Senator Josh Hawley Takes Aim At Social Media

Senator Josh Hawley is sponsoring a new bill, the Social Media Addiction Reduction Technology Act, which he hopes will keep platforms from making their product addictive. According to the Senator, social media platforms trick users into spending ever increasing amounts of time on social media. Experts who testified at a hearing last month talking about tactics such as infinite scrolling which keeps users on the platform because there is no end. The implication is that social media enables addictive behavior.

Anyone who has ever developed a website monetized with ads knows that good UX design keeps visitors on the site for as long as possible where they are exposed to ads. Hawley’s bill would make dark patterns which manipulate users illegal. Accept and decline buttons would have to be the same size, font and format to avoid tricking users into signing up for a service. The SMART Act only addresses social media but we've all seen popups with a large email sign up field and a tiny No Thanks to close the popup. Unless the SMART Act makes dark patterns illegal on all websites and ads, developers and marketers will continue to use them.

There are people addicted to social media, but these people are rare. You have people checking their phone in restaurants and at the movies, but these people are just rude, not necessarily addicted. Instead of worrying about people endlessly scrolling through a newsfeed or watching YouTube with autoplay enabled, Senator Hatch should think about all the people who obsessively check notifications. They might only look at Facebook for a minute, but they do this all day long for gratification for social approval. These people probably are not addicted to social media, their addiction is to instant approval of their outfit, meal or new toy. This is something no one can regulate. For more information click here https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/30/20746878/josh-hawley-dark-patterns-platform-design-autoplay-youtube-videos-scrolling-snapstreaks-illegal.