For most backcountry tourers these days, pulling a phone out to snap a photo is just as common as taking a sip of water and often followed by posting to social media.
Examining the influence of social media on backcountry skiers
In today’s day and age, are you ever truly alone? Even in some of the world’s most remote places, human interaction is just the press of a button away. Whether you are on top of the tallest mountain on earth, or deep in the ocean, you can make your actions visible to others if you choose to. In this incredibly connected world, physical interactions are no longer required to influence heuristics. Instead, there is an invisible pressure that amplifies our innate biases. So while social media can be an incredibly positive tool, we must be diligent to understand the role that Instagram and Facebook play not only in our own decision making process, but the influence it might have on others.
Social media has been front and center during the last months of COVID-19 when, for arguably the first time in our sport’s history, we have had to make the conscious decision to dial back our skiing for the greater good of the community. People have grappled with the question of whether or not they should go skiing and if they do, whether or not they should post about it. Not only does skiing pose a risk to a strained medical system, but posting about it can have an impact on others’ behavior.
In an effort to better understand our communities’ relationship with social media, I surveyed 39 backcountry skiers who are active on Instagram. My goal with this survey was to gain a better understanding of the habits and sentiment people have with these platforms. The survey included questions such as ‘how often do you post on social media about your backcountry skiing’ and ‘how soon after your backcountry ski do you typically post’. With everything going on in the world, this is certainly an interesting time to be writing about this topic.
I also caught up with Eric Henderson, a former guide, CEO of an outdoor PR company and one of the founders of #curbyourturns — an initiative put forward by Snowsports Industry America last month that urged people to stop skiing to protect the greater public health. The hashtag gained popularity and has been posted by notable skiers in an effort to limit strain on health resources.
This initiative is especially important when considering the fact that inexperienced backcountry skiers have a lot of time on their hands and no lifts to ride. “It’s the equivalent of FOMO,” said Henderson “if you go on snapchat on a Saturday night and you’re missing a big party, [it’s like] wishing you were skiing in the Tetons come January because your feed is filled with deep powder skiing.” Pandemic or not, if you are out skiing sick lines and then posting about it, is that enough to trigger a fear of missing out (FOMO) in other less experienced backcountry skiers? If so, it can be worrisome – especially when social media posts oftentimes tell a misleading story, a common issue with Instagram.
“That is where social media is specifically a trap. The one photo of the one skier doesn’t show the whole story. It doesn’t take into account the group dynamics and decision making that went into that photo,” said Henderson. To make matters more complicated, 16 of the 39 backcountry skiers we surveyed reported posting photos ‘one week or more’ or ‘at random times’ after skiing. So while the more experienced backcountry skier knows to take Instagram ‘beta’ with a big grain of salt, less experienced backcountry skiers might not.
These concerns are shared by others. In our survey, 44% of people felt that social media impacted their own decision making, but 97% of people felt social media impacted other people’s decision making. With the majority of our participants being avid backcountry skiers, it’s possible that their experience in combating bias gives them the ability to combat social media’s influence. However, it’s naiive to think that social media has zero impact.
Tom enjoying some spring colorado powder. Taken out of context on social media, the photo offers little useful information other than the snow was deep that one day…
At the end of the day, what’s most worrisome about social media is that it has a disproportionate impact on less experienced backcountry skiers. These users haven’t had time to develop the tools to combat decision bias, and are therefore the most susceptible. So what responsibility does the more experienced skier have when posting on social media? Henderson expressed that “the experienced skier has the responsibility to share more about the observations that were seen during their ski.” In addition to skiers being more informative on social media, there needs to be a continued emphasis in avalanche education that Instagram ‘beta’ needs to be taken with a grain of salt.
Since our new ultra-connected world doesn’t seem to be going anywhere soon, we must work together as a backcountry community to utilize social media platforms for good. We need to share observations, be transparent with our content and educate the next generation. We need to understand that when you use social media, it is going to impact you and your followers- whether you like it or not. Lastly, we need to know that social media isn’t evil, it’s just the new normal.
Tom Bull is a resident of Minturn, Colorado where he enjoys harvesting low angled powder and high angled corn. He recently completed a two-year Avalanche Science program through Colorado Mountain College where his passion and curiosity about snow has only grown. You can connect with him on Instagram @_nobullshit_
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For more on this topic you might check out the latest issue of The Avalanche Review where we report the findings of our surveys on this topic: https://www.americanavalancheassociation.org/tar-archives
Go to 38.4 and scroll down to page 26. While you at it, take the time to subscribe to the best source of the latest thinking about snow science and avalanches in the US. AAA is an organization worth supporting.
Love it. Love this kind of stuff. And I love social media. I write here on Wildsnow, for instance…
This, to me, says it all: ” In our survey, 44% of people felt that social media impacted their own decision making, but 97% of people felt social media impacted other people’s decision making.” That alone shows just how biased our view of the world is. “I’m not vulnerable to x, but others are…” Did your survey attempt to ascertain whether respondents considered social media impact to be positive or negative? That would be curious intel too. If I had to guess, I’d guess that we view impacts on ourselves to be largely positive (motivation, inspiration, conditions reporting, etc) while we envision impacts on others to be largely negative (sending people “in over their heads”, sending people to secret/sensitive/quiet spots, etc). We are flawed beasts, and don’t know it. This is me doing exactly the same thing… (making observations through my own personal lens and with incomplete information).
Yeah, as noted in the article, extensive experience, training, and discipline can truly improve one’s skills. But, in this case, wouldn’t that be extensive experience, training, and discipline with social media? Experience in the backcountry doesn’t help me use social media any better than anyone else. Us old farts are the ones that suck at social media. “Digital Natives”, I’m convinced, will be way better at this than the rest of us are.
My take on social media and bc skiing is pretty negative. I have no proof but in my mind it is why there are so many skiers out and about in so many spots that used to be somewhat off the beaten track. Here’s a pic of me at this place. It makes me awesome like a movie star. Yeah! And the snow is great it’s a powder day everybody get up here.
Yes, there are impacts to the resource but the point here I think is that SM has the potential to change behavior/decisions in both a positive way and maybe negative. Here is another link (sorry for the blatant self promotion but we have done quite a lot of work on this) that might be of interest: https://munin.uit.no/handle/10037/16690
Over here in Europe there is a lot of research going into this topic and a very lively debate surrounding this topic. I guess it applies more to us here due to the higher population numbers => more people in the backcountry.
If your german is good, check out some of the reports on bergundsteigen.at, some of them (from Norway) are also in English.
It is EASY to see that social media has a huge impact. Just what that impact is, is another matter. I remember a Saturday – Sunday spread a few years ago, when I was lucky enough to get some early season turns in on Saturday at a spot that is well-frequented, but not hugely popular. The snow cover was marginal – I was having contact at every turn. There were not more than 7 others there on that day. One of them, however, was a relatively well-known regional blogger. He posted pictures and an article claiming it was “filled in” – and the pic looked good.
I went back on Sunday to meet some friends for beers on the deck of the restaurant at the bottom of the hill. Holy Cow….Most of Innsbruck and half of Munich were there – with overflow parking and easily more than 250 tourers on the hill. A few quick conversations confirmed that all of them had read the post.
No harm done – but I had a front row seat to the outsized effects of social media on that day. Unless I had seen it – I would not have been able to imagine the exponential impact that one small and relatively regional person could have with a single blog post. Since then, I have experienced this over and over again, not only skiing, but in restaurant choices, vacation spots – even my tire service. I don’t have much of an opinion on it wrt good or bad – but I do know that I’m not as able to make decisions based on these, for me, incalculable variables. I would like to be informed – but if I can read about something today – then it is highly unlikely that what I experience tomorrow is going to be anything like what I read. This makes good decision-making more difficult.
I have a very good touring partner who demands that smart phones and cameras be left at the car – and will tour with no one that writes about it. He also has a habit of trying to obfuscate his zones by not parking at obvious starting points and trying to lay less than obvious tracks. I used to think he was kind of a nut….now I think he may be onto something.
I think, in order to examine the issue more clearly, we need to split it into separate categories.
There is the effect on where and when people go and there is the effect on the safety choices people make. And let’s remember, it’s not all the instant effects too. What are the long lasting effects? What biases and predisposition does social media create with us?
Beware the eyes of the valley.
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