The Trump Trigger
How social media is used to manipulate you, and what you can do about it.
Are you easy to manipulate because you use social media? There is a lot of evidence that you might be.
Just posting raises your pulse. It can make you sweat. It dilates your pupils.
As the psychologist Tali Sharot once said, "Twitter is the amygdala of the internet." Social media is rife with fighting, fawning, and freezing. That is exactly why using it makes people more susceptible to manipulation.
Experimental research shows that brain activity in the amygdala increases by as much as 75% while using social media compared to just surfing the web. Emotional arousal gets increased by as much as 65% simply by reading your feed.
Con artists use emotional arousal to manipulate their marks. So do salespeople, narcissists, and partisan journalists. All of them use social media to influence people.
Ever been waiting for someone, doom-scrolling your social media feed, looking for something stimulating? It might indicate that you are susceptible to a con.
Just looking through your feed stimulates dopamine. It causes you to focus more intensely. Your reactions get amplified and the information feels more meaningful.
Manipulation involves both innate and conditioned responses. Social media makes it easier to condition people who are unaware they are in echo chambers. They then act out those conditioned responses in the real world.
Think about people conditioned to respond to the word "Trump" for example. Have you noticed them leaping to conclusions, and placing others in "for" and "against" boxes?
Try watching them doom-scroll in person sometime. Notice how their hearts pound, how they sweat, become emotional, and act out when they think someone is in the other box.
Social media intensifies cognitive compartmentalization. If you find yourself looking for affirmation of your beliefs on social media, your psyche is becoming rigid.
As a rule of thumb, you can be certain that social media is making you easier to manipulate if you can't put it away. Doom-scrolling is a symptom that you are susceptible.
As soon as you find yourself putting people into boxes, give yourself a pinch. You are being too intense, your reactions are amplified, and you are injecting meaning that isn't really there. You are high on dopamine and you need to come down.
Once you've stepped back, you'll find that social media can actually be a great tool for reconnecting with old friends, sharing interesting and useful information, and finding good deals. You'll also have better relationships in real life.