Social Media Is Toxic. How Do We Fix It?

From Facebook to Tiktok, social media is ubiquitous. And while its presence in the business world has allowed brands to grow their presence and individuals to grow their personal brands, it is not always a force for good. This is especially true for vulnerable and impressionable populations that may not always comprehend that what shows up on Instagram is often a curated, idealistic view of someone’s view and not necessarily an accurate reflection of reality.

The negative influences of social media on young women is the topic of the Phyllis Marchand 2024 Leadership Lecture on Thursday, March 21, at 6 p.m. at Princeton Public Library. Communications strategists Kara Alaimo and Jane Greenway Carr discuss Alaimo’s new book, “Over the Influence: Why Social Media is Toxic for Women and Girls — and How We Can Reclaim It.”

The discussion takes place in person with no live stream. The event will be available for viewing on the library’s YouTube page after the fact. For more information, visit www.princetonlibrary.org/events or call 609-924-9529.

Presented in partnership with the Princeton Public Library, Labyrinth Books of Princeton, The Phyllis Marchand Lecture Series Fund, and Princeton University’s Department of Gender and Sexuality Studies, the discussion will be followed by book sales and book signing. The first 25 students to sign in at the lecture will receive a free, signed copy of the book.

Alaimo is an associate professor of communication at Fairleigh Dickinson University, where she created the university’s programs in social media. She has written for CNN Opinion about the social impact of social media and issues affecting women and girls since 2016. She also served as a communications specialist in the Obama administration and United Nations.

Carr is a CNN Opinion senior editor whose work has appeared in CNN Opinion, as well as in several other publications, including The Atlantic, Slate, and Vox. She was previously a contributing editor and fellow at the think tank New America and a lecturer in the English Department at New York University. She is the co-editor of a forthcoming book to be published in June, “The Case of Lizzie Borden and Other Writings: Tales of a Newspaper Woman.”

The Marchand Lecture, dedicated to inspiring excellence in community-based leadership, is an annual library event held in honor of Phyllis Marchand, Princeton Township’s longest serving mayor and a leader and leadership mentor in the community for five decades. For more information, visit phyllisleadershipseries.org.

In the introduction to her book Alaimo writes about her intent to show the pervasive influence of social media: ”The Internet — and especially social media — has had a seismic impact on everyone, not always for the better. But it’s been particularly awful for women and girls. And we’re only just beginning to reckon with what it’s doing to us. In this book, I’ll show you how social media is affecting every aspect of our lives — from how we feel about our bodies to how we parent our children and how successful we are in our careers.”

Alaimo goes on to explain that children are frequently subjected to social media well before they are old enough to understand it, consent to it, or have their own accounts, through “sharenting,” the act of parents sharing photos and other life details online that can become fodder for future embarrassment or bullying when images resurface later in life.

Subsequent chapters of the book explore the effect social media has on women’s body image, the way the world perceives and judges women, its impact on dating, the rise of “influencers,” the spread of misinformation — particularly among new mothers seeking support and surrounding vaccinations, and misogyny within the tech companies behind these social media platforms.

The overall impact, Alaimo concludes, is a rise in misogyny and violence against women not only in YouTube comments and Instagram DMs, but also in real life. In summing up her introduction and her purpose, Alaimo explains: “While writing this book, I came to a shocking realization: life now seems to be imitating social media. We all know social media has become a cesspool of sexism and misogyny, but we can’t escape it by turning off our phones or deleting our accounts, because what’s happening on social media is changing our offline world. It’s making it more socially acceptable and commonplace to abuse women and deprive us of our rights . . .

“Some people say we should stop using social networks because they’re toxic places. But I don’t believe we should turn social media into what Saudi Arabia was like when I visited a decade ago, where women are run out of public places in which we could empower ourselves. It’s also increasingly clear to me that this ‘solution’ wouldn’t work anyway, because as men become more radicalized online, they’re becoming more emboldened abuse and even kill women offline. We can’t stand down and let this keep happening. We have to fix what’s wrong with social media.

“This book is motivated by my fears about how using social media — and living in the world wrought by social media — will affect my own young daughters. It’s a rallying cry for us to use our collective power to upend this entire system.”