The Happiness Effect

Freitas, D. (2017).The happiness effect: How social media is driving a generation to

appear perfect at any cost. Oxford University Press.

Introduction

The Happiness Effect by Freitas (2017) is a story about young people and their use of social mediaand its impact on their livestold largely in their own words. It is a probing and sensitive examination of a techno-cultural phenomenon, one that has never been seen before in all of human history, and Freitas takes care to allow those taking part in this phenomenon to provide their own perspective on it. This paper summarizes and critiques the book and provides an examination of the consistency, validity, and adequacy of the arguments of its author. While the book does offer some important insight, it does come up short in terms of addressing point-blank the ultimate issue, which is that social media is more of a burden and a problem than a tooland young people need to know that they are better off without it.

Summary

Freitas (2017) explores the love-hate relationship that young people have with social media by surveying and interviewing students across a number of different college campuses. The main idea of the book is to show that young people struggle with the demands that social media places on them: they feel they must do everything they can to appear happy and successful on social media. They also worry that if they post the wrong thing it may be used against them later in their lives. This latter point is especially significant in the age of cancel culture, where a tweet or Facebook post from years ago can end up costing a person his career later on.

The fear of young people is understandable, and Freitas (2017) pays special attention to it throughout the work. The book begins with a look at how young people feel social media obliges them to show the good times and it creates a sense of envy and competition among peoplethey want to show that Im in a better place than you are and I want to prove that to you and show you that Im extremely happy (16). Freitas (2017) describes the students she meets and brings them to life so that the reader can visualize these people and understand that they are real.

The author also discusses Facebook Cleanups, which are taught to young students so that they know not to post anything offensive online that might come back to haunt them. Students actually learn this lesson in high school; they are aware how important it is to watch what you say online because you never know who is keeping an eye on you (53). Young people are basically being groomed to accept cancel culture for what it is and to play along.

There is also a discussion of selfie culture. One young person interviewed explains how she used to hate the idea of selfies and how she thought people posted them just as a way of getting attention and getting likes. However, then she began to take them and post them and she justified this by saying that it was just a way of making oneself feel good. Essentially, she admits to caving to the pressure to be vaineven if she does not say so in so many words. But her actions are clearly indicative of a trend among young people to embrace vanity out of peer pressure: Freitas (2017) writes that for Elise, selfies offer a way to capture a moment when you are feeling attractive and good about yourself (83). It is justified because it is interpreted as an expression of who one isas...

…for the young person, whether it is worth all the effort, the hassle, the time, and the commitment. Then again perhaps the soft approach will do little to sway the opinion of the young person and the young person will go right back to using social media as it is the way of the world and there is no point swimming against the current.

The book does very little in terms of making a case for why the young person ought to swim against the current of the modern techno-culture. Instead, it prioritizes giving voice to several different young people and describing their individual experiences in essentially non-judgmental terms. There is a remarkable lack of judgment and condemnation in the book. That will appeal to some readers; others might be turned off by it.

The book is consistent throughout in terms of not making judgments. The author sincerely wants to hear from young people, wants to put herself in their shoes and wants to know what it is like to be a young person having to navigate the frontier of social media, where one wrong step could mean that ones life, all ones work, all ones hopes are canceled overnight. That is clearly a lot of pressure and stress to put on a young personand one can well wonder why so many young people put themselves in a position like this and why they dont simply avoid all social media altogether. But if the reader is wondering that, the author does not appear to noticefor there is not a great deal of discussion on the matter. The assumption is simply that social media exists, young people use it, and the alternative to not using it is to not have a social life, not have friends, and not be in connection with ones peers…