Social Media: From a Digital Utopia to a Profitable Dystopia
While the rise of social media started with what we nowadays call “the pre-history”, if we look closely, it's been only around 70 years since the beginning of the possibility of connecting and engaging with people with only a computer. From the earliest online communication systems, such as ARPANET, E-mail and chat, Usenet, Myspace, to modern platforms, Facebook, YouTube, X (formally known as Twitter), TikTok, Instagram, and so many others, humans were promised an utopian view of closeness and connectivity, regardless of distance.
The idea was great: more participation, information and access to communities that you didn't have access to before. In this framework, the possibility that, with a device, you could now connect to other people, and break the geographical barriers was a utopian promise. The knowledge that you once dreamed of was now available through access to new communities, social movements and even meeting new people with the same shared interests.
However, not everything went as smooth as planned by the creators of this new technologic revolution. The turning point happened when the platforms started to grow and CEO’s started to realize they could profit and generate revenue following the growth of this technology. The change started slowly: the users started being treated as the product and personal data gained economic value (Zuboff, 2019). The main resource being exploited was user attention. That is why, in our day-to-day lives, when we open a social media app, we are immediately met with an ad for a 'revolutionary, unique' product. If we linger, within 30 minutes, the app will exploit that exact preference by advertising at least three more similar products. From this point onwards, social media stopped being a unique space for humans to make new connections and socialize with people that were once impossible and started being a business of social media platforms worth over 234$ billion, with a predicted growth in the coming years (Research and Markets, 2026).
How was this possible? A content creator gains views with videos or posts that grab the audience attention, for instance, by participating in digital trends, such as the new concept “rage bait”, or videos of military soldiers arriving home after long years away from their families. Afterwards, these content creators begin to collaborate with brands, generating advertising revenue, and start monetizing their content, turning it into a real business, commencing a vicious cycle.
The term “echo chambers” can be applied to this situation, since the creation of personalized algorithms suggests a dystopian scenario (Pariser, 2011). People become trapped in bubbles of opinions and other points of view usually don't appear on your page, unless you search for it, meaning that you only see what you like and become isolated from other people's perspectives (Sunstein, 2001). Moreover, there's also the content creator’s impact, such as the perfect life and products they advertise, which stimulate comparisons between our lives and theirs. These impacts on mental health are one of the major problems that afflict us and are neglected by companies and those content creators (Twenge, 2017).
So, where does this "leave" adolescents? They are "left" in a society that disregards what they read or do in their free time, and focuses on likes and followers as a measure for social approval. Literacy is especially important in social media, because many users struggle to evaluate the credibility of online information and don't know whether or not they are being manipulated anymore. This is also becoming a big issue since fact-checking mechanisms often struggle to regulate the content due to how fast false information is created and spread online.
The question that still remains is if social media/media resources can remain an utopian space. Unfortunately, there are no clear predictions: the problems are consequences of the way these resources are used but the resolution is constructed that way as well. The best weapon to fight the current dystopian scenario is learning and fostering media literacy. Furthermore, critical thinking, articulated between society and education, is the best response. (UNESCO, 2021).
Social media began with the promise of connection and closeness. The reason why nowadays we have the dystopic version has to do with human behavior and how we as a society make choices to improve user experience, even though platforms only see the consequences after the users engage with them.
By Mafalda de Brito
References
Carr, N. (2010). The shallows: What the Internet is doing to our brains. W. W. Norton & Company.
Pariser, E. (2011). The filter bubble: What the Internet is hiding from you. Penguin Press.
Sunstein, C. R. (2001). Republic.com. Princeton University Press.
The Business Research Company. (2026). Social media market report 2026. Research and Markets. Retrieved October 9, 2026, from https://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/5781298/social-media-market-report
Twenge, J. M. (2017). iGen: Why today's super-connected kids are growing up less rebellious, more tolerant, less happy, and completely unprepared for adulthood. Atria Books.
UNESCO. (2021). Media and information literacy: Curriculum for educators and learners. UNESCO.
Zuboff, S. (2019). The age of surveillance capitalism: The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power. PublicAffairs.
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