Social proof will only lead you astray, especially on social media

It's time to surrender our autopilot to the Good Shepherd

This is part of a series on the book Influence by Robert Cialdini in which we’re considering how the gospel turns levers of influence upside down. Read part 1, part 2, and part 3 to get caught up.

I didn’t jump on the Facebook or Instagram bandwagons right away. I only opened my accounts in the summer of 2016, a full year after graduating from college.

Less than a year later I found myself responsible for the social media content of a large nonprofit that serves refugees and immigrants. I never would have guessed I was turning the corner into some of the most divisive years of online rhetoric on those topics.

The adrenaline rush of responding to wild federal policies at all hours, fielding threatening messages, and doing my very small part to keep immigrant families together and save my co-workers’ jobs was exhilarating and alarming.

That was the beginning of my unease with social media. Each of my professional roles since have involved social media marketing in some capacity, and my disquiet has only grown.

Social media embodies (or appears to embody) the third lever of influence addressed by Cialdini in Influence: social proof.¹ He says, “This principle states that we determine what is correct by finding out what other people think is correct” (129). Social proof is a convenient shortcut when faced with uncertainty or the onslaught of information we encounter in our technological age.

Cialdini observes that the lever of social proof is most effective when:

• We are unsure what is best to do in a given situation

• The evidence of what is best to do comes from many other people

• The evidence of what is best to do comes from people who are like us

Over the course of nearly seventy pages on this principle Cialdini dedicates more space to negative examples than positive ones. Copycat suicides and mass shootings, the disastrous results of the bystander effect, a run on a bank caused entirely by social proof gone wrong, and the infamous Jonestown tragedy of 1978. And yet, at the end of the chapter Cialdini is confident that there are only “two types of situations in which incorrect data cause the principle of social proof to give us poor counsel” (191). These situations are 1) “when the social evidence has been purposely falsified” (191), and 2) when “an innocent, natural error will produce snowballing social proof that pushes us to an incorrect decision” (194).

Most of the time, he believes, we can simply leave the autopilot of this lever alone,

“trusting in the course steered by the principle of social proof until we recognize that inaccurate data are being used. Then we can take the controls, make the necessary correction for misinformation, and reset the autopilot. With no more cost than vigilance for counterfeit social evidence, we can protect ourselves” (191).

But, can we really?

Scripture doesn’t seem to encourage us to trust our own faulty autopilots, much less the autopilots of others.

“All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned--every one--to his own way” the prophet intones (Is. 53:6).

Over and over the Bible refers to us as sheep.² One reason might be that, like sheep, we have a tendency to go with the flow of the flock, even toward our own destruction.³ But Scripture does not tell us that we need our autopilot recalibrated. It tells us instead that we need a Good Shepherd who will lay down his life to entirely remake us and who will then give us the Spirit of God to take up residence within us to lead and guide us.

Over the last eight years of observing social media’s effect on myself and others I have noticed that it does not encourage this renewal. It is not compatible with sharpening my ability to listen to the Holy Spirit’s voice in my life. And even if I could trust my own autopilot, Cialdini’s warnings reveal why I can’t trust social media.

1. The social evidence has been purposely falsified.

   Social media algorithms in 2024 are more sophisticated than they have ever been. But their aim is not our edification; their aim is profit. The algorithm is designed to back us into tighter and tighter corners (you might hear marketers call them niches, interest groups, etc.), in order to define our preferences and desires so that it can serve us the ads from which we are most likely to purchase a product or service. A “niche” is just a kind of social proof conjured by the algorithm so our attention can be sold to the highest bidder. The entire system is tainted. It is no longer possible, as Cialdini suggests, to simply be vigilant for counterfeit social evidence when the entire platform is a counterfeit.

2. The actions of unknown others are not a cure for my own insecurities.

   Cialdini writes,

“we seem to assume that if a lot of people are doing the same thing, they must know something we don’t. Especially when we are uncertain, we are willing to place an enormous amount of trust in the collective knowledge of the crowd… quite frequently, the crowd is mistaken because its members are not acting on the basis of any superior information but are reacting, themselves, to the principle of social proof” (194).

There is plenty in our world to feel uncertain about. The solution, though, is not to turn to the purposely falsified evidence of social media to help us know what to believe or what course of action to take. Our plumb line is God’s Word, our source of peace is the Holy Spirit, and when we continue to feel uncertain we are drawn into the embodied community of the church to wrestle through our questions.⁴

So, you may be wondering, are we all just supposed to get off social media?

Perhaps.

Perhaps for you this is yet another article or podcast or sermon in a long line of Holy Spirit whispers to your heart that it’s time for Meta or TikTok or “X” to be dethroned.

Or perhaps you’re unable to leave social media, or have found some small good there you want to cultivate, or genuinely believe God has called you to be a presence for truth and beauty there.⁵ If so, here are some practices and principles that you might find helpful.

Build a Lighthouse
My husband named this approach to social media after we had developed and described it over the course of many conversations. Whether you are a writer trying to build a “brand”, a content creator, or just a parent, grandparent, co-worker, or friend there to keep up with loved ones, the lighthouse social media user makes it their aim to share things on social media that draw people into deeper, safer waters off the platform.

A writer might regularly invite their followers to join their email list or to read articles they have written elsewhere online. A content creator might focus on sharing resources that encourage their audience to put down their phones and cook a recipe or volunteer at their local food bank. And anyone can remind others (and themselves) to open their Bibles rather than just reading Bible verses layered over dreamy nature scenes, or to go build LEGO with their kids instead of laughing at another short-form video of the funny things someone else’s kid said.

Post and Ghost
Every social media guru will tell you this will tank your engagement and therefore your reach, but it might also refresh your soul. A lighthouse doesn’t jump up and down begging to be seen. It just stands there and confidently shines. Share what you came to social media to share, and then close the app (or even delete it) and trust that God does not need you to sacrifice your spiritual health in order to multiply your offering.

Do Not Neglect Meeting Together
The lever of social proof is strong and social media exploits it in a powerful way. One of the only ways for us to truly break its spell is through embodied community with fellow disciples. Join a Bible study or small group at your church. Have awkward conversations. Bake someone cookies and then sit on their couch to share them. Slowly we’ll begin to see that everyone is not just like us, and it’s exasperatingly beautiful.

Beauty in Commitment
The siren song of social media only grows louder and more insistent during an election season. I believe prayer is a strong antidote. So, in October we’ll be introducing our first Beautiful Discipleship Commitment. Together, we’ll commit to praying for our current and potential elected leaders as Scripture commands us before we consume any news or social media for the day. Look for more details next week about how you can participate!

Beauty in Community
So many of us are aching for community. But community doesn’t come easily, whether because of social structures and schedules working against us, or because of our own pride and various personalities. Reflecting on her own experience of community, Sophia Lee writes for CT, “Yes, we were busy. But to be “too busy” for community is simply to prioritize things other than community. What would our life look like now had we made different choices, like accepting those meal trains.” Here’s a gift link if you’d like to read the rest.

Beauty in Meal Prep
Our days are busy and my husband and I are still adjusting to the rhythms of both working from home with our two sweet boys. So, every weekend I prep our breakfasts and lunches for the week. It has saved us both time and money and limited the moments that we’re tempted to be short with each other because we’re hangry.

In pursuit of Beauty,

1. This essay contains affiliate links, which just means that if you choose to make a purchase after visiting one of these links, I get a few pennies.

2. See Psalm 110:3, John 10, Matthew 9:36, Ezekiel 34:12, etc.

3. A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23 by W. Phillip Keller is one of my all-time favorite books. He tells a story where part of his flock followed each other down a steep cliff in search of grass and fell into the sea.

4. Acts 11 is a great example of this.

5. If you’re the first person, you know, so don’t try to convince yourself that you’re the second. God is gentle with us, but stubbornness is not a posture you want to cultivate in your relationship with Him.