1:
The Ledger of Harms is a document compiled by the Center for Humane technology compiling the broad categories in which the adverse and under reported effects of the Internet and Social Media fall into. These categories are defined as the effects on our: Attention, Mental Health, Relationships, Democracy, and Children. The Ledger of Harms breaks these down into examples and summaries, it is designed to be a solid foundation for a designer’s understanding of the damage their work can cause to society. (The Ledger of Harms: https://ledger.humanetech.com/)

Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc. are all designed with one thing in mind, clicks. And how do you get clicks? Attention. These companies and platforms’ goals are to keep users, the hundreds of millions of them, on their sites as long as possible, this has lead to developments of what many now call “Phone Addiction”, and people in the tech industry are struggling to find a way to stem the flow. (The People Behind your Tech Addiction Are Now Trying to Curb It: https://www.yesmagazine.org/happiness/the-people-behind-your-tech-addiction-are-now-trying-to-curb-it-20180628).

Over time the internet has changed drastically from what it once was, and there is no going back. Companies quest after our attention and our data while we flock to social media. In order to find our way out of this negative feedback loop we must band together and tame the new internet. Companies must be kept in check and forced to play by society’s rules, not the other way around. (The Internet Is a Force of Nature. It’s Our Job to Civilize It: https://singularityhub.com/2019/08/25/the-internet-is-a-force-of-nature-its-our-job-to-civilize-it/)

Social Media has connected us all together in a superficial way and has had the adverse effect of isolating us from each other in meaningful ways, causing massive spikes in anxiety and depression. Society has an obsession with technology fixing everything, we try and cure depression with pills and are convinced all depression is just a matter of chemical imbalances in the brain where in actuality most depression is caused by external circumstances, such as the way we live in today’s society,  and can be more effectively remedied by trying to fix the way we interact with technology. (Depression and the Secret to Happiness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6R0fTRTIQCE&feature=youtu.be).

2:

I have less of a presences and time sink into Social Media then most of my peers but one problem I have noticed blooming from it is a fraying of my attention. I’d like to know, How exactly does Social Media hurt people’s attention span and their ability to focus?

3:
Is Social Media Shortening Our Attention Spans?:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tykiisel/2012/01/25/is-social-media-shortening-our-attention-span/#15b9441e3f96
Is Social Media Destroying Our Attention Spans?:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/culture-shrink/201812/is-social-media-destroying-our-attention-spans
Multitasking Between Devices is Associated with Poorer Attention and Memory — Experts Explain How:

http://theconversation.com/multitasking-between-devices-is-associated-with-poorer-attention-and-memory-expert-explains-why-107481
The Human Attention Span:
https://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2018/09/the-human-attention-span-infographic.html

No, The Internet Has Not Destroyed Our Attention Spans:
https://theoutline.com/post/5969/we-never-had-attention-spans-to-begin-with?zd=1&zi=ube52ysf
Attention is Changing in the Digital Age:

Attention is changing in the digital age

4:
In tests, those who are grouped as “Heavy Multitaskers” were 10% worse in attention and short term memory than those who were categorized as “Light Multitaskers.” However these Heavy Multitaskers were found to be better at picking up on things outside of their primary task, such as picking up on important news on the radio while reading. Further more it is still very hard to tell if these problems with attention are a result of multitasking or the cause of it, or if personality or general intelligence has anything to do with it. (http://theconversation.com/multitasking-between-devices-is-associated-with-poorer-attention-and-memory-expert-explains-why-107481)
Everyone these days is getting all bent out of shape at the idea that our phones are destroying our ability to focus, but studies of human psychology show that humans are a naturally very distractable species that have evolved specifically to have small windows of repeated attention so they can switch between multiple important tasks quickly. (https://theoutline.com/post/5969/we-never-had-attention-spans-to-begin-with?zd=1&zi=ube52ysf).

5:
I went into this researching this topic expecting to find a constant stream of pieces talking in depth about how our brains are being ripped apart by technology and social media obsession. I had expected this, after all I already basically knew that, but I was pleasantly surprised by an informed alternative perspective on the situation. That a human’s attention span’s shortness might not be an inherently terrible thing, and that maybe it’s not that social media is fundamentally causing our shortening attention spans, but simply abusing them by giving a tempting array of things to focus on. I still see a problem forming, but I now know it’s not what I thought it was and am switching gears on it.

6:
Since social media doesn’t inherently cause these attention issues, platforms should not be designed to fix them, but to do less to exacerbate them. For sites like Facebook or Twitter I’d suggest a hard limit to the number of things that can show up on one’s feed, perhaps only say 12 or so new post can be viewed every hour.