Social media are touted as “a good thing” in that they bring people together, promote sharing, and generally provide convenient means of facilitating online interaction. They are thus considered a public benefit that fosters well-being. Numerous scholarly studies investigating the effects of their systems on people’s lives appear largely to support this claim. And while a substantial body of literature has come from research teams employed by Big Tech companies like Meta (formerly Facebook), the general tone among the wider academic community seems to resonate similarly.

Yet it has been readily apparent for a long time — to anyone with common sense — that these systems have also fostered many ills such as increased social divisiveness, reduced cognitive functioning, addiction and general restlessness. So why have the evaluations been so lop-sided?

Social Capital

The evaluation of social media with respect to well-being is often expressed in terms of social capital. Having studied this for a few years now, I think we need to be asking more keenly the following questions.

• Where does this term come from?
• What does or did it really mean to those who originated it?
• What were the contexts in which the term was applied? What made the term valid?
• Is it valid and helpful to apply it the present contexts with particular attention to online engagement?
• Are more recent uses and application of the term in conformance with the original meaning of the term? If not, what are these new senses and are they more or less helpful?

The answer to the first part would appear to be straightforward because it is very frequently and widely quoted definition of social capital as:

the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalised relationships of mutual acquaintance or recognition – or in other words, to membership in a group…

Pierre Bourdieu (1986) The Forms of Capital, page 21, or page 247 in Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education (Richardson JG, editor)

But Bourdieu developed his ideas and theories in French and it was typically several years before they appeared in English. Thus, le capital social had been defined in 1980:

Le capital social est l’ensemble des ressources actuelles ou potentielles qui sont liées à la possession d’un réseau durable de relations plus ou moins institutionnalisées d’interconnaissance et d’inter-reconnaissance, ou, en d’autres termes, à l’appartenance à un groupe …

Pierre Bourdieu (1980) Le capital social: notes provisoires (Social Capital: Provisional Notes), which appeared in Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales. 1980; 31(1): pp. 2–3.

But what was the background context in which Bourdieu originated these theories? It was his initial fieldwork in Algeria in the late 1950s that proved pivotal and one of the key methods his used to help his reflexive approach (which, seems largely lost in SNS studies), is the deliberate use of photography. By spending time with people and examining closely the images he took of them going about their daily lives he could discern a great deal about the society and culture. The metrics-laden methods used to analyze online social networking sites are very shallow in comparison.

One of the main observations Bourdieu made was that colonisation had uprooted people socially and culturally. I’d argue that the Internet, in providing a very lean environment in which to interact is a phenomenon that uproots us all from our cultural backgrounds. Bourdieu talked a lot about le déracinement (uprooting) of peoples in Algeria.

Blog post, 15 January 2022: Bourdieu and Social Capital: Methodological Challenges.

It was also bound up with the term le capital culturel (cultural capital), which is not so prevalent in these analyses, though it has risen to prominence in mainstream education since being included in Ofsted’s inspection framework:

32. As part of making the judgement about quality of education, inspectors will consider the extent to which schools are equipping pupils with the knowledge and cultural capital they need to succeed in life. Ofsted’s understanding of this knowledge and cultural capital matches the understanding set out in the aims of the national curriculum. [i.e.,] It is the essential knowledge that pupils need to be educated citizens, introducing them to the best that has been thought and said, and helping to engender an appreciation of human creativity and achievement.

School Inspection Update: Education Inspection Framework, Ofsted, January 2019

The last sentence is quoted from the statutory guidance on the National curriculum in England: framework for key stages 1 to 4.

I’ve highlighted in bold the basic rationale. Whilst ‘success in life’ is a very broad term and the quote from the national curriculum would appear to support that, there are inevitable suggestions of the ‘knowledge economy’, from which cultural capital may be seen as instrumental for economic capital. Indeed, if we look at some commentarial literature, we see discussions around how the transmission of culture from generation to generation among the well-to-do gives their offspring a certain advantage that leads to positions of power and wealth. The reflection on culture as a good in and of itself can get neglected.

Hence, the achievement of material outcomes is implicitly the key driver for well-being. Yet, being replete in economic capital merely provides assurance of not suffering deprivation and doesn’t provide assurance of well-being, as made abundantly clear in Avner Offer’s The Challenge of Affluence.

Buddhist capital: meritorious deeds

None of economic, social or cultural capital are guarantees of well-being, but the Buddha taught that happiness can surely follow from good deeds, which generate their own store of capital called merit (Pali: puñña). The generation of such capital arises through wholesome actions.

There is in fact a whole body of teachings on this kind of capital in the context of social relationships, which is the subject of research for the Sigala project.

The Problem

Why is there so much discontent with existing the social media provided by the ‘big tech’ companies? One trite answer is simply because social media fosters discontent!

How does it foster discontent? By promoting craving and addiction, which is why paradoxically people continue using these services despite their reservations about them. As confessed by Sean Parker, former President of Facebook:

“The thought process that went into building these applications, … was all about: ‘How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?'” “And that means that we need to sort of give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while, because someone liked or commented on a photo or a post or whatever. And that’s going to get you to contribute more content, and that’s going to get you … more likes and comments.” “It’s a social-validation feedback loop … exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because you’re exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology.

Mike Allen, ‘Sean Parker Unloads on Facebook: “God Only Knows What it’s Doing to Our Children’s Brains”’, Axios, 9
November 2017

A Solution

To redesign social media from the ground up rooted in the principles of Buddhist ethics and the cultivation of wholesome relationships. This should improve the quality of awareness, enhance human agency, encourage independence of thought, and not foster addiction. This is what the Sigala project is all about.

Why ‘Sigala’?

The name is derived from the name of a follower to whom the Buddha gave the most definitive teachings on how lay people should conduct themselves for human flourishing. Actually the layman’s name was Sigāla (long ‘a’), but the diacritics can easily get omitted. Also, with a short ‘a’, it can be pronounced in the same lively way as ‘Figaro’!

Current status

Research has been ongoing since 2007 and explored various themes. From 2018 onwards, in response to Parker’s admission, special attention has been given to mind and cognition. For descriptions of these investigations, please consult the dedicated Sigala research site: https://research.siga.la/.

The next step is to code a proof of concept, for which I have established Symfony PHP framework as a suitable candidate.

Introduction

Building the right relationships with the right people applies to any context, offline and online. However, the ability to rapidly make connections on the Internet means we need to be more vigilant to ensure that we remain true to this recommendation. Apart from this, the nature of relationships remains fundamentally the same. We argue that a person is an integrated whole; whether engaged in the physical world or online, there is the one life, albeit played out in multiple facets.

We may pretend to be someone else (as promoted in VR worlds such as Second Life and the metaverse), but these only add layers of maya (illusion) and according to Buddhist teachings, karma accumulates around the same stream of consciousness; after the virtual deed is done, the effects will be experienced by the person, in their constituents (khandhas). The key requirement then is to understand what deeds bring happiness and unhappiness. Do we really need VR?

Given the acceleration driven by socialising online, the creation of amenable networking systems is a difficult challenge and cannot be solved by facile means. We may aim for art, but won’t reach that until we’ve worked hard to find workable, if not the most elegant, solutions. That’s a technical challenge, but we can all work on the problem of happiness. Surely, then, a sensible candidate should be able to reflect closely the nature of human relationships pre-Internet, comprising kinship and non-kinship relationships, which have distinct contextual meaning and grow organically.

Fortunately, there is an architectural model that strongly suggests an architectural framework, one that is based on the Buddha’s teachings to a householder, which I explore on the Sigala research site.

Timeline

To indicate how I’ve reached my present position, I offer a timeline of my involvement in initiatives that relate to this theme.

Nov-Dec 1996

“The MiningCo” – taking back the Web

I was one of the first guides (Buddhism) for the MiningCo (later renamed about.com). This aimed to build a community around thousands of guides applying their expert knowledge to assist with the problem of identifying relevant sites. What I particularly appreciated was the support community within the company itself.

2004-2005

Reflective and Private Blogs

Blogging is normally considered a social affair, but the RAMBLE (Remote authoring of Mobile Blogs for Learning Environments), for which I was principal investigator, trialled private, reflective blogs. Undergraduates were encouraged to write about their learning experiences and share them selectively with tutors and peers. Social can be selective.

Summer 2007

Joined Facebook

I was lulled into opening an account by colleagues.

November 2007

On ‘Friends’ and other associations

Dissatisfied with Facebook’s architecture, I sought a design that would properly support the deepening of human friendship and found inspiration in the Buddha’s teachings, resulting in a post on the EDUCAUSE Connect blog.

December 2010

New Architectures for Sustainability

I consolidated some of my ideas in a paper I gave at the 3rd World Conference on Buddhism and Science in Thailand. At the heart of the new architectures is a separation of concerns, especially of different kinds of relationships (kinship and non-kinship) rather than lumping every connection into the ‘friend’ type.

2011 –

Sigala Project

Named after the householder who received the Buddha’s teachings (though with flexible pronunciation!), the project was started, initially as theoretical research.

September 2021

Cultivating Sīla Online: The Use of Cognitive Interventions in Systems Design

This substantial paper, which I gave at Oriel College, Oxford, brings together many elements that I have been exploring. It provides assurance that the software development can now proceed.