Max Stossel Talks Social Media at Friday Assembly
By ARYAN AGARWAL, SHAY KASHIF, ALLEGRA LAI, JAYDEN OH, MARVIN SHIM, KEVIN THANT, and FORREST ZENG
On Friday, Nov. 1, the Academy was treated to an extended assembly speech by Max Stossel on social media, its dangerous effects, and possible solutions.
Named by Forbes as one of the best storytellers of the year, Stossel is an award-winning poet, filmmaker, and Youth & Education Advisor for the Center for Humane Technology. He is also the founder and CEO of Social Awakening, a company which, according to its website, seeks to “help teens, schools, and parents survive and thrive in this digital world.” During his speech on Friday, Stossel implored students to seek healthy relationships with social media, and to disillusion themselves of the true motivations behind social media companies and influencers.
In preparation for the assembly, Stossel stated that this was a routine that he had been doing for years across the country, an initiative evoked by parents and teachers who wanted a solution to the effects of smartphones and social media: “I really want to give kids more power over their own lives, and it’s really hard to do that in today’s world. I feel like if students see how some of this stuff works, they can make their own better decisions and outline it in a way that feels relatable and fun.”
One of the tactics that Stossel mentioned in his assembly was one that mimicked the highs of playing a slot machine. The slot machine idea refers to a continuous vortex that a TikTok scroll or a video game may suck a person into, in hopes that a reward may soon be close, whether it be a funny video or unlocking something new in a game. “I’m not saying these games aren’t fun, but there is a whole industry of people trying to make it really hard to put this stuff down. They look at you as check marks to try to get you to keep playing these games,” Stossel explained.
Furthermore, Stossel also addressed the mental health concerns and unhealthy comparisons that social media tends to bring to teenagers. The epidemic of extreme photoshopping or photo editing promotes unrealistic body standards, and certain apps apply skewed features such as tracking a person’s most recent activity on the app to add to the feeling of being excluded from things. “The more we start thinking about the fact that we don’t want our phones to use us, the more you’ll notice how a lot of these apps are just designed literally to manipulate you,” he said. “They lie about these numbers. They make it seem like you were online more recently than you were because they’re trying to get you to send more messages. Think about how many fights that started?”
Though the shift into a net positive use of social media is gradual, Stossel remains optimistic about the change. “I just think there’s more awareness around the fact that the tech companies are not going to stop what they’re doing—they’re going to keep doing it. But I think we’re becoming more aware and we’re realizing that we’re not liking this. I think that will start to shift things, but it’s hard.”
As he concluded his assembly, Stossel also provided the audience with different tactics to control social media usage and to regulate the negativity of it, including training your algorithms, not using your phone as an alarm clock, and moving chats with friends from social media to regular messaging apps. “You can beat algorithms-- a lot of the people who are happy with their use, they’re actively training their algorithm to be a little bit more positive and feel a little bit better. Also, a good game during meals is to put all phones face down in the middle of the table and the first person who reaches for their phone has to pay for it. Games that we can play like that actually make it a little easier to hang out with our friends,” Stossel advised.
Stossel also emphasized that the resolutions to these issues are not something that can happen overnight, but are long-term commitments to resolving the root of the problems. “Most of the most meaningful things in life are not quick fixes. Having actual attractiveness and confidence in life comes from not faking it, but finding ways to genuinely feel confident and good about ourselves, which often takes getting to know ourselves, takes time. And that’s just like telling someone who’s in the throes of heartbreak--- that doesn’t really tell me anything about what I should do right now. It’s a lifelong journey.”
Student reactions were mixed. Upper Edward Wu agreed with Stossel’s message about social media addiction—however, he saw some problems with the oversimplification that resulted from the speech time constraints. “I agreed with much of what he said, but he didn’t say anything that people didn’t already know,” Wu said. “He proposed an overly reductionist explanation and solution for social media problems.”
Regardless, students at Exeter are constantly bombarded by the heavy workload and assignments while dealing with the negative effects of the incessant notifications from social media. Stossel’s lecture catches online media platforms red-handed and informs Exonians, who are at the end of the day still teenagers evolving in a spinning world, of the dangers of the glowing hand-held device. “Are we using technology or is it using us?” Stossel asked. It’s a question that we all must ask ourselves as the dangers of privatized social media become more and more inseparable from our daily lives. The world may be our oyster, but we must not be swept away by the sea.
