Facebook, Instagram and the family of social media platforms are exactly the type of societal product which Emerson and Thoreau criticized, with good reason. Researchers have consistently shown the negative effects of social media on mental health, including more pronounced concerns for anxiety, depression, lack of focus and decreased self-esteem, among others. Many agree that social media has ironically made us less socially connected. Even back in the 19th century, when newspaper was the primary media, Thoreau was viscerally opposed to much of what he read:

“If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter — we never need read of another. One is enough.” -Thoreau, Walden

And now Facebook automatically loads an infinite line of videos for us to watch in succession…

In his study, Smith highlights the risk for faulty self-comparison on social media. On the first day of entry-level Statistics, you learn that data can be skewed by outliers. An outlier, as the name suggests, lies outside the bulk of data points. For humanity, the outliers in question are extraordinary moments, like perfect meals, beautiful sunsets, job offers, and parties with friends. Built for advertising, Facebook’s algorithms tend to feed us posts from outlying moments, experiences which make up only a small portion of everyday life. When we assess how we measure up against the rest of our peers, it is no surprise we are left feeling like a small fish, lost in a sea of other people’s personal successes. Cultivating a sense of inferiority is also a good way to move self-improvement products. Emerson would be disappointed with this type of self-assessment, asserting in “Self-Reliance” that “envy is ignorance” and “imitation is suicide.”

Although he did not use statistical terms, Emerson’s idea mirrors those of modern scientific researchers, who learn to disregard outliers when developing generalizable principles from data sets.

The lesson: do not compare yourself to outliers.

Updating Self-Reliance

The problem is clear: modern social technology disrupts our ability for critical self-assessment. Does this mean that we should follow Thoreau by moving into a cabin in the woods and disconnecting ourselves from Internet of Everything? It is a very tempting idea…but first we should remember everything that data and social technology have given humanity in the last decade. Improving our most basic human capacity, social technology has given us the ability to instantly communicate with anyone, almost anywhere on the planet. It has given scientists an ocean of raw data on human action to be analyzed and learned from. Perhaps most importantly, the internet has allowed for an unprecedented dissemination of knowledge and understanding which had previously been reserved for university researchers and industry experts. The list goes on.

“Social Media replaces nothing, but complements everything.” -Neal Schaffer

We cannot be so quick to abandon the techno-social landscape, so we must find harmony. How could we reconcile Wolf’s “quantified self” and big data trends with the age-old, Delphic mantra “Know thyself,” which preaches self-understanding rooted in consciousness and spirituality, instead of blood sugar levels and hours of REM sleep?

Consider an addition to the transcendental attitude: If the methods of collecting, analyzing, and commercializing complex information produce results which are transparent and well-understood, a person may use the raw data as a tool to better discern themselves and the objective world.

Just as with the scientific method, transparency is crucial. For any scientific report to be considered valid and useful, authors must clearly detail research methods, results and any potential conflicts of interest which may have allowed bias into the conclusions. This process ensures that under identical conditions, the same experiment will produce the same outcome, which can then be considered a usable fact. Unfortunately, transparency doesn’t always generate maximum profit. Modern news websites, as commercial entities, have less of an incentive to fact check publications when catchy click-bait titles and clever framing bring in much heavier traffic, and when Likes are positively correlated with shareholder return. Thankfully, there are sites like The Knife Media, who are committed to providing unbiased news and social information.

Photo by Adam Birkett on Unsplash

Critical Self-Assessment

Data and data-driven conclusions must also be understood. Consider a typical promotional statistic: “9 out of 10 dentists would recommend this toothpaste.” There are some questions to ask, especially when making financial decisions:

- What was the sample size? - Who paid for the research? - How were research questions framed? - Is this result relevant and generalizable?

Understanding what data-based evidence tells us is only valuable when we also understand how and why it was studied. In general, the statistics governing claims made about your toothpaste probably wouldn’t hold up under scrutiny. We can realize some of Emerson’s wisdom, who recommended this exact sort of healthy skepticism by warning that “truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.”

Emerson and Thoreau lived in a different time. Their base of knowledge was limited, tiny in comparison to the mountains of information available to the average student today. Their strategy was to derive truth only from what they themselves had experienced.

“Only so much do I know, as I have lived.” -Emerson, The American Scholar

The internet and its emergent products, social media included, can now provide equally visceral evidence for truth, so long as the two precautions are taken. Thinkers today have the opportunity to acquire truth and understanding from a global network of peers, with validity ensured by proper application of the scientific method. Where Thoreau would’ve needed to leave his cabin and venture back to the cities to hear fellow lecturers speak, we now have more video lectures available on YouTube being produced daily than could probably be consumed in an average lifetime.