The social media business model is based on the commodification of human attention, where time spent on applications is the main currency of exchange. To maximize this retention, platforms like Instagram optimize their algorithms to favor fast consumption, dopaminergic content that requires low cognitive effort, such as short videos and images with catchphrases. These platforms actively discourage sharing links and long texts, penalizing their visibility and enclosing the user in an ecosystem designed for infinite scrolling and instant gratification.
This information architecture progressively conditions the population's cognitive habits, accustoming the brain to a state of continuous stimulus and low concentration. When the capacity to maintain prolonged attention degrades, boredom and aversion to long text emerge, which is indispensable for critical thinking. The author states to have observed people addicted to these stimuli posting absurdities in groups like Madeira Opina, without realizing they are addicted.
Fragmented and hurried reading replaces structured reasoning with emotional reaction, creating terrain where complexity is seen as an obstacle. The author affirms that there are social media that fit the objectives of extremist parties, being applications that promote extremism through the stupification of people.
The direct result of this dynamic is the proliferation of disinformation and the simplification of public debate. Without space for context, nuances, or rebuttal, complex narratives are reduced to polarizing slogans and data taken out of context that spread easily because they are easy to assimilate. By prioritizing viralization over veracity, the ecosystem of some social media promotes a collective intellectual impoverishment.
