Successful real-world communities follow a few basic rules that maintain civility and order. These rules are neglected in social media. Indeed, they can be completely turned upside down. That’s why social media could grow anxiety and loneliness.

Simple rules for simple communities

In properly functioning communities, each individual is valued regardless of ability or social status. A child is equally deserving Careful as an adult and an elderly person receives the same consideration as a young person and so on. There is universal basic respect.

The second principle (universal citizenship) is a practical ramification of the first. Because every person deserves respect, the community practices universal civility. This means that community members greet strangers with the same consideration they would greet an acquaintance.

Universal civility works best in a community where most individuals know each other, but it usually breaks down in big cities where mostly strangers meet.

The third principle is the desire to follow rules that reinforce cooperative behavior and punish bullies and cheats.

A functioning community is easy to recognize because its members are well integrated and happy. Social media clearly fails this test. Indeed, the more young people spend online, the lonelier they report (1). There is something terribly wrong with social media (2). The problem is that they are driven by an engagement algorithm that ignores the principles of successful communities.

Enter the engagement algorithm

Social networks fail their users because they are corrupted by money, by the profit motive. This is implemented by the engagement algorithm that runs content streams from social networks. The engagement algorithm is good at monetizing social media attention, but it undermines, even reverses, the three rules of successful communities.

Big media companies like Facebook monetize sensationalism, hate and anti-social expression and behavior. Forget universal civility and basic respect! Their platforms also lack the social control mechanisms that maintain civil relations in real-world communities.

These problems can be illustrated by triggering a genocide in Myanmar, in 2016. At this time, the internet was new in the country and access was mostly through Facebook. Government propaganda was treated as if it were reliable journalism.

Today, across the globe, news coverage is skewed toward coverage of interpersonal rivalries, scandalous rumors, and conspiracy theories because that is the content that attracts readers. The engagement algorithm promotes petty rivalries and hate speech in general. In the process, they change the rules of simple communities.

Turning the rules upside down

The main problem is that the worst actors get the most attention. This is partly due to basic human psychology. The child who throws the most and worst tantrums is rewarded with a monopoly of parental attention, and the underlying psychology is similar on social media.

The most effective way for parents to deal with tantrums is to give the child a time out in which they are punished by withdrawing the parents’ attention. The engagement algorithm does exactly the opposite.

We shouldn’t be surprised that the key voices on the internet are people behaving badly, whether it’s rich actors fighting over divorces, scantily clad influencers, politicians insulting each other, or a spinster the most unbroken conspiracy theory. (Conspiracy theories are alive and well, despite some recent fact-checking efforts).

Social interactions in the real world are organized very differently. People who behave unpleasantly are avoided like the plague. They become outcasts and their reputational damage has real-world consequences.

While uncivil people are punished in real-world social media, those who are kind and civil are rewarded. They are warmly welcomed in public. They engage in conversation and are invited to join leisure activities and social occasions. In real life, attention mechanisms work almost exactly the opposite of how the engagement algorithm works.

Bullies and cheaters in the real world are dealt with harshly. They are socially punished and exposed to the rigors of law enforcement. However, online bullies operate with almost total impunity. They go unchallenged because potential opponents would face the same kind of abuse.

Internet trolls often operate under a cloak of anonymity – either by hiding under fake profiles with forged identities or by using virtual private networks that make them untraceable. This protects them from retaliation. There is no protection for young people who suffer from anxiety and depression in a society dominated by virtual communities (3).

Can social media be fixed? It’s hard to say because they were a law unto themselves. There are really only two options. We either cure them or give them up.