Social Media Ills and Evolutionary Mismatches: A Conceptual Framework

“Evidently, collective effort and cohesion are imperative for human survival and reproductive fitness (Aronson, 1999; Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Brewer & Caporael, 2006; Darwin, 1871), and as such, humans evolved as group-living animals who are obligatorily interdependent on one another.”

“In essence, in social comparison, people derive various outcomes, including an evaluation of themselves (Festinger, 1954), regulation of emotions and well-being (Taylor & Brown, 1988), and aspirations to improve their skills or abilities (Wood, 1989).”

“Social media arose from the post-millennium paradigm shift in the usage of the World Wide Web (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010).”

“Weak ties aid the diffusion of information to and from the peripheries of one’s social network, facilitating information exchange (Granovetter, 1983).”

“In essence, in social comparison, people derive various outcomes, including an evaluation of themselves (Festinger, 1954), regulation of emotions and well-being (Taylor & Brown, 1988), and aspirations to improve their skills or abilities (Wood, 1989).”

“These readily available modes of communication are particularly crucial for fostering social interaction (see Kietzmann et al., 2011, for a review).”

“This asymmetry likely reflects the nature of intrasexual competition among females, where female reproductive values are strongly indicated by physical appearance and attractiveness (Buss, 1988; Buss & Schmitt, 1993).”

“When opportunity arises, personal interest sometimes precedes collective interest (Axelrod & Hamilton, 1981; Ferriere et al., 2002).”

““Fear of missing out” (FOMO; Przybylski et al., 2013) is defined as a persistent concern about potentially missing out on enjoyable experiences that others might be having when one is not present.”

“Indeed, our findings are in line with the mismatch hypothesis (Lim and Tan, 2024), which suggests that SNSs hijack our evolved social comparisons mechanisms by offering (too) abundant opportunities for upward comparisons.”

“…addictive use (Cai et al., 2023), interference with sleep (Brautsch et al., 2023), evolutionary mismatches resulting from biased social cues (Lim and Tan, 2024), and exposure to online risks such as hate speech (Bührer et al., 2024), sexting (Mori et al., 2019), or self-harm-related…”

“Digital platforms, therefore, must design temporal adaptation mechanisms that update feedback and guidance in real time, ensuring relevance and maintaining user trust [71].”

“50 Evolved social cognition is mis-matched with digitally mediated social environments, 51 with impacts on children’s mental health.”

“…e.g. ephemeral content, short-form video feed, live streaming, disappearing messages, in fi nite scroll, algorithmic personalization, and quanti fi ed feedback, instead of viewing platforms as monolithic constructs, would facilitate more accurate, evidence-based design changes (Lim and Tan 2024).”

“Humans are an ultra-social species whose psychological architecture was shaped in environments characterized by repeated interaction, bodily co-presence, and rich streams of social information (Balconi, 2025; Barkow et al., 1992; Dunbar and Shultz, 2007; Lim and Tan, 2024).”

“…young women over their appearance and fuel not only the cosmetic industry but the cosmetic surgery industry which has seen more young patients seeking everything from laser treatments to botox and other injectables as well as more invasive procedures (Lim and Tan, 2024; Martynov and Arina, 2024).”

“Moreover, these restrictions often overlook individual differences in maturity and digital competence, which shape adolescents’ vulnerability to online risks, suggesting that a blanket ban may not represent an appropriate or effective solution for all young people [45].”

“As we argue, feedback loops can also create instability and unpredictability, making long-term system behavior difficult to control. produce maladaptive outcomes in modern settings [30, 31].”

“The situation of loneliness can negatively affect the learning process since lonely students are characterized by low motivation levels, poor concentration, and learning interest [13], [14].”