Are Social Media Crowding Out the Development of Practical Life Skills?

How the Attention Economy is changing our attention – and why this has become an ethical question.

Never before in history have young people had access to so much knowledge, so many learning opportunities, and such easy ways to connect with people around the world. At the same time, it has never been easier to become distracted from the real world. Teenagers and young adults now spend several hours each day on platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and others. Although these platforms claim to connect people, provide virtually unlimited entertainment and enable users to express their creativity, growing evidence suggests that very intensive use may be associated with changes in sleep patterns, increased procrastination, reduced concentration, difficulties with self-organization, and even a higher risk of depressive symptoms.

This raises an important question:

Are social media really causing young people to lose essential life skills?

Attention has become one of our most valuable resources. Most social networking platforms are free to use. However, we pay with something else: our attention. The longer users remain on a platform, the more advertisements can be shown and the higher the company's revenue becomes. For this reason, companies invest billions in developing algorithms designed to keep users engaged for as long as possible.

These mechanisms include endless scrolling through personalized content, individually tailored recommendations, push notifications, likes, and other forms of social validation that function as variable rewards. None of these mechanisms are secret. They are fundamental elements of the business model known as the Attention Economy.

What does scientific research tell us?

Current research is remarkably consistent in showing that very intensive social media use is statistically associated with poorer sleep, increased procrastination, reduced self-regulation, greater impulsivity, and more difficulty maintaining attention over longer periods of time. Adolescents and individuals with ADHD appear to be particularly vulnerable to problematic patterns of use.

What is considered likely? Many researchers also believe that certain design features of social media platforms may reinforce these difficulties. In particular, variable rewards, personalized recommendations, and infinite scrolling make use of well-established principles from behavioral psychology to keep users engaged for as long as possible.

What remains uncertain?

It is still unclear whether social media actually make people "less intelligent" or whether platforms intentionally seek to manipulate society. The real issue may lie elsewhere.

Researchers increasingly discuss what is known as the Displacement Hypothesis, which asks a simple question:

What happens during the time we spend scrolling – and what no longer happens because of it?

Every hour spent on social media may also be an hour not spent exercising, reading, playing music, cooking, volunteering, having meaningful conversations, learning languages, engaging in creative work, developing practical life skills, or simply interacting with family members. Life skills are not acquired by watching. They are developed through experience and practice.

Executive Functions – What Are They?

Executive functions are the foundation of our life skills.

Many of the abilities we need to live an independent and responsible life are based on what psychologists call executive functions. These include directing attention, controlling impulses, setting priorities, planning, initiating tasks, persevering, and regulating emotions.

These abilities develop gradually over many years through practice and real-life experiences. This is why researchers are now investigating whether permanently fragmented attention caused by intensive social media use could have a long-term impact on these abilities. There are already interesting indications, but no definitive answers.

Are We Really Becoming Less Intelligent?

For almost one hundred years, the average scores on many IQ tests steadily increased – a phenomenon known as the Flynn Effect.

In recent years, however, researchers in several industrialized countries have observed a stagnation or even a slight decline in certain cognitive test scores. This phenomenon is referred to as the Reverse Flynn Effect.

Whether digital media play a role in this development is currently being investigated, but there is still no clear scientific answer. Changes in leisure activities, media consumption, and broader social developments all appear to contribute.

This raises an intriguing question:

Are digital technologies merely changing the way we process information, or are they also influencing our long-term ability to engage in focused and deep thinking?

So much for the science. Now comes the ethical perspective.

If companies achieve commercial success by capturing as much human attention as possible, what responsibility do they have toward particularly vulnerable groups such as children, adolescents, and people with ADHD? But there is another important question: What responsibility do parents, schools, policymakers—and we ourselves as users—have?

Our goal should not be to ban social media or slow technological innovation. We should preserve our freedom to choose. However, freedom also means having the ability to make good decisions. And that ability must be learned. The questions we should therefore be asking are practical ones:

How can we preserve the benefits of digital technologies without undermining the development of independence, responsibility, and practical life skills—especially among young people?

Is attention a resource that deserves protection? What might a social network look like that is both commercially successful and supportive of the development of life skills? Where does good product design end and manipulation begin? What responsibilities do platforms, parents, schools, and users themselves share? Should persuasive technologies be more strictly regulated when they target minors? Are social media primarily just a tool whose effects depend on how we use them? Or do platforms carry a special responsibility when their business models depend on maximizing our attention?

We look forward to reading your thoughts in the comments. Thoughtful and constructive contributions may - of course in anonymized and summarized form - later become part of discussions and simulations within the Eticania Creative Campus. Perhaps one of these ideas will one day help shape how young people around the world discuss this issue. Because Eticania is not a collection of ready-made answers, but an invitation to ask better questions. Together.

REFERENCES

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Bratsberg, B., & Rogeberg, O. (2018). Flynn effect and its reversal are both environmentally caused. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(26), 6674–6678. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1718793115

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United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). (2023). Guidance for generative AI in education and research. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/

Haugen, F. (2021). Testimony before the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. https://www.commerce.senate.gov/

Center for Humane Technology. (n.d.). The Attention Economy. https://www.humanetech.com/

(Practice and background resource; not a peer-reviewed scientific publication.)

World Health Organization. (2024). Growing up in a digital world: Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study. https://www.who.int/