##Overview
The seemingly free social media products we use every day help us to stay connected, learn new things, and find information. But they also analyze our actions and the data we share, using what they learn about us to trick us into paying attention to them more than we want. They sell that attention—and ultimately changes in what we think and how we behave—to advertisers. These social media products are caught in a race to capture our attention in order to make money.
In this issue guide, you’ll learn:
* Why our attention is valuable to social media companies.
* How that value shapes the design of products we use every day.
* How the financial incentives of these products create harm to us and to society as a whole.
By understanding these key points, you’ll begin to see how you can help push for technology that aligns with humanity’s best interests.
##Introduction
[[☃ image 2]] As the generation that has grown up with social media, you know it has incredible power. That power can build connections, lift up our voices, and help us solve problems.
But social media can also distract us, divide us, and downgrade our collective ability to solve problems. Consider these excerpts from MySocialTruth, a story bank project for young people to share their experience on and off social media:
*“I constantly refreshed my likes as they came in, spent hours reading and replying to comments and taking in other people's posts. I became obsessed with living what social media promotes as a worthwhile and perfect life.”*
–Anuja, Age 20, Fresno
*“My morning time ritual became an afternoon ritual to a night ritual, to an all day ritual where I would habitually check my phone every hour, eagerly waiting for the next notification to come in.”*
–Sam, Age 18, New York City
For Anuja and Sam, the addiction and distortion they faced on social media was not an example of technology that supports our wellbeing and larger goals.