Non-Fac/Non-Schl

Why do we feel compelled to constantly check social media? Does individual overuse of social media have an accumulative effect on our society? Can we make any productive changes to ourselves and social media platforms to mitigate our addiction to social media? This course will integrate interdisciplinary knowledge to uncover the driving forces behind social media addiction. The reasons causing people to get addicted to social media are not limited to personal characteristics and include the design and artificial intelligence used by the platforms themselves. In this course, we will introduce both the underlying technical mechanisms and psychological factors that cause behavioral addiction to social media. In addition, the accumulative effect of social media addiction on our personal and professional lives, as well as societies across the world, will be discussed. Through a variety of interactive and reflective learning activities, this course will drive a collective effort among students to develop solutions for minimizing social media addiction and maximizing the beneficial use of social media in both social and academic settings.