In this presentation, given at the end of this semester's CM443/743 class (New Media and Public Relations), I predict the end of the world, and whether social media will be the cause of it. I also create the "Societal Collapse Index," a score inspired by the HANDY model that is based on a country's EPI (Environmental Performance Index) and its World Bank Gini score. Based on their most recent EPI and Gini scores, the top five societies I predict the collapse of are: The Central African Republic, South Africa, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi.

1. The End Of The World
(As We Know It)
Todd Van Hoosear
CM443 / CM743 Last Lecture

2. Two Historical Factors in Societal Collapse
1. Over exploitation of natural resources
2. Strong economic stratification
“[Either] one of the two features apparent in historical societal collapses … can independently result in a
complete collapse. Given economic stratification, collapse is very difficult to avoid and requires major policy
changes, including major reductions in inequality and population growth rates. Even in the absence of
economic stratification, collapse can still occur if depletion per capita is too high. However, collapse can be
avoided and population can reach equilibrium if the per capita rate of depletion of nature is reduced to a
sustainable level, and if resources are distributed in a reasonably equitable fashion.”
Motesharrei, S.; Rivas, J.; Kalney, E. “Human and nature dynamics (HANDY): Modeling inequality and use of
resources in the collapse or sustainability of societies,” in Ecological Economies (v.101, 90-102, May 2014)
(https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2014.02.014).
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800914000615

3. HANDY Factor #1
(Over exploitation of natural resources)

4. Environmental Performance Index

5. 49%
• The likelihood of
society’s collapse by
2050 as calculated by
author Jared
Diamond in 2019
• He attributed mostly
environmental and
sustainability reasons
(i.e., HANDY factor #1)

6. HANDY Factor #2
(Strong economic stratification)

7. Existing Social Inequality (Income)

8. Existing Social Inequity (Income – G20)

9. Todd’s Country Collapse Index

10. Health Inequity (and COVID-19)

11. Existing Social Inequity (Health)

12. COVID-19 Cases (as of April 24, 2020)
Percent of
US Population
0.9%
4.8%
12.6%
0.2%
72.4%
2.9%
Racial Bias
- 0.4%
+ 0.2%
+ 17.4%
+ 0.1%
- 21%
+9.9%
If you are black, you
are significantly
more likely to be
diagnosed with
COVID-19 than if you
are white.

13. The CDC’s Social Vulnerability Map
Social vulnerability refers to
the resilience of
communities when
confronted by external
stresses on human health,
stresses such as natural or
human-caused disasters, or
disease outbreaks.
Reducing social
vulnerability can decrease
both human suffering and
economic loss. CDC's Social
Vulnerability Index uses 15
U.S. census variables at
tract level to help local
officials identify
communities that may
need support in preparing
for hazards; or recovering
from disaster.

14. COVID-19 Cases by County (April 24, 2020)

15. COVID-19 Trouble Areas (Overlaps)
Dark-brown areas indicate areas
of especially high risk, where cases
are high and social vulnerability is
high. These are predominantly in
the southwest and south.
Areas of reddish-brown are areas
of elevated COVID-19 cases but
moderate social vulnerability.
These are predominantly in the
east and west coast, as well as the
Midwest.
Areas of light brown are areas
where COVID-19 has been
reported but social vulnerability is
low. These are predominantly in
the great plains.
Areas in blue are areas where
COVID-19 cases are low, but social
vulnerability is elevated. These
areas are scattered.

16. So What About Massachusetts? (April 25)
Foreign-Born %
45.5%
29.6%
40.3%
32.2%
36.2%
39.5%
<2%
African-American %
5.84%
40.81%
17.83%
38.4%
11.16%
7.83%
<2%
Our state looks okay, but some of our cities look terrible…
Boston 9704.05 (0.97%) 6744
Massachusetts ~8000.00 (0.8%) 53348
(38.42%)
(17.94%)
(14.75%)
(14.06%)
(13.75%)
(13.67%)
(13.00%)

17. Racial Inequity in COVID-19 Cases
• If you live in a city, town or neighborhood
with significantly high foreign-born or
African-American populations, you are
significantly more likely to be diagnosed
with COVID-19.

18. The African-American Experience

19. Racial Inequity Exists (Two Examples)

20. Two Alternative Narratives
Endemic Deficiencies
• For whatever reason, blacks in America
are not motivated to help themselves.
• Lincoln freed the blacks, and the Civil
Rights Act solidified their equality.
• Today, they have access to the same
resources and opportunities given to all
Americans, and yet they don’t take
advantage of these for some reason.
• On top of that, they don’t mind taking
advantage of the social support networks
that exist out of the goodness and hard
work of other Americans.
Systemic Discrimination
• While Blacks and other minorities enjoy
de juris equality in American society, they
continue to suffer from de facto
discrimination.
• This is due to the legacy of systemic
discrimination in multiple facets of
everyday life, from housing loans to racial
profiling.
• Systemic discrimination comes in two
flavors: institutional racism and
unconscious bias.
• This is hard to talk about because it
contradicts the Great American Narrative.
FALSE NARRATIVE DISSONANT NARRATIVE

21. Cognitive Dissonance
• “In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance
occurs when a person holds two or more
contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values, or
participates in an action that goes against one of
these three, and experiences psychological stress
because of that.
• According to this theory, when two actions or
ideas are not psychologically consistent with each
other, people do all in their power to change
them until they become consistent.
• The discomfort is triggered by the person's belief
clashing with new information perceived, wherein
they try to find a way to resolve the contradiction
to reduce their discomfort.”
Thanks, Wikipedia! I Love You.

22. Institutional Racism
• Institutional Racism is “the systematic distribution of resources,
power and opportunity in our society to the benefit of people who
are white and the exclusion of people of color.”
• Present-day racism was built on a long history of racially distributed
resources and ideas that shape our view of ourselves and others.
• It is a hierarchical system that comes with a broad range of policies
and institutions that keep it in place.
https://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/institutionalracism.pdf

23. The Impact of Institutional Racism
• In the United States, institutional racism has been responsible for slavery,
settlement, Indian reservations, segregation, residential schools (for
American Indians), and internment camps.
• While most of these institutions no longer exist, they have had long-term
impacts on our society.
• As a result of institutional racism, racial stratification and disparities have
occurred in employment, housing, education, healthcare, government and
other sectors.
• While many laws were passed in the mid-20th century to make
discrimination illegal, major inequalities still exist.
• Institutional racism is distinguished from the bigotry or racial bias of
individuals by the existence of systematic policies and practices within
institutions that effectually disadvantage certain racial or ethnic groups.
https://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/institutionalracism.pdf

24. Examples of Institutional Racism
• Institutional racism can only exist in institutions where the power to
enforce and perpetuate policies and practices is invested in white
people.
• Certain housing contracts (such as restrictive covenants) and bank
lending policies (such as redlining) are forms of institutional racism.
• Other examples include racial profiling by security and law
enforcement workers, use of stereotyped racial caricatures by
institutions (such as “Indian” mascots in sports), the under- and
misrepresentation of certain racial groups in the media, and barriers
to employment or professional advancement based on race.
https://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/institutionalracism.pdf

25. Redlining in Boston
Source: https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/#loc=11/42.355/-71.195&city=boston-ma

26. Now what the Hell does this have to do with
Social Media?
• “In the 2010s Black Twitter become a cultural force to be reckoned
with. It promoted Black Lives Matter and raised awareness around
the tragic deaths of Sandra Bland and Eric Garner through hashtags
such as #SayHerName and #ICantBreathe. Its anger over Kevin
Hart’s homophobic tweets pressured him to drop out as a host for
the 2018 Oscars ceremony. It pressured Pepsi to retract and
apologize for a Kendall Jenner-fronted commercial accused of co-
opting the Black Lives Matter movement. It created hundreds of
delightfully viral moments such as “eyebrows on fleek”. And it
helped a wild 180-tweet thread – in which a stripper recounts an
adventure-filled road trip to Florida – become an A24-produced,
feature-length film.
• “’I would absolutely say this decade wouldn’t be the same without
Black Twitter,’ says the UVA professor Meredith D Clark, who is
currently writing a book on the internet subsection. ‘But I also think
it was a continuation of our larger relationship with black American
communities. Black culture has been actively mined for hundreds of
years for influences on mainstream American culture.’”
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/dec/23/ten-
years-black-twitter-watchdog

27. Of course there’s also a White Twitter
• In fact, except for its employees, Twitter users are diverse.
• (So are most other social networks these days)

28. But there’s also an “alt-right” white Twitter

29. Filter Bubbles are just one problem
• We talked about filter
bubbles in class. Filter
bubbles happen through
algorithms. They can be
dangerous, but are they
really happening today as Eli
Pariser described them, and
are they causing the
increased polarity we see in
online political discourse?

30. Are filter bubbles real?
• “It's clear that algorithms and algorithmically driven services are very
important, and a lot of people are using them to get news online.”
• “People who rely mainly on self-selection tend to have fairly
imbalanced news diets. They either have more right-leaning or more
left-leaning sources. People who use search engines tend to have a
more even split between the two.”
• However, according to another research study, “there was no real
evidence that people with different views are getting different search
results.”
• Google would deny the existence of filter bubbles. Social media
platforms, however, would be hard pressed to do the same.

31. Alternative explanations
• There are alternative explanations to filter bubbles:
oSelective exposure (i.e., “echo chambers”) — Like filter bubbles, selective
exposure happens through a filtering process, but unlike filter bubbles, it
happens consciously and manually through our choice of who to follow. “This
is consistent with a broader psychological literature on confirmation bias.”
oInoculation — Some researchers have found the opposite dynamic, however:
"that polarization in the U.S. could be driven by exposure to views people
disagree with, rather than being separated from them by filter bubbles.” I call
this process “inoculation,” similar to how the body identifies and responds to
disease.

32. Inoculation risks
• Vaccines are extremely
effective, but they
come with risks:
oToo large of a dose can
result in full disease
transmission
oOverexposure over
time can also lead to
“allergic reactions”

33. Inoculation and polarization
• “A study published by a team of researchers in the US looked at
people's exposure to their opposing side on Twitter. So if they were
Republicans, they were fed lots of messages on Twitter from
Democrats, and vice versa. They measured attitudes before and after
this process and what they found is that as people paid attention to
messages from the opposing side, their attitudes began to polarize,
and they became more entrenched in their original beliefs.”
https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/risj-review/truth-behind-filter-bubbles-bursting-some-myths

34. So does social media help us or hurt us?
• Stress: “Social media use was linked to ‘modestly lower levels’ of stress.”
• Mood: “Participants reported lower moods after using Facebook for 20 minutes compared to those who just
browsed the internet.”
• Anxiety: “People who report using seven or more social media platforms were more than three times as
likely as people using 0-2 platforms to have high levels of general anxiety symptoms.”
• Depression: “Researchers found higher levels of depressive symptoms among those who reported having
more negative[online] interactions.”
• Sleep: Researchers “found a link with sleep disturbances – and concluded blue light had a part to play.”
• Addiction: “Social media addiction is a mental health problem that ‘may’ require professional treatment.”
• Self-Esteem: “Half of 18- to 34-year-olds say [social media] makes them feel unattractive.”
• Well-Being: “Overall, social media’s effects on well-being are ambiguous.”
• Jealousy: “Women spent much more time on Facebook then men, and experienced significantly more
jealousy when doing so.”
• Loneliness: “Those who spend the most time on social media were twice as likely to report experiencing
social isolation, which can include a lack of a sense of social belonging, engagement with others and fulfilling
relationships.”
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20180104-is-social-media-bad-for-you-the-evidence-and-the-unknowns

35. Does social media help society or hurt it?
• “Social media ‘are now tilting dangerously toward illiberalism’ as more
governments and ‘unscrupulous partisan operatives’ use social media for
repressive purposes. These include not only malign propaganda campaigns
at home and abroad, but also growing government use of social media for
mass surveillance. ‘As a result of these trends,’ Freedom House reports,
‘global internet freedom declined for the ninth consecutive year in 2019.’”
(Forbes)
• Also, “a report from Chatham House warned that ‘online political
campaigning techniques are distorting our democratic political processes.’
Techniques include use of social media to spread disinformation, use of
social media data for surveillance and micro-targeting, use of bots or semi-
automated accounts, and use of fake personas. ‘Such techniques,’ the
report says, ‘have outpaced regulatory initiatives’ thus far.” (Forbes)

36. Will social media cause the collapse of society?
• NO!
o Social media is NOT a causal agent for change.
o People will communicate with or without social media.
o It is not, after all, one of the two major factors I discussed at the beginning of
this lecture.
• BUT…
o Social media IS a catalyst.
o It accelerates ”reactions” by speeding up conversations faster that today’s
governmental institutions — including the U.S. Constitution itself — can
handle

37. Even the U.S. Constitution?
“The Founding Fathers knew that most previous democracies had been unstable and short-lived. But they were
excellent psychologists, and they strove to create institutions and procedures that would work with human
nature to resist the forces that had torn apart so many other attempts at self-governance.
“For example, in ‘Federalist No. 10,’ James Madison wrote about his fear of the power of ‘faction,’ by which he
meant strong partisanship or group interest that ‘inflamed [men] with mutual animosity’ and made them
forget about the common good. He thought that the vastness of the United States might offer some protection
from the ravages of factionalism, because it would be hard for anyone to spread outrage over such a large
distance. Madison presumed that factious or divisive leaders ‘may kindle a flame within their particular States,
but will be unable to spread a general conflagration through the other States.’ The Constitution included
mechanisms to slow things down, let passions cool, and encourage reflection and deliberation.
“Madison’s design has proved durable. But what would happen to American democracy if, one day in the early
21st century, a technology appeared that—over the course of a decade—changed several fundamental
parameters of social and political life? What if this technology greatly increased the amount of ‘mutual
animosity’ and the speed at which outrage spread? Might we witness the political equivalent of buildings
collapsing, birds falling from the sky, and the Earth moving closer to the sun?”

38. More reading…
“Things Fall Apart: How
Social Media Leads to a
Less Stable World”
https://knowledge.wharton.upen
n.edu/article/how-social-media-
leads-to-a-less-stable-world/
“The Dark Psychology of
Social Networks”
https://www.theatlantic.com/mag
azine/archive/2019/12/social-
media-democracy/600763/

39. Is there any hope?
• Three scholars may offer us some hope
• They suggest that “we need to start thinking about how to structure
interactions between groups on social media so that conflict becomes
less likely and cooperation becomes more possible.”
• Specifically, they suggest that…
o SNSs can certainly do more to counter online extremism and polarization
o We can use the persuasive power of social consensus to burst bubbles
o We can cultivate more diverse networks beyond our immediate circles
o We can adopt “Actively Open-Minded Thinking (AOT)” techniques
• “When we treat online spaces like we would treat our own
community, difficult conversations become more productive.”
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/is_social_media_driving_political_polarization

40. Another solution? More local news!
https://www.niemanlab.org/2019/02/want-to-reduce-political-polarization-save-your-local-newspaper/