Title: The Impact of Social Media on Society | The Ad Council
Headings: 
Social Media's Impact on Society
Mental Health
Extremism & Hate
So, What Does This Mean for Marketers?

Content: Mental Health
You’ve likely heard at least something about the negative impacts that social media can have on mental health. Recently, experts are weighing in on the role that the design and build of social media platforms plays in exasperating these concerns. For example, at SXSW 2019, Aza Raskin, co-founder of the Center for Human Technology, spoke on a panel about the “digital loneliness epidemic,” which focused on the global rise in depression and loneliness as it correlates to social media use. In that discussion, Raskin spoke about the “infinite scroll” or the design principle that enables users to continuously scroll through their feeds, without ever having to decide whether to keep going. It’s hard to imagine what the bottom of an Instagram feed would look like, so we certainly can’t envision what it would be like to have to choose “next page” if we were to get there. That was an intentional decision made by the designers of these platforms because at its core, it’s good design. But the dilemma we’re now facing, in the wake of momentous mental health concerns that are being linked to social media, is whether good design is humane design. And more importantly, what do we do when it isn’t? Extremism & Hate
Another trend on experts’ minds is how the algorithms behind these massively influential social media platforms may contribute to the rise of extremism and hate online. For example, YouTube has faced its fair share of backlash lately, with concerns over how quickly its algorithm leads viewers to increasingly fringe content.