Do stories make social media more addictive?
“Stories are the slot machines of social media.”
This week, I laid out an argument on Twitter about how I believe stories are the slot machines of social media. However, due to this thread’s spread, I feel it is necessary to expand on this statement to clarify some of the details. Why would I make such a sweeping statement about a pattern adopted on so many social media platforms? If I were a reader looking at this thread, I might think the author used hyperbole to make their claim seem more valid, a fair concern. In better detail, let me explain why I made this claim so you can assess its validity.
Hypothesis: stories are addictive patterns
First and foremost, the claim that “stories are the slot machines of social media” is a hypothesis. While I believe it is a well-founded hypothesis, I must mention this because of how we in the tech field tend to take these statements. I want to make it clear that this statement requires more research, and this article is written in large part because I want to build the case for that research.
What are stories?
“[Stories are] a collection of images and short videos, with optional overlays and effects, that a user can add to over time, but which disappears after 24 hours. Users view a Story in sequence, either waiting out a programmed delay between images or manually advancing to the next.”
— Ian Bogost
Stories are a somewhat recent development in social media design patterns, though certainly one that has become better known in 2019–2020. The trend kicked off on Snapchat, becoming one of the app’s landmark innovations but was copied by Instagram and Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Twitter. The interaction is notably limited to users, specifically mobile devices using the native app versions of these experiences.
A “story” in the context of social media is very different than stories we may traditionally consider from books, plays, movies, or word-of-mouth. These are micro-interactions between ourselves and our friends/followers, wherein someone shares a brief video. Stories usually contain videos, images, GIFs, text formatted for mobile devices. The difference between a story and items we post in our feed is primarily related to time: a story remains on screen for approximately 15 seconds and can only be seen for 24 hours.
What is addiction?
“…the modern meaning of ‘addiction’ is an uneasy amalgam of several contradictory legacies: a religious one, which has censured excessive drinking, gambling and drug use as moral transgressions; a scientific one, which has characterized alcoholism and drug addiction as biological diseases; and a colloquial one, which has casually applied the term to almost any fixation.”
— Ferris Jabr
The first thing we have to define in this discussion is addiction. We use this word in so many contexts, some of them hyperbolic. We also have a constantly changing understanding of addiction, one that is often subjective to each person’s values and beliefs. If I am claiming that stories are designed to be addictive, in the same way, that slot machines are designed to be addictive, I have to clarify what addiction means in this context.
Chemical Addiction vs. Behavioral Addiction
Often when we talk about “addiction,” it is from the lens of chemical dependency or when we react biologically to an addictive chemical. This is mostly associated with alcoholism, drug addiction, and, recently, the opioid epidemic. This type of addiction has become well recognized as a valid form of addiction, which many of us are willing to acknowledge and treat.
However, health experts are now expanding our understanding of addiction to include addictions we associate less with chemically addictive substances. These are called “behavioral” addictions and are already recognized as legitimate disorders by the World Health Organization (W.H.O.).
According to W.H.O., disorders due to addictive behaviors are “associated with distress or interference with personal functions that develop as a result of repetitive rewarding behaviors.” While there is debate around whether someone can experience behavioral addiction, we already have treatments for these types of dependencies. In this article, I will not refute behavioral addiction’s legitimacy; we will consider these sets of disorders legitimate for all intents and purposes.
Can social media be addictive?
When we talk about addiction for stories, we are talking about these designs in the context of social media and an emerging understanding of behavioral addiction. While our definition of behavioral addiction formally includes gambling and gaming, it does not yet include social media. To explain how stories could be an addictive pattern, we also need to explain how social media itself can be addictive.
According to a 2018 study by Harvard University, social networking interactions activate the same brain regions as addictive substances. Cognitive neuroscientists have shown that the stimuli that we receive from social media activate dopaminergic reward pathways. These pathways are the chemical rewards our brain gives us for what it perceives to be successful interactions. In essence, these effects on our bodies inherently draw us to social media, and in many cases, addicted to it.
Let’s take this further by reviewing some of the data we have on social media usage today. In 2019, global internet users spent an average of 144 minutes on social media sites every day, or 16.8 hours each week. Additionally, time spent on social media has been gradually increasing each year since at least 2012. With the COVID pandemic, this number may have even gone up in 2020. Some experts estimate up to 10 percent of people in the United States have social media addiction. While this data is alarming, we also need to understand the difference between bad habits and addiction.
In this case, the line between bad habits and addiction is thin. Social media usage and addictive behaviors are currently quite culturally normalized. If you told someone that you spend nearly 17 hours each week on social media alone, they might be concerned about you without even knowing they may do the same. However, experts define the line between usage and addiction as when we start using social media “compulsively” or “excessively” to the point where it interferes with other aspects of our lives.
Let me ask you, have you ever compulsively picked up your phone to look at Instagram (or another social media app) even though you just put your phone away? Have you ever avoided doing something you consider healthy for yourself in favor of sitting around scrolling through social media?
I suspect that many of us could answer “yes” to both of these questions. I know I certainly can. However, most cases of social media addiction that require outside influence are far more harmful than this. I would argue that social media is not only addictive but more addictive than we can currently treat. No one would call social media usage an epidemic, but it’s effects are quite widespread.
The answer is yes, social media can be addictive, but how does social media enable addiction?
Addictive design patterns
“Persuasive design techniques like push notifications and the endless scroll of your newsfeed have created a feedback loop that keeps us glued to our devices.”
— The Social Dilemma
There are many things we can point to that makes social media addictive, from the affordances of our mobile devices to the inherent nature of our social needs as humans. However, for this article’s purpose, I will be focusing on intentionally design patterns used in social media that capitalize on the platform it uses and manipulates its users.
In this context, design patterns are systemized approaches to user experiences. For example, a “like” is a typical pattern used in social media that identifies when a user likes something and shares that they like that thing with a post author and mutual friends/followers. Social media wouldn’t be as addictive without intentionally using specific patterns and features in their experiences. These building blocks create addictive behaviors, making up complex systems that put individuals at a disadvantage.
The “stories” design is one pattern that has been implemented by social media giants. A similar pattern created that we now know to enable addiction is the endless scroll, where instead of requiring users to select something to see more, they can scroll through an infinite amount of content endlessly. Aza Raskin, the designer of this interaction, even says that he regrets designing this pattern and did not know when he made it that it would affect so much.
It took years for us to research and identify the addictive nature of infinite scrolling. Despite the designer’s intentions, this pattern has proliferated across the web because it enables constant interaction. With that in mind, this is why I encourage people to research stories more before advocating for their usage. We must understand the ramifications of that design pattern in the context of social media, an already addictive experience, before we assume it’s value.
How stories are like slot machines
As I stated earlier, my theory that stories are addictive like slot machines are is still a theory, but there are a few reasons I believe it is well-founded. At the very least, this hypothesis asserts that stories are addictive even if they are not directly comparable to slot machines. Here are a few reasons for this comparison:
Stories require minimal interaction.
One of the critical elements of a story is how little is required to interact with them. Stories are easy to post and easy to watch nonstop. Many users use stories to share things that aren’t important enough put into their feed, often with small notes, cute GIFs, tagging, or videos. The time to put together a story tends to be pretty low, making it easy to post many in a day.
Meanwhile, if we watch a single story, the pattern of the interaction itself enables users to watch more. Stories automatically play to the next option that a poster has added, and if there are no more stories that the user has posted, then the following story shown to us is a different user’s story, and so on for hours. Stories continue to play until we run out of them entirely.
The more we’ve already engaged in social media in the past, the more likely we will have many friends and followers posting a lot of story content to review every day. This minimal interaction makes us feel comfortable and safe, not unlike watching T.V. However, these interactions’ short and variable nature make them more akin to a slot machine.
Stories have variable reward schedules.
In the context of social media, a reward schedule refers to the dopamine hits we get from interactions. Psychologist B.F introduced variable reward schedules in the 1930s. In his experiments, he found that mice respond most frequently to reward-associated stimuli when the reward was administered after a varying number of responses, making it impossible for the animal to predict when the reward would come. These mice would check for the administered reward habitually because of their lack of predictability.
Humans behave similarly. If we perceive a reward to be delivered at random, and checking for the reward comes at little cost, we end up checking habitually. Variable reward schedules are also implemented in games such as slot machines and are amplified with false rewards, making users feel positive regardless of the outcome.
As we discussed earlier, social media proliferates dopamine rewards and thereby enables addiction. Stories push this even further by limiting our exposure to a story to a time limit and then showing us something new. A single-story lasts on our screen for a maximum of 15 seconds, meaning that no matter what we see, we don’t have long to dislike or like it (unless we pause the story). Our response to each story delivered is variable: we have no idea of predicting what we will see next and thus feel engaged by curiosity.
Stories enhance the “like” response.
When we post on our feeds and receive responses, those responses provide us with a dopamine hit. Each like or positive reaction makes us feel valued and “right,” while adverse reactions tend to make us think the opposite. In stories, we do not have a “like” interaction seen by everyone. However, the original poster of the story can see everyone who has looked over their story, which creates a similar type of feedback.
I theorize that our body reacts similarly to receiving a “view,” in that we perceive it as a positive response and a way of being recognized. Yet, because of how easy it is to watch another person’s story and how only one person can see you’ve viewed their story, posters now are more likely to accrue “views” than they would have accrued “likes.” Stories may enhance the feeling of positive social recognition, meaning that posters are likely to post a story again to experience that response.
Stories create a false need (“FOMO”)
“Fear of missing out” is a commonly expressed concern people have with not using social media. FOMO conveys feelings of anxiety that arise from realizing that you may be missing out on rewarding experiences that others are having. This association is correlated with increased social media usage, particularly in younger people. While this trend is pervasive on all social media, the stories pattern only worsens this experience.
Stories last only for 24 hours. Afterward, they disappear (unless the author chooses to share them elsewhere). These limited timespans make stories one of the most ephemeral social media interactions that can exist. This experience creates the false need to check social media, ensuring that we haven’t “missed out” on anything important from our network. However, since many stories are used to post less important updates, this creates a false need in users. This pattern is quite similar to the myth of “hot streaks,” in that a user on a slot machine could miss out on a hot streak wherein their time spent would issue them a larger reward.
Turning theory into evidence
Though the theory that stories are addictive patterns is still only theory, this article is written to express how this theory exists and identify how we can validate or invalidate it. Based on the information provided, I believe to know how addictive stories are, we would need to measure:
- How our brains react to “views” of our stories
- How our brains react when watching stories
- How long on average can stories play before “running out”
- How much time users spend creating and viewing stories
- How much time user spend using other parts of the application compared to the amount of time spent using stories
- If stories increase the amount of time users spend on social media compared to before stories were used
- If users are engaging with stories more over time
- How different social media apps handle stories, if there are differences in those interactions, and if those differences change our results
I would encourage folks reading this article to be mindful of these theories and explore them professionally and personally.
So maybe you’ve read this article, agree, and are wondering what we can do about addictive patterns?
That is not something that can be answered easily, and many in the tech field are still working to come up with these answers. There are many approaches people have brought up, and many people in social media companies have left them due to ethical concerns around addictive patterns. Other designers believe that the responsibility lies on us as individuals to not participate in addictive behaviors. Others still consider these concerns alarmist, much like the concerns people had about other technological advancements such as television and radio. The ethics of these addictive patterns are debated, regardless of documented effects and possible implications.
In my opinion, a Pandora’s box has been opened, and to stay competitive, social media apps are going to design these patterns and copy each other continually. I suspect the best ways to slow and stop these patterns is to stop making them so profitable or require social media companies to set limits, but this is an article subject for another day.
As individuals, I recommend being exceptionally mindful of the social media we use and how long we use them each day. Be also conscious of how we feel when using these apps and how much we pick up our phones to check them. Even more, we should take breaks and even delete these apps if they affect us too much. For me, deleting Facebook and Instagram vastly improved my mental health.
Finally, I have no doubt there are flaws in my arguments, and I welcome you to build on these or oppose them in the comments below.
