How Emotion Rules Social Media
Written by: Professor L. Ayu Saraswati, Ph.D
Emotion! Emotion! Emotion!
We often hear that in the real estate world, it’s all about location, location, location. But on social media, what matters is emotion, emotion, emotion! Success on social media relies on knowing how to create contents and comments that can yield high emotional responses, which can then make or break a brand or a person. Because emotion is at the center of what is essentially being circulated and stimulated on social media, it undoubtedly affects one’s mental health.
Why is Emotion So Important on Social Media?
In 2023, there were 4.9 billion active social media users¹. Facebook is still the leading platform with more than 2.9 billion monthly users. On average, people spend about 2 hours and 24 minutes on social media per day.
Why is social media so addictive? How does emotion play an important part in this?
Certainly, there is nothing inherently addictive about social media. The list of failed social network that includes the once popular platform, Friendster, is evidence of this. Sure, the business model of a company influences whether or not it will survive. But there is another and more significant reason why some social media platforms survive while others suffer, and that has a lot to do with emotion. It is how these platforms manage to address their users as neoliberal subjects—don’t worry, I’ll explain this below, and encourage them to express their emotions and then monetise their content and interactions.
To understand social media is to understand the driving force behind it, the ideology that operates in this space.
And this political-economy ideology is called neoliberalism. Let’s begin here so that we’re on the same page: with a definition of neoliberalism. Neoliberalism is an “ideology and practice that promotes individualism, consumerism, deregulation, and transferring state power and responsibility to the individual.”² Some of the key aspects of neoliberalism are concepts we are already familiar with, such as “personal responsibility,” “entrepreneurship,” and the “gig economy.” If we have ever taken an Uber ride, or stayed at an AirBnb, we have participated in a neoliberal economy. Its basic premise is simple: when there is a problem (e.g., limited public transportation), rather than turning to the state to demand better access, we turn to individuals to solve the issue (e.g., they can be an Uber driver— an entrepreneur—or an Uber rider— a consumer).
Neoliberalism is important on social media because neoliberalism is the driving force behind social media.³ How we treat each other and what we say to each other is based on this ideology.
For instance, when someone posts on social media that they are overwhelmed with work, we know to tell them, “Self-care, first, Queen!” rather than questioning why workplaces can be so stressful in the first place.
The second reason neoliberalism is important on social media is because this is the ideology that makes happiness its guiding principle⁴. Under neoliberalism, people are considered “good” if they are happy. Good people are those who take personal responsibility for their own happiness and make choices that in turn will make them happy. This is the reason emotion takes the center stage on social media: social media is governed by the neoliberal logic, and neoliberalism disciplines people through emotions.
Neoliberalism at work on social media
Neoliberalism happens when we see people’s post that represents themselves as happy, inspiring, and well-balanced human beings, no matter what happens in their lives. In a social media world filled with inspirational quotes and endless offerings of self-improvement classes (e.g., how to be positive, how to have a work-life balance), to feel bad is simply not an option. Indeed, this can be disastrous for mental health.
But one may wonder, what’s wrong with wanting to improve oneself? Of course, there’s nothing wrong with that. But let’s consider an example. A person feels ugly. Remember that in a neoliberal world, people are disciplined through emotions. If they feel bad, they must take personal responsibility to change themselves. This means that if a person feels ugly, rather than challenging dominant beauty standards that are often racist and Euro-centric, ageist, ableist, and privilege thin bodies (i.e., address the problem at the structural level), a person must take personal responsibility to improve how they look (i.e., tackle the issue at the individual level).
That person can go online to watch beauty tutorials by beauty bloggers. Then they can purchase beauty products that influencers offer on their social media accounts. And remember, U=under neoliberalism, people are encouraged to be entrepreneurs (influencers) and consumers (followers).
I propose that neoliberalism is the operating logic on social media. Neoliberalism disciplines people through emotions. To be considered as good, people have to perform happiness on social media. This is why performing positive emotion is so important on social media. It is also why the display of happiness on social media can be toxic: feeling good becomes compulsory. Facebook indeed notes that status updates with positive emotional words receive more likes than those with negative emotional words.”⁵ This both reflects and creates a world where people are pressured to be and perform happiness. To be happy becomes one more task on one’s to-do list.
How Does Social Media Platform Incorporate Emotion?
To return to my earlier point, social media companies are successful because they know how to incorporate emotional currency on their platform and make it visible. For instance, although Facebook once only had the “like” button, it now has “love,” “sad,”, “care”, “angry,” and other buttons to express one’s emotions. A posting’s success and visibility is often measured by how many “likes” it has.
Social media platforms also strategically use emotions to keep us coming back and entice us to stay online for longer. They do so by providing us with a controlled environment where our senses and emotions are constantly stimulated. First, there is the infinite scrolling that makes people feel like they need to keep scrolling to reach the bottom of the page, when in fact, there is no bottom. Unlike on search engines, for instance, where there is a sense of completion when we reach the bottom of the search results page and we are prompted to click on the next page to view more results. When users scroll through overwhelming postings in one scroll/sitting, it simultaneously flood our senses and anesthetize us, like a drug⁶. We are taken from this physical world and into this other-worldly of the digital space.
Secondly, because our emotions are stimulated and simulated on social media, platforms often provide tools to help us create content that may yield higher emotional responses. For instance, many offer built-in features such as photo filters (that makes image brighter, sharper, and more appealing), the capacity to add a song (to provide a desired soundscape to go with the story), the space for caption or story (that makes the image more entertaining and meaningful), and comment features and heart buttons for people to engage with one another. These features help us to create an entertaining and enchanting image that can provoke emotional responses.
Social Media and Mental Health: What Can Brands Do?
Social media posts with strong and positive emotional responses lead to increases in traffic and shareability. It means success. However, because (in a neoliberal world) social media functions as a shrine for the self, a place where the self-shines so to speak, most of these posts focus on the individual. Inevitably, one person’s success story becomes pressure for others to be successful, too. This is where social media can play a significant role in influencing our mental health.
Brands therefore need to think of different ways to exist and engage on social media in a way that ethically influencers people’s well-being. Here are two tips for how to do this:
1) Focus more on the success, transformation and efforts of communities or groups of people, rather than a single person (i.e., how an individual overcomes structural problem) and avoid only posting inspirational and success stories that focus on individuals, which could lead to pressures on their followers;
2) Work with behavioural scientists, psychologists and well-being experts to help craft your marketing and social media strategies.
Final Thoughts
In closing, if emotion is central on social media, then, social media inevitably influences mental health. It is possible to create social media world that affects mental health positively. For instance, during the pandemic, adolescents use social media to cope with loneliness and anxiety⁷. Social media has also been used by body-positive activists such as Virgie Tovar who advocates that we #LoseHateNotWeight or celebrity Jameela Jamil whose Instagram account i_weigh advocates radical inclusivity. Both have millions of followers and high engagement. It’s time to imagine and create a social media world that supports our mental health.
ReferencesForbes. (2023). Top Social Media Statistics And Trends Of 2023. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/social-media-statistics/#key_social_media_statistics_section
Leve, Michelle. “Reproductive Bodies and Bits: Exploring Dilemmas of Egg Donation under Neoliberalism.” Studies in Gender and Sexuality, vol. 14, no. 4, 2013, pp. 277– 288.
Saraswati, L. Ayu. Pain Generation: Social Media, Feminist Activism, and the Neoliberal Selfie. NYU Press, 2021.
Rottenberg, Catherine. The Rise of Neoliberal Feminism. Oxford University Press, 2018, pp. 15, 18, 42.
https://m.facebook.com/notes/facebook-data-team/whats-on-your-mind/477517358858
Saraswati, L. Ayu. Pain Generation: Social Media, Feminist Activism, and the Neoliberal
Selfie. NYU Press, 2021.
Cauberghe, Verolien, et. al., “How Adolescents Use Social Media to Cope with Feelings of Loneliness and Anxiety During Covid-19 Lockdown. Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking, 2021. 24 (4), pp. 250-257.
Meet Ayu
“I strive to create a better world for girls and women, and eventually a world without gender limitations.”
Dr Saraswati is an immigrant woman of color, award-winning author, and Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa.
Ayu is an advocate for the wellbeing of girls and women of Southeast Asia, and attributes her lived experience as a beauty pageant winner as the catalyst for pursuing a research career in body image, media representation, and women’s issues. She is an esteemed author, with numerous publications spanning academia and mainstream media on the sociocultural pressures faced by Southeast Asian women.
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