There are lots of ways to take action on social media to "do good" — but most of us don't have the attention span to do so.
Matt Wallaert, a behavioral scientist at Bing and founder of GetRaised.com, said in a speech at Mashable's Social Good Summit in New York on Sunday that our attention levels are due for an adjustment.
"Humankind, generally, is going up and to the right. Infant mortality is down, we're living much longer," he said to the audience. "But there's one resource we haven't been able to find more of: attention. Our cognitive capacity is roughly the same as it's always been."
See also: Social Good Summit: Top Discussions of #2030NOW
Wallaert referenced the millions of apps available in the App Store. The number keeps increasing, but the number of user downloads has plateaued — the mental maximum of apps has been reached and, in a way, so has our attention.
But there's a way to subconsciously help: If there's a bowl of M&Ms on a table in front of you, he said, it's easy to snack away. If you melt the bowl's contents and pour vinegar over it, though, it becomes less desirable (to most people, at least.) The same principle can be applied to help us "pressure" ourselves to perform in other ways — i.e. take advantage of, and prioritize, the digital tools at our fingertips.
"The youth of the world are excited to take action — but we do that at a very basic level," he said. "The 'promoting' pressures, I call them, are there. Our job is simply to apply the inhibiting pressures. That's how we'll get people to take action."
One technology initiative Wallaert noted, which is helping do good, is a women's empowerment website. GetRaised.com is a platform to help women get raises at their jobs. Interested users fill out basic information about themselves, then receive a Raise Request to bring to their bosses. According to Wallaert, 65% of women who take the request to their managers receive raises. The average amount: $6,500.

The Social Good Summit is where big ideas meet new media to create innovative solutions and is brought to you by Mashable, The 92nd Street Y, The United Nations Foundation, The United Nations Development Programme, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Ericsson. Held during U.N. Week, the Social Good Summit unites a dynamic community of global leaders to discuss a big idea: the power of innovative thinking and technology to solve our greatest challenges.
Date: Sept. 22 through Sept. 24 Time: 12 to 6 p.m. each day Location: 92nd Street Y, 1395 Lexington Ave., New York, N.Y. Tickets are sold-out, but tune into the Livestream.
BONUS: 10 Empowering Apps for Social Good
Gone are the days of daring your friends without consequences. When you challenge your friends to Budge, the person who loses the challenge needs to donate an agreed upon amount to a charity of the winner's choosing.
Available on iOS.
Charity Miles lets you raise money for your favorite causes while walking, running or biking. The app's corporate sponsors donate 25 cents for each mile you walk or run, and 10 cents for each mile you bike.
Charity Miles is available for iOS and Android.
With every photo you share, Johnson & Johnson donates $1 to a cause of your choosing. The Donate a Photo app, available on iOS and Android, also lets you follow your friends' photos, so you can keep up with your social life.
Great for foodies, photographers and humanitarians, this iOS app adds a great cause to your foodstagrams. When you dine and snap a food shot at one of the participating restaurants -- which, for now, are only in New York -- a meal is donated to a non-profit feeding schoolchildren in South Africa.
In this free iOS game, you'll travel with Maya, an Indian girl, as she navigates the slums in search of clean water. The longer it takes her to find water, the more school she misses.
The game was created in partnership with charity: water, which lends in-game missions and video scenes to the app.
Did you know that with the money you save cooking three of your own meals, you could fund someone's HIV medicine for three months? Instead is an iOS app that shows you how much you can save with simple tweaks in your lifestyle. Once you make those cheaper decisions, Instead encourages you to donate to a non-profit out of your savings.
My Life as a Refugee is an app for iOS and Android created by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). It lets anyone around the world experience life fleeing from conflict or persecution. Through beautiful illustrations, you'll read the stories of the app's many characters, who have been separated from their loved ones and have experienced hardships.
The Recyclebank app, available for iOS and Android, rewards you for recycling. The gamification of recycling awards points that you can redeem in stores and in the app.
Forget daily deal apps -- there are apps that give back while giving you a great deal. TangoTab, available for iOS and Android, donates meals to food banks every time a diner purchases one of its restaurant deals.
Eager for a new volunteer program? This iOS app brings the online volunteer network onto your smartphone. It has a sleek interface that will help you find great opportunities to give back near you.
VolunteerMatch lets you select which skill you're looking to use to volunteer, so you can lend your expert web design or managerial skills, for example.
Image: Mashable