's certainly no real warning sign affixed outside the door of a company with a toxic culture either. And the reality is that while we don't buy paint thinner every day — we do spend an average of nine hours at work and another 2.5 hours on social media daily. 

Somewhere back in the early beginning of the 21st century, we all jumped onto the bandwagon of social media without knowing if it was safe or where it was going. And unfortunately, recent studies have shown that there are many reasons to be worried about overusing social media.

Somewhere back in the early beginning of the 21st century, we all jumped onto the bandwagon of social media without knowing if it was safe or where it was going. And unfortunately, recent studies have shown that there are many reasons to be worried about overusing social media.

The Negative Impacts of Social Media: Where Is the Warning Label?

For social media alone, the study mentioned above shows that frequent use is associated with various issues when it comes to people’s emotional well-being, mental and physical health, and many other areas of life. Specifically, research shows that the use of social media is associated with: increased anxiety, extreme stress and fatigue, depression, misinformation, violation of privacy, political polarization and cyberbullying, among several other factors.

How is it that, despite the warning labels affixed to many other services and products, social media outlets don't also require a standard or normalization? What can companies do to address these issues besides providing a disclaimer? Shouldn’t companies be part of the solution to the societal problem they have created?

In an attempt to answer the latter, we have to talk about corporate social responsibility (CSR). Companies, like any individual for that matter, are connected to their surroundings and codependent on resources (including human resources) in order to build and distribute their products.

What Is Corporate Social Responsibility, What Does It Look Like, and Why Does It Matter?

A simple example of social responsibility would be the leaders of a company considering what happens to resources before and after the use of the product/service. Therefore, ideally speaking, the social responsibility of social media companies would mean considering assessing someone's well-being (mental and physical health) before the use of services and assessing it again after a prolonged period of time on the media. If the individual's well-being has been damaged, it would be under the full responsibility of the provider to offer rehabilitation treatments free of charge.

When will we see a day when social media companies own the responsibility for the damage their services have done to the environment or to the population?

As an organizational psychologist, I always keep a humanistic approach to business, and instead of writing about the obvious advantage of practicing corporate social responsibility (CSR), I would like to focus on the population’s well-being, as it is the bread and butter of any company, either as employees or as consumers.

A report by Babson College reviewed hundreds of studies on CSR programs and found that they can have the following strong positive impacts on market value and overall brand reputation:

• Increased market value by up to 6%.

• Reduced systemic risk by up to 4%.

• Reduced cost of debt by 40% or more.

• Increased price premium by up to 20%.

• Reduced staff turnover rate by up to 50%.

But this approach, although a motivating factor for companies to practice CSR, doesn’t include conducting business ethically and with sensitivity towards social, cultural and environmental issues. Smart business decisions are not just a matter of counting their profit margin, reducing their debt or improving their turnover rate. Wise decision-makers have a responsibility toward people, the community and the environment. If you cannot improve the overall living condition of the general population, you should at least not harm them.

Social media companies that wish to be truly socially responsible should consider the following factors.

Social Responsibility

Companies need to measure the impact their products and services have on society. They need to better ensure they are not causing any social disruption or any mental harm. That would include mental well-being and social harmonization. One way to do so would be to use AI to assess the fatigue or stress of users. People showing a certain level of fatigue could receive a notification suggesting they log out for a period of time, allowing them to rest.

Cultural Responsibility

Addressing challenges to equality, inclusion and self-determination (such as reducing or eliminating bias based on race, sexual orientation, religion, citizenship and disabilities) is something social media could be more active about. An example based on work by Affectiva, which was spun out of the MIT Media Lab, and Autism Glass, a Stanford research project, involves using AI to automate the recognition of emotions and to provide social cues to help individuals along the autism spectrum interact in social environments.

Environmental Responsibility

People need to see that companies effectively clean after themselves, as we teach our children from kindergarten, and that they have a policy for recycling their own product. They cannot simply assume someone else will pick up the tab for them. Social media's first social duty toward the environment is to verify the accuracy of some of the postings, not to spread false information. Furthermore, I believe they should take advantage of their enormous influence to provide free education programs on sensitive subjects in order to become more socially responsible toward our planet.

We are about to change our ways of living, which will affect our consumption and our working environment. The real warning sign would be for companies to carry on doing business as usual despite these needed changes.