Lisa Schirch Social Media Impacts on Social & Political Goods 11 16. The Psychology of Grabbing Attention. Attention is a finite commodity; each person has a limited span of attention. Dozens of books by marketing experts and psychologists describe how to “break through the noise” and “grab” the public’s attention by using compelling personal stories and metaphors to “frame” an issue. Social media platforms attempt to harness and monetize our attention. In the most skeptical analysis of the “attention economy,” tech companies create psychologically addictive programs that “hijack” attention; they “harvest” psychological profiles through a range of information-gathering surveillance; and then they sell this information to corporations and political actors with interests in persuading and manipulating the public toward specific goals. (Vaidhyanathan 2018) 17. The Neuroscience of Persuasion and Strategic Communication: the field of strategic communication studies how to influence people by understanding their needs, interests, and perspectives. Stanford University’s Persuasive Technology Lab teaches business and tech leaders how to capture and keep audience attention by designing social media platforms and applications, or products and messages, with “stickiness” that creates behavioral changes. One of the key elements of their research is how to remove obstacles that make people less likely to spend their time and money on social media. The photos, images, colors, and feedback tools to “like” and comment on social media are designed to keep people on these platforms longer and to return regularly. (Alter 2017) (Salkever and Wadhwa 2018) 18. Fear, Anxiety, and the “Race to the Brainstem." Tech ethicist Tristan Harris describes tech companies' competition for our attention as "brain hacking" and a "race to the bottom of the brainstem." (Harris 2016) The oldest part of the brain is the reptilian brain stem. It controls automatic fight-or-flight reactions that respond to fear, anxiety, or threats. Newspaper editors often quip, “If it bleeds, it leads” to indicate that emotional content on the front page, whether evoking fear, disgust, anger, or joy, sells well. Emotions are contagious. Similarly, social media posts that invoke intense emotions like fear and anger get more “views” from other people. Emotional posts seem to stimulate biochemical responses that make people anxious and more likely to share these posts with others. (DiResta 2016) Social media platforms algorithms prioritize posts that contain strong emotions, spreading them to others. Research by the Wall Street Journal discovered that YouTube’s algorithms more often recommended “conspiracy theories, partisan viewpoints and misleading videos” over more reputable but “boring” videos representing fact-based reporting. (Nicas 2018) 19. Affirmation Addiction. Humans crave attention and connection. Social media offers instant gratification for social affirmation. The limbic system, or reward system, controls emotional responses and positive or negative rewards. This part of the brain responds to social media’s offer of social affirmation through “likes” and comparison to others. These older brain structures become addicted to the images and feelings invoked by social media feeds. MRI brain