Let me ask you something: When was the last time you logged into your social media platform of choice and didn’t leave feeling worse than when you started?
When was the last time you saw a trending post that wasn’t designed to spark anxiety, amplify misery, or just piss people off?
Think about it—when was the last time you actually closed social media feeling better than when you opened it?
Having trouble remembering? You’re not alone. And it’s not an accident—it’s by design.
Evolution of the Social Media Hate Machine
In the beginning, there was MySpace, then Facebook, then Twitter—the three platforms that built the foundation of modern social media.
The idea was simple—maybe even noble: a space where people could connect, collaborate, and share ideas.
You’d log on, see what your friends were up to, share interesting media, and catch up on news from your community. Social media used to feel like a town square—somewhere you actually wanted to be.
Now? It’s a battlefield.
Log in today, and the first post highlights political debauchery. The second warns of a looming financial depression. The third? A post arguing that the removal of human rights is a good thing.
It would be easy to assume the world has gotten worse since the early days of social media—but that’s simply not the case. The world was always full of deplorable people doing deplorable things.
So why does modern social media feel so different from the past? Why does it seem like nothing but an endless stream of misery and hate?
Because keeping you pissed off, anxious, and miserable is the business model.
Refining Users Toward Conflict
The worst part? Social media users didn’t start out like this. They weren’t always angry, bitter people waking up just to start arguments online—well, not all of them.
This behavior has been encouraged, optimized, amplified, and refined by the platforms themselves. So much so that, for the vast majority of users, combativeness is now their default state of being.
Why? Because happy, agreeable content doesn’t produce engagement at anywhere near the rate that angry, disagreeable content does.
Don’t believe me? Try it yourself.
Make two posts on your favorite social media platform.
One—an uplifting message, something positive or helpful.
The other—a post about a controversial topic or how much you hate [insert thing here].
Now, watch what happens.
Your positive message? Largely ignored.
Your negative post? Engagement, reactions, comments.
You’ll see it unfold in real time—the absolute proof of the extent and effectiveness of social media behavioral conditioning. And the more you engage with negative content, the more negative content the social media algorithms push on you.
You are being actively refined into a more negative, more combative version of yourself—all in the name of profit.
Look around—how many people in your life wake up, grab their phone, and immediately start searching for something to get angry about? They plant their flag in some thread or post and the back-and-forth that follows dictates their entire day—and their mood.
Some of my family members are particularly bad about this.
And how many times have you unknowingly fallen into the same trap—refreshing a post every five minutes because you were pissed off and needed to put an idiot in their place?
That emotional response—the one that keeps you arguing with a moron all day—is exactly what social media platforms are designed to elicit.
The Underlying Force at Play
Now that we know how social media encourages and refines negative engagement (via the algorithm and content suggestions) and why they go to great lengths to ensure it continues (ad revenue), the real questions start to emerge.
You would think that engaging with a platform designed to produce a negative experience would make people leave… right?
So why is a business model that thrives on conflict, anger, and division worth billions?
Why is it so damned effective on us?
- It’s just a psychological trick that fools most people!
Nope. Neither you nor I are so weak-minded that this alone could explain social media becoming a billion-dollar industry. - Humans are just naturally angry, miserable beings.
It’s easy to think that when browsing social media, but we both know that’s not actually the case. - People are just addicted to dopamine hits from social media.
That’s part of it, but it still doesn’t explain everything.
If these aren’t the answer, then what is? It’s something far more fundamental—and far less understood—than you might think.
It’s because everything in existence follows the Universal Law of Refinement, commonly known as the Will to Power—the principle that all things refine toward their optimal state within the constraints of a given system.
In the case of social media companies, that optimal state is the maximum conflict and combativeness of their users. Think about it—the entire system is set up to refine you into a state of absolute emotional cynicism and argumentativeness—by design.
I doubt these companies are even aware of this law in any meaningful way—they just follow the numbers. But whether they realize it or not, they are still using this force to refine all their users toward maximum engagement.
In a sense, it’s exactly like propaganda—another example of using the Will to Power to influence and refine human behavior. For centuries, it has shaped, influenced, and controlled entire populations across different eras and civilizations.
If social media companies refine behavior this effectively by accident—because they don’t even know the Will to Power exists—imagine what they could do if they understood it!
And now, just by reading this article, you know about it before they do. That means you can recognize not just what social media is designed to do—but why it works so well on us.
This is why I wrote The Reason for Everything.
To pull back the layers and reveal the underlying force that governs all things.
To introduce you to the Will to Power—not just in social media, but in your job, your habits, your relationships, and life itself.
If this force is the underlying driver of why social media—something we use every day—is optimizing us toward division and hate, what else is it optimizing in your daily life that you aren’t aware of?
If you’re ready to see the full extent of the Will to Power’s influence, I invite you to keep reading below: