We Trust Everything, But Don’t Trust Anything
People are surrounded by stories every day, but they aren’t aware of it.
Every single time a person in society opens their phone and scrolls through Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or some other social media platform, they are engaging with stories. And although many of these stories are good, some are downright deceptive; manipulating storytelling principles for profit.
Social media uses many principles of storytelling, both in the content created and published by users, but also in the platform UI/UX design. These storytelling principles span across three different areas of emotion, experience, and evidence.
But as I’ve stated, many people aren’t aware that this is the case.
I wasn’t either.
So I wrote a white paper to examine how social media uses storytelling, and how it is being used to manipulate users, spread mis/disinformation, and leave people addicted to a large system.
It turns out, social media is a perfectly imperfect paradox. For the creators, storytelling is a great way to get their ideas across and inspire others (for example, Erika Kullberg, Anya Karolyn, and Chris Do, all of whom I mention in the paper). But for the platforms itself, the design tolerates the spread of mis/disinformation in both news and the sciences (think back to the recent U.S. Presidential Election or the COVID-19 pandemic). We’ve been left to trust everything — but hey, you can’t trust anything at the same time.
From Kurt Vonnegut’s Emotional Journeys, to mazes and labyrinths of infinite scrolling, to affordances, blue badges, and more, this white paper presents a full examination of how these storytelling techniques are used in the social media platforms of today.
I hope you take a read so you can become aware of these practices and defend yourself from their weaponization.
I’m Sean Formantes, a graphic designer and content creator for social media. I am a lover of music, art, and coffee.