Social media creates a dopamine-driven feedback loop to condition young adults to stay online, robbing them of important social skills and further keeping them on social media, leading them to feel socially isolated. Annotated bibliography 1: Chamath PalihapitiyaPalihapitiya, C. (2017, November 13). Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Chamath Palihapitiya is a software engineer who has worked for major companies such as AOL and Facebook. In this interview, Palihapitiya talks about his experience working at social media giant, Facebook. It only tangentially covers the topic at hand since the interview as a whole is aimed at business students, but when the topic is brought up, Palihapitiya explains the correlation between social media and social isolation. It explains how social media is “…eroding the core foundations of how people behave, to each other and to each other” (Palihapitiya, 2017), meaning it is depriving people of their ability to interact socially on a large scale, leading them to feel socially isolated Palihapitiya further supports the argument when he describes Facebook and other social media as a “dopamine-driven feedback loop,” in which short-term bursts of happiness are valued far more than long-term happiness, describing it as if it were an addiction and a vulnerability in human psychology. However, Palihapitiya says he hasn't used social media for that long, so he doesn't realize how many people might be using it solely to communicate with others. loved ones in times of need, to expand their business or to connect with others. Annotated Bibliography 2: Primack, B.A. and Shensa, A. (2017, March 6).Dr. Brian A. Primack, dean of the University of Pittsburgh Honors College together with his colleague Ariel Shensa, student and statistician of the University of Pittsburgh Honors College, wrote a research paper aimed at academics that set out to identify the correlation between the social media use (SMU) and perceived social isolation (PSI). What they found was that, when it came to SMU, higher length and frequency had a correlation with higher PSI. This directly supports the argument as it shows that the increase in SMU correlates with PSI. This article also mentions that people who had a high level of SMU began to replace face-to-face contact with other people, making them feel further excluded. However, this does not prove that SMU directly causes PSI as correlation does not equal causation. The question this article does not answer is whether SMU is directly responsible for higher PSI or whether people with higher PSI replace real-world social interaction with social media. Both behaviors are unhealthy and should be treated accordingly. Annotated bibliography 3: Asianet. (2017, December 31). Social media is bad for mental health. Asia net in this article discusses the effects of social media on mental health. Aimed at a general audience, it deals with the fact that Facebook has recently acknowledged the effects of social media on mental health. “Two Facebook internal social scientists recognized that passively consuming content on the social network can harm users' mood and mental health” (Asianet, 2017). Asianet also states that "students tasked with passively reading Facebook for 10 minutes reported worse moods than those tasked with posting to themselves or communicating with friends" (Asianet, 2017), this supports the idea that socialmedia cause isolation as worse moods could result in being less friendly towards other people, excluding everyone else and causing the individual to feel isolated. However, the credibility of this article can be debated as it does not cite any of the studies mentioned. Hypothesis: Social media creates a dopamine-driven feedback loop to condition young adults to stay online, depriving them of important social skills and further permanence on social media, leading them to feel socially isolated. Terminology: Dopamine: A neurotransmitter in the brain that, when released, creates a feeling of well-being (Newton, 2009)Feedback loop: can be positive or negative - describes a cycle in which output is relocated as input. Perceived Social Isolation: A form of social isolation in which it is not diagnosed clinically but rather perceived by the individual. It still brings harmful effects just like normal social isolation would. Nowadays social media is everywhere, with Facebook pioneering the idea, the use of social media across the world has skyrocketed. As of 2017, approximately 1.96 billion people use social media, and this number is expected to rise to 2.5 billion by 2018 (Statista, 2017). However, the reason behind these numbers may not be so innocent. Experts have made people aware of the ethical issues surrounding social media and its use. Some studies even conclude that it is related to perceived social isolation. Additionally, with studios and even former social media creators speaking out against the use of social media, it has become an ever-growing problem that needs to be addressed. As concluded by Brian A. Primack and Ariel Shena's study, social media use is almost directly related to greater perceived social isolation. The study found that across each age group, those who had a higher frequency of visits and spent a lot of time on social media sites, on average, had a higher rate of perceived social isolation. Perceived social isolation is mentioned in this study, however, neither Palihapitiya nor Asianet talk about it. Primack and Shensa also state that just because there is a direct correlation between social media use and perceived social isolation, this does not mean that social media use causes perceived social isolation (Primack et al., 2017 ). Some alternative explanations mentioned are that “It may be that individuals who already feel socially isolated subsequently tend to use social media more; those who have fewer "in-person" social outlets may turn to online networks instead" (Primack et al., 2017). He explains that people who feel isolated replace real-life contact with social media, which brings up a different problem in today's society, where people have an excuse not to maintain contact with others and replace real life with Internet, essentially depriving them of their knowledge. real life social skills. “Another possibility is that those who use more social media subsequently develop greater social isolation” (Primack et al., 2017). They explain exactly what is stated in the hypothesis, social media is a contributing factor to perceived social isolation. This means that people who use social media more frequently with higher usage times are much more likely to feel socially isolated and this is strongly supported by the statistic that in every quartile with higher frequency or usage, there is a higher percentage of individuals with a perceived social isolation (Primack et al., 2017). Feedback loops are a key aspect of social media. That's whythat social media sites are extremely popular nowadays. They have learned to take advantage of the human psyche and its reward systems. Palihapitiya states that social media networks have created a “short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loop” (Palihapitiya, 2017), which ultimately destroys society. He even goes so far as to say “…we have created tools that are tearing apart the social fabric of how society works” (Palihapitiya, 2017), meaning that people as a whole have been so drawn into this feedback loop that they have lost touch with reality and have lost their social skills altogether. Primack and Shensa's study doesn't address this topic at all, not even going so far as to discuss it as one of the reasons someone would spend so much time on social media. Palihapitiya continues: “This is not an American problem… it is a global problem” (Palihapitiya,2017), stating that this does not just affect first world people, but people all over the world. It also says “…if you feed the beast, that beast will destroy you. If we reject it, we will have the opportunity to control and reign it” (Palihapitiya, 2017). This metaphor he uses explains that as a society, more and more people need to start limiting their use of social media, 'feeding the beast' in this case would mean accepting the pressure to use social media and getting stuck in the feedback loop, this ultimately end would lead to the deaths of many people as now the majority will be stuck on social media, unable to have meaningful relationships with other people, relying on short-term bursts of happiness to stay afloat. Palihapitiya states that these likes and upvotes are just “fake, a fragile popularity that is short-term and leaves you even more vacant and empty, than before” (Palihapitiya, 2017) and perfectly describes the reality of how likes actually work social media. Social media has a huge effect on your mental health and well-being. “Two internal social scientists at Facebook have recognized that passive consumption of content on the social network can harm users' mood and mental health” (Asianet, 2017), Facebook itself has stated that social networks like theirs can influence the mental health of their users. “Recent findings blaming the rise of social alienation, anxiety and depression on social media are “convincing.” Students assigned to passively read Facebook for 10 minutes reported worse moods than those assigned to post themselves or communicate with friends” (Asianet, 2017), these findings in this study directly support the findings of Primack and Shensa, the fact that social media use is related to social isolation and mood. However, this study assigned readers to passively scroll Facebook, unlike Primack's study where people reported their normal usage which could be a mix of passive usage, communicating, and posting. Primack's study also used many more social media sites than just Facebook, while the study mentioned in Asianet only used Facebook. “Another study found that users who clicked more 'Likes' and links on Facebook reported a reduced sense of their mental health. Both phenomena, Ginsberg and Burke write, could be the consequence of the fact that users compare their lives with the idealized versions published on social media by others" (Asianet, 2017), this study shows that users publish only certain contents on their feed, so when other individuals compare their lives to those highly curated versions on social media sites,. (2017,, 6(1), 3–17.