Stephen Neely

And nothing engages you more than anger.

And so...

Feeding outrage, feeding sensational stories about the news, sensational conspiracy-based stories, whatever it might be, those increase engagement very effectively in terms of what the algorithm rewards.

The algorithm doesn't care if you engage with something because you love it or because you hate it.

It just cares if you engage.

And so people who follow the news on social media are exhibiting very high rates of stress.

Yes, we are seeing clear links between these reported behaviors, and that's something that we added this time to the survey that I think is a little unique, a little novel compared to some of the prior studies you've seen.

We looked at these uses and gratifications measures, and we found that clear pattern.

The other thing I would mention about Gen Z is it's not just...

It's not just that they're anxious about social comparison.

I have a book coming out in about two months called The Anxious State, and we ran four surveys measuring stress during 2024, during the election year.

And I expected going into that that the highest rates of political stress would be among older voters because they have so much at stake in the system.

Healthcare, social security, homeownership, all of these things are...

are major political issues that tend to make them more likely to vote.

But the highest rates of anxiety was also among, in that case, the highest rates of political stress was also among Gen Z, also among young women in Gen Z, and once again, directly correlated with social media usage.

So it's not just I'm going on social media and I'm seeing that all of my friends are posting these kind of fake moments and that's stressing me out because my life doesn't live up to that.

They're also getting their news through these platforms.

And the more likely they are to get their news, the more stressed out they are.

So yeah, we're not going to play the delete your account game because it's not realistic.

So our advice would be don't feed the algorithm.