In Michelle’s blog post this week, she brought up a great point about how the pressure of social media may affect our self-perception, identity, and happiness. I found this great article relating to that topic, and I wanted to share it with everyone.

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2014/03/14/how-social-media-affects-our-self-perception/

The article chronicles the high rates of depression in avid social media users, and one thing that really stuck out to me was that “one factor for high rates of depression seen in social media-friendly people is the inconsistency they observe between their ideal cyber self and their self-image. The desire to be seen positively has taught us to silence our troubles and we now have no idea to express inner turmoil without feeling like we’re accepting social defeat.” I was curious about how true this statement was in my own life, so I did some reflection. In the last month, I haven’t had a single negative social media post. While I can think of dozens of complaints, frustrations, bad hair days, and tearful conversations I’ve experienced in the last 31 days, not any of it appears on my social media profiles. Where do you think this pressure to present our best, happiest selves comes from? Why isn’t it okay to be negative and depressed on social media? Why is it more acceptable to share our joy with the world than to share our pain? What do you guys think?

I’m curious about your recent increased engagement with social media… you said that peer pressure helped you get more involved, but was that something that you were happy with? Were your peers pressuring you to get involved because they wanted to connect with you or because they thought it would be good for you?

LikeLike

Hi Michelle. I thought you may enjoy this article about how social media can effect our self-perception and become stressful/draining.

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2014/03/14/how-social-media-affects-our-self-perception/

I think these trends are so interesting. It’s crazy how big of an impact social media can have on business, and I’d be so curious to learn more about what different strategies NBA teams, celebrities, and big businesses have for using their social media for marketing.

I think these trends are so interesting. It’s crazy how big of an impact social media can have on business, and I’d be so curious to learn more about what different strategies NBA teams, celebrities, and big businesses have for using their social media for marketing.

I think it’s interesting that you point out that most of your online communication is with people you have a connection to in the physical world, but early virtual community members were interested in communicating with new people. I imagine that the Internet was a lot safer than, but now the idea of going online to communicate with strangers just sounds frightening. If our generation hadn’t grown up with the whole “stranger danger” fear and the worry about releasing personal info online for predators or stalkers to find, I wonder if we’d be more friendly and open like the early Wellites.

I think it’s interesting that you point out that the internet/social media is now mainstream, not counter-culture. I think that for the most part, you’re right… but I think there are still pockets of counter-culture online, especially if you look at some of the sub-reddit communities or some of the places online where super underground musicians or artists meet up. However, when people are first introduced to social media, it’s rarely through these counter-culture pockets. I think there’s something to be said about most people’s first impressions of and early experiences with the internet.

What motivates my own social media usage? In a word, selfishness. The internet makes it so easy to focus on my own goals, needs, and interests, and I hate that at times it enables me to become incredibly self-involved. When I first started using Facebook, I loved being able to post pictures of all the fun things I was doing so the world could see, and I loved being able to check in on what my friends were doing as well. However, I quickly found that I Facebook was taking up way too much of my time, and it wasn’t healthy to be able to keep constant tabs on my exes and old friends I didn’t speak to anymore. So I’ve pretty much stopped using Facebook, and I only really log in when I need to message someone and I have no other way to reach out to them.

I have a Twitter account, but I rarely tweet myself. I mostly just use Twitter to find good new sources and browse entertaining content when I have a few minutes. I am such a consumer of Twitter content, but I don’t contribute at all myself.

I use Snapchat frequently, but I only respond to snaps when I’m bored or have nothing else to do. When I’m in the middle of class or a meeting, I absolutely won’t pull out my phone to check my email or my text messages, because I prioritize whatever else it is that I’m doing in that moment.

I wonder if there’s a trend here between social media and selfishness. Social media makes it so easy to connect with people, but it also makes it easy to ignore people when we just don’t feel like speaking with them. It makes it so easy to follow my exact whims and live life according to my own desires and needs. I can connect with basically anyone, search/browse anything, or curate content, but I get to choose exactly when I do it and do it exactly the way I want to… but communication in the real world isn’t like that. Someone could knock on my bedroom door at any point in the day, and I wouldn’t be able to ignore them or respond in a few minutes when I feel like it. When I’m at work, someone can interrupt me at any time with a problem that I have to fix at that instant. In the real world, we aren’t always in complete control over our time and schedules, but social media gives us (or at least me) a false sense of control, importance, and influence.

When social media and virtual communities first started, I think people had a much more selfless view of communication and thought that online networks were going to improve efficiency for the sake of the greater good. I think that some of the early visionaries may be disappointed in my ratio of consumption to contribution, and I think they may be disappointed by some of the ways in which we’ve contorted social media to suit our own needs and impulsive desires.

Lessons:

While I took Professor Rheingold’s social media course last quarter, most of my experience with social media has come from my own social media use, not from the classroom. I use Facebook, Yik Yak, and Snapchat daily. I use Instagram and Linked in somewhat frequently, and I have a Twitter account that I use mostly for news curation. I would like to branch out and join more niche communities on the web.

I’m particularly interested in the way that social media has changed/will change the relationships in my own life and the notion of social relationships for my generation as a whole. I remember agonizing over how to rank my friends when Myspace first launched “Top Friends” feature on personal profiles and cheering for many of my sorority sisters when they change their Facebook relationship status. I think that the notion of needing to rank friends/publicly define our relationships has profoundly influenced my social relationships offline. I wonder if these types of features have contributed to a sense of internal loneliness, rejection, false happiness, and false security for my generation.

Expectations:

This quarter, I expect to be exposed to new social media and new ideas about social media. I’m very excited to learn from my co-learners’ experiences and work collaboratively for this course.

Social Media Roles:

Social media has the potential to simplify our lives, and the potential to complicate them. I want to learn more about how to navigate these waters and how to successfully use social media to simplify, organize, and maximize our social productivity.