Not Just A Tool: Why Social-Media Use Is Bad and Bad For Us, and The Duty to Quit

Journal of Global Ethics 20 (1):107-112 (2024)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

With an eye on the future of global ethics, I argue that social-media technologies are not morally neutral tools but are, for all intents and purposes, a kind of agent. They nudge us to do things that are bad for us. Moreover, I argue that we have a duty to quit using social-media platforms, not just on account of possible duties to preserve our own well-being but because users are akin to test subjects on whom developers are testing new nudges, and we ought to deprive them of their test subjects.

Other Versions

No versions found

Similar books and articles

Nudging and Social Media: The Choice Architecture of Online Life.Douglas R. Campbell - 2022 - Giornale Critico di Storia Delle Idee 2:93-114.
Towards a Critical Social Epistemology of Social Media.Joshua Habgood-Coote - 2024 - In Jennifer Lackey & Aidan McGlynn (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Social Epistemology. Oxford University Press.
Reclaiming Care and Privacy in the Age of Social Media.Hugh Desmond - 2022 - Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 92:45-66.
Social media, social unfreedom.Jun Yu & João C. Magalhães - 2022 - Communications 47 (4):553-571.

Analytics

Added to PP
2024-05-21

Downloads
362 (#66,182)

6 months
362 (#5,808)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Is the Attention Economy Noxious?Clinton Castro & Adam Pham - 2020 - Philosophers' Imprint 20 (17):1-13.
In Defense of (Some) Online Echo Chambers.Douglas R. Campbell - 2023 - Ethics and Information Technology 25 (3):1-11.
Nudging and Social Media: The Choice Architecture of Online Life.Douglas R. Campbell - 2022 - Giornale Critico di Storia Delle Idee 2:93-114.

View all 6 references / Add more references