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[inespinsch-blog]

“Is this an illustration of mindless, brainwashed people who are always on their phones not knowing what is going on in the world???” 

In my opinion, it is about the way we use technology! Of course, we can make our own choices how we use technology because our mind is still our strongest belonging. WE are the ones who control technology, who control smartphones. Our smartphone cannot do anything without us- I think this is important to remember!

 It is about using technology in an appropriate, convenient way…

[lauren-gordon-blog]

I think completely opposite to this image! I think technology actively encourages us to use our brain. When scrolling through Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr etc I am constantly exposed to different views, news and photos which provoke something in my mind and get me thinking. If it wasn’t for these mediums I don’t think my brain would have been exposed to even half the things that it has been.

[inespinsch-blog]

I agree with you in that point. I think it is rather a question of “what our brain is used to” therefore I think it just became acclimated to the huge amount of new impressions coming through new media. We will always adapt to new circumstances-society always will.

[aatayblr-blog]

Both sides of this argument have some valid points. Whilst I agree that you often find engaging content online I’m also increasingly aware of my own mindlessness whilst using my phone. I’ve recently got into the habit of sitting at my laptop and reading through Facebook until I get bored. At this point I usually pull out my phone, and without even realising I go through Facebook again. Reading the exact same posts, just on a different device. It’s so ingrained in me to turn to Facebook when I’m bored that I go to Facebook even when I’m bored of Facebook. It’s scary. 

[inespinsch-blog]

Sharing the (self) love: the rise of the selfie and digital narcissism

Social media and the internet are making us more narcissistic, but can this trend be reversed?

This excellent article provides a timeline of how social media developed over time. Everybody can broadcast their life in social media. 

Boasting yourself has never been so easy and celebrated! I, therefore, ask myself if we are we all being narcissistic when posting about ourselves? Is everyone just broadcasting their life in order to be famous and a part of something just everybody does?

[jess-a-barnes]

I don’t necessarily think that when we post about ourselves we do it to be famous, I think it is more to do with the fact that people like to share.  It is easy for people to be caught up in what everyone else is doing and posting, yeah. But I don’t think that it is in order to be famous as such.  But sharing is such a big part of today’s culture that it is making us more narcissistic I guess.  And it could also be to do with the fact that people are easily caught up in being like everyone else which doesn’t help when it seems like all people do is post selfie after selfie. 

[aatayblr-blog]

Normally I refuse to consider the rise of the selfie to be a bad thing, and prefer to consider them as an exercise in self-love rather than narcissism. However. this article shocked me by reporting how “ there has been a steep decline in altruism and empathy levels since the advent of Facebook and Twitter.”

I had always thought these sites gave a platform for support, but perhaps people are getting too tangled up in thinking about how successful their pictures are and are no longer paying attention to bigger issues online. I’m not going to change my opinion of the selfie, but this has definitely made me much more wary of the consequences of the selfie society that we live in. 

[connectchloe-blog]

Girls send over a billion emojis a day

I wonder how many boys send, are they considered more a feminine thing to do? Being that can be used to ‘express emotion’

[hollymedia2-blog]

I think girls may send more of the emotion emojis than guys, like the sad faces etc but I do think that guys still send emojis, just maybe don’t use same variety as girls and just stick to ones such as 😂

[mirandawaynebarwell-blog]

What you’ve said Holly is very true. I notice from male group chats the use of ‘😂’ and '👀’ and that’s pretty much it! They don’t use over emojis unless it’s as a joke, perhaps women use more emojis because they think it will display their emotions better; then having to explain themselves.

[aatayblr-blog]

If you actually look at the gender of emojis maybe it’s possible to form links to why boys may not use them as such. Most of my favourite emojis are female, such as 🙋🏻👸🏽💁🏻. What’s interesting about these is that there are no male equivalents. Maybe if guys had a wider range of male expressive emojis they’d be using them too.

[samgenoveseblog]

Roll back the years. Hands up who did it

[eemmac]

🙋🙋🙋 guilty. ‘Sorry that was my friend’ what a classic line, reminds me of being in year 9 haha

[samgenoveseblog]

that raises a good point… one of the affordances of IM is that you could tell the recipient of your message that it was sent by someone else from your laptop and they wouldn’t be 100% sure, as they cant see you! 

[eemmac]

Unless they tried to make you go on webcam ofc haha!

[aatayblr-blog]

Have to admit I was one of the people who would sign in and out in a bid to get someone’s attention. Even worse I would have stuff written in my bio line with the intention of having someone see it and hopefully respond. Along these lines could we consider MSN as enabling a form of clickbait but on a more personal level? And is this why we have a generation that are so easily hooked on reading an article that says just enough to pique interest in the title. The platforms that we’ve grown up with have trained us to use indirect way to get attention, but now companies are using this technique against us.

[samgenoveseblog]

How do retweets and re-posting memes like this present something about ourselves? Even though this doesn’t say “Charlotte:..” We assume that is what is meant. We assume Charlotte has this trait. How does this carry over to Twitter… Sometimes we just RT something because it’s funny, but it forms a representation of ourselves to our followers and the Internet. Do you think about how what you RT reflects you, even if it doesn’t necessarily relate to you?

[aatayblr-blog]

I’m definitely guilty of overthinking what people will think about the stuff I post or like/favourite on social networks, when in reality no one really cares. Maybe it’s because of this that I agree with you and would see the poster as an advocate of the post. It’s so easy to have different interpretations of something on the internet so I definitely think it’s important to consider how someone could see your retweeting of a funny post to be you admitting that you identify with the content.

[samgenoveseblog]

I actually read my app updates the other day, God knows why. Normally I just accept them in auto pilot, perhaps due to an inherent trust I obviously have with these companies.

What interested me was how each app presented the features of the update differently. Twitter didn’t say anything, messenger playfully introduced a new emoji and Instagram was very professional and direct.

Does this affect how we see the apps? Is Instagram a more professional app than Facebook messenger? I think so. How about you?

[kkrobs-blog]

I think these captions aren’t just about affecting how we see the apps, but also about the people that are running the apps, and ultimately the people that are holding our personal information. It seems to me that where an app has taken the time to include a caption, it makes the people behind it seem much more personable and the type of people that we would trust to keep all personal details safe. In my opinion I think that the Twitter app seems more like an app that I would trust - Instagram and Netflix seem to be too cold and distant for my liking. 

[aatayblr-blog]

I used to love reading the update information for Spotify as it would always have a list of everything that was being included in the update but then have a little bonus at the end like “This update will make your phone emit a high pitch screech that calls a cat army to follow you on Tuesdays”. Whilst most people probably never read it, it was a fun little feature and now whenever Spotify have an update I read what it’s about, even though sadly there haven’t been any additions for a while. It was definitely a good way for Spotify to increase my loyalty and interest to the brand, maybe more apps should utilise this section in a similar way.

[samgenoveseblog]

This post on Facebook is like Russian dolls.

The girl has shared Yik Yak’s post on FB, which is a screenshot of a yak which features a screenshot of a tweet. That’s a mouthful.

The point I’d like to make here is how each social media platform seems to spill over into each other. How many times do we see this on our timelines? And why do people do this?

[kkrobs-blog]

And here you are sharing it on yet another platform!I think it’s a good concept - I would never have seen this if it had not been shared across social media channels, as I never read The Independent. Therefore I guess it’s a great way for getting stories and advertisements out across to a broader range of viewers and thus increasing audiences. 

[aatayblr-blog]

This type of overspill is particularly common on Facebook. The page ‘The best of Tumbr’ is dedicated to taking funny posts from Tumblr and putting them all in one place for Facebook users to see. Whilst I’m sure people appreciate being able to see posts from a platform that they wouldn’t normally use, could this be considered as a lazy way to get the best content without having to sift through the rest of the site to find it.

[lauren-gordon-blog]

This article just came up on my news feed and I think it is so notable.

There was another article aimed at Mark Zuckerberg questioning why he wasn’t giving the option to have the Turkish flag on profile pictures alike the French ones for Paris.

What is it that makes things have the ability to go viral? Is there a certain category an event needs to fit to allow it to be “worthy” of vitality?

[kkrobs-blog]

I thought this at the time of the Paris bombings, when everyone started changing their profiles pics to the French flag, that word conflict was occurring in many other places but all the attention was focused on France. It then seemed to be that people were changing their profile pictures to the flag in order to follow the trend, and anyone who didn’t do it looked as though they were a bad person who didn’t care. This is a controversial issue, but it seemed that people were doing it for the wrong reasons.

[aatayblr-blog]

This is a really interesting issue at the moment. I agree with Kyri that it looked like people were just following the trend when pictures were changed after the Paris attacks, and this belief has only been developed in the past week. Shortly after the recent terrorist attacks in Brussels, Facebook allowed users to put the Belgian flag as their picture in a show of solidarity. This time I only saw one person change their picture as opposed to the hundreds that changed it for Paris. I can’t say for certain, but it appeared as though people had changed their picture for Paris because it was a new feature for Facebook, but now no one is as bothered because it’s been done before. I’m not suggesting that people don’t care as much about Brussels, as they did for Paris, maybe it’s just that they’re showing support in a different way, and not relying on a Facebook fad.

[jess-a-barnes]

Crying with laughter: how we learned how to speak emoji

The ‘face with tears of joy’ symbol has been named the word of the year. How did a Japanese teen gimmick end up changing the way we communicate? Plus, a crash course in how to use the aubergine, side eye and sinkhole

I find this interesting that because emojis are such a huge part of online communication, we have to actually learn to speak them.  There are things online that tell you what each emoji stands for- so clearly someone knows.  But as it has been said before, they are very context bound.  But what I found most interesting about this is that the “crying laughing” face was actually named the word of the year last year!!  We’ve used emojis so much and they are being used in certain scenarios more than others which symbolise a word making it word of the year.  If the fact that we haven’t even got a word as word of the year doesn’t say something about how much we interact on social media, I don’t know what does.  And like it says, emojis aren’t used just by “youth culture” anymore; which is probably what boosted it up to the word of the year position.   And it just shows the increase of online interaction on different social media sites!

[chomskyluvr69-blog]

My parents use the most random emojis, it’s hilarious. For some reason my dad uses these two together all the time: 🐕👅 ! And I have no idea what it means!

[kkrobs-blog]

Emojis are becoming the new language of the world, something that everyone in the world with an Apple or similar device can share, and a tool which allows people people to communicate together. The famous saying “a picture can speak a thousand words” can be applied here, and although context does play a big part in the understanding of an emoji - TO AN EXTENT, there is however a general concensus and knowledge of what each emoji means, and the general scenarios in which they are suitable to use. What would be interesting is to see whether common emojis in our technological world are used differently in other countries and places… 🗻🌆🏜🏝

[aatayblr-blog]

The ubiquity of emojis is quite a hot topic at the moment. When they first became a big thing, I wasn’t sure when or why I would use them but now I probably use at least one emoji in 50% of the messages I send or put online.

One of the most interesting uses of emojis in my opinion, is when they are the sole caption for an instagram picture. Logically it seems strange to describe a picture you’ve taken, by using a smaller picture, but it’s actually very effective. Emojis are so well understood that they can be used like this with no questions asked, which surely marks them as word like elements that are effective tools for communication.

[aatayblr-blog]

Trying to be thinner than a piece of paper is a worrying new craze

The latest in a seemingly endless series of bizarre Chinese beauty fads on social media is also surely the most dangerous yet.

We often talk about memes and virality and how it’s so easy for posts to rapidly spread all over the internet and gain attention, but to what extent is this a good thing?

 #a4waist definitely seems a step too far in my opinion. Memes can be great when they’re raising awareness or spreading jokes, but encouraging unrealistic body types is dangerous use of social media, with no thought towards the potential harm it could cause.

[aatayblr-blog]

Do you agree with this?

We’re always being told that our generation are on our phones too much and we can’t function without them. But could it be considered that we’re just making use of the technology that older generations have provided us with?

[samgenoveseblog]

Please don’t make me do squats! I’m fit enough already I promise 💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻

This photo says something about the level of commitment and effort it takes to either like or comment on a post.

Liking is simple and easy to do. There’s only one way to hit the like button. But commenting takes a bit more effort. This photo equates the efforts into two different exercises and number of reps.

The poster clearly expects to receive more likes, so sets the reps for sit ups at a lower amount to the reps for squats.

Do we sometimes like statuses because it’s easier than commenting?

[aatayblr-blog]

I find this kind of post to be particularly popular on twitter. I always see posts like “What should I have for dinner? Retweet for pasta, favourite for curry”. The  chances are, the tweeter already knows what they’ll eat and doesn’t care whether people retweet or favourite. Regardless of which option you choose, the post still gains attention. Especially because people retweeting gets the post into more feeds. Similar to Sam’s point, it would make sense if the tweeter chooses a more popular option for retweet because this increases the amount of people that see the tweet and are therefore drawn to the original account. It’s interesting to consider how the need to be seen on social media has led to people asking their followers such pointless questions.

[eemmac]

An example of click bait, a statement ‘dear Caitlin’ and a unsolved ambiguous statement ‘im reluctant to further any…’ which entices you to click on it. I think also click bait is effective because it uses someone who is prominent in the media, or some strange fact at the centre of its story to make you want to click on it even more.

Could you identify what is click-bait, and what would entice you enough to click on it?

[lauren-gordon-blog]

I am a sucker for click-bait. 

Even so, I do think it is wrong and unethical. It can distort stories and usually when you follow through and click on the article it is nothing like you were expecting it to be. For those who don’t fall for it but read the heading alone may come to wrong conclusions which creates lies. Click bait is extremely controversial. 

[eemmac]

Yeah I agree! It’s like its still hazardous to our perceptions on certain things, even if we don’t click on it!

[samgenoveseblog]

One thing I’ve noticed recently on Twitter and FB is that people are now commenting on the clickbait to let you know what the post is talking about, as if to say “don’t waste your time loading it up, I’ll fill your knowledge gap right now for you” 

[jess-a-barnes]

I like that people do this and fill in what the post is about.  The interaction between people who don’t even know each other is great sometimes because everyone knows that it’s clickbait and so it’s quite a nice little community.  But sometimes the comments people put on just entice me even more to want to know what the article is about.  For example if people comment “whoa!” or “wow, did not know that!“ they just enhance the clickbait! 

[kkrobs-blog]

I am such a sucker for clickbait. So many times I have read something that is so clearly a clickbait link, but the thought of not finding out what they are concealing from me is worth the risk of getting a virus or being taken on to some random website - I need to know what I’m missing out on!

[aatayblr-blog]

Clickbait annoys me so much! Personally I haven’t seen people sharing what an article is about in the comments before, but I’d be happy to see it as whenever I see clickbait I’m always interested in what the answer to the question is, but stubbornly refuse to click on it to actually find out. Being able to read the answer in the comments would certainly help me with this. I wonder what the makers of the articles think about this though? Will they have to think of a new strategy to trick people into visiting their websites, and how would they do this?

[aatayblr-blog]

Former Instagram Model Edits Her Posts To Reveal Truth Behind The Photos

We're all with you, Essena! Get it, gurl!

We always talk about Instagram reflecting the life we truly want to live and want others to think we have, but what happens when it goes wrong behind the scenes?

Would you ever edit the captions of your pictures to accurately represent how you really felt at the time?

[lisanewmedia]

QUESTION:

How many of these social media logos/icons can you identify? 

[jackynewmedia-blog]

I can identify 15! That’s quite a lot I think even though it’s not all of them, and crazy to think that there are millions of other apps out there that we haven’t heard of. It’s scary how well known and popular such a simple logo can become.

[aatayblr-blog]

I can identify 20 of them but this doesn’t really surprise me. I only use the sites associated with 9 of the logos, but spending time on the internet means it’s likely that you’ll come across some of these sites without using them. Logos are particularly powerful devices when it comes to brand recognition and are all-pervasive when it comes to the internet. 

[jess-a-barnes]

This meme shows that obviously people think that there is something wrong with our generation and is notorious I guess, for being constantly online.  I know that this generation’s online presence is a lot more prominent than it would have been thirty years ago- but is this necessarily wrong?

[inespinsch-blog]

I don’t agree that something went wrong. Of course, you don’t have to be online and on your computer 24/7 but a lot of people tend to forget the affordances the Internet and New Media provide. It is about the right moderation, however, I think that there are more affordances when it comes to the Internet’s and technique’s impact on our life.

[jackynewmedia-blog]

I like the point that this meme is trying to get across, but I’m not so sure about the way they’ve done it. The evolution of mobile technology does allow us to constantly be online, but I don’t think it’s going backward and nowadays it certainly isn’t being hunched over a computer. Mobile technology allows us to be online anywhere and everywhere, from instagramming your view from the top of a mountain to a snapchat selfie in the SU toilets.

[lisanewmedia]

I wouldn’t say our online presence is necessarily wrong but maybe the fact that our generation relies so heavily on technology is perhaps wrong? It tends to be the case now that if we’re bored we rely heavily on checking social media on our phones, rather than doing other productive things.

[aatayblr-blog]

I definitely don’t agree that something went wrong. Sure we might spend time staring into a screen, but just think how far we came as the human race to get to this point, and what this can allow us to do. If you think about the screen from a communication point of view, consider how many people we can now talk to and communicate with and where these people may be. If you watch a TV show like sports relief, the screen allows you to see people in third world countries and may make you more likely to donate or support them. I prefer to think of these benefits of the advances of technology rather than the setbacks, but maybe I’m just a screen addict. 

[jackynewmedia-blog]

I think this image is so cute. Last Christmas my Nan taught my other Nan how to text and she’s literally so proud of herself and thinks it’s very clever. But by the time she’d learnt this, we had well advanced into snapchat, Instagram and Twitter. Technology advances so quickly that if you’re not on it right away it can easily become daunting and so much to catch up on. I think my Nan will be happy just texting, as her phone doesn’t even have an Internet function and she still prefers to use the landline.

[aatayblr-blog]

I recently had this experience when my mum added my grandparents into our family Facebook chat. I was talking to her on the phone the other day and mentioned that they never actually say anything in reply to messages. She told me they love seeing what we’re all up to, but thought it was just something for them to read, and that they didn’t even know that they could type a reply. I find it so funny to think that they’ve just been silently reading for all this time,, and I can’t wait until they actually send their first message now my mum has shown them how to!