Emerging Media

[sgrobety]

Spotify

I remember my first MP3 player. My dad almost had a conniption when I asked him to download iTunes for the first time. He was super anti-Mac and iTunes, and it took years before I could convince him to let me get an iPod. Once I finally got through my dad’s stubborn anti-Apple antics, I was HOOKED. I spent all of my allowance on iTunes buying music and looked forward to days my dad was in a good mood and would let me download more music. iTunes gift cards became the go-to birthday present currency. 

The best day of my life was the day I got a Spotify premium account. I remember being upset I needed to redownload and find all my favorite music, but once I got past the initial hurdle my life improved drastically. Paying a low, student rate for unlimited music and curated playlists was a no-brainer. I loved the “For You” music curation features, shareable playlists and social media aspects of the site. Never did I ever consider that Spotify was harmful to the music industry until much later. 

I have several friends who are “up and coming musicians.” While many of them are guaranteed to not make it in the music industry, many of them still release music on platforms like Spotify to boost their exposure. I thought having a platform as large and widely used as Spotify would be good for them, but hearing how little they make (if anything at all) for their music is honestly disappointing. 

While, as a cheap and broke college student, I am definitely not complaining about paying $6/month for my music, but it does make me stop and think about the broader implications. I haven’t purchased a song on iTunes in years, (actually I think the last thing I bought was Beyonce’s Lemonade album because it was not on Spotify) but I am listening to more music and a more broad range of music than ever. 

 think that musicians have a hard enough time being successful today, so they should be entitled to whatever earnings they produce. However, how is that possible in this digital age? With piracy, YouTube, and other sources, illegal music downloading is still an issue and musicians will never really be paid what they are due. Popularity on social and influencer programs have become the new currency for many budding musicians, even though it is harder to pay the bills.

[sgrobety]

The ‘Gram

Author’s Note: WOW I could go on forever about Instagram... so forgive my rant. I had a lot of fun writing this.

I don’t remember when I got an Instagram, nor do I remember my first post. It was probably middle school or early high school, and I know for a fact that my posts were “cringey” and got deleted long ago. There were definitely some early memes, #WomanCrushWednesday posts of celebrities, and plenty of peace sign and duck lipped pictures with my friends. 

I Googled “2013 Instagram” and this is the most accurate thing to describe what I mean:

Now, my page is EXTREMELY curated. If high school and early college life taught me anything socially, it was how to “take pictures” and curate my online image. Deleting old pictures, changing captions, and highlighting the perfect stories is all part of the game now. These unspoken rules are ever changing and differ from person to person and group to group.

Break up with your boyfriend? Take couple pictures down. But not too soon after... but don’t wait too long.

Didn’t get enough likes in the first hour? Take it down and try again at a peak time.

Homecoming dance? Picture parties and photo shoots for 3 hours beforehand because it’s all about the content!

Lose two followers? Pay for the app that tracks who adds and unadds you and unfollow people who don’t follow you back.

Too many followers and you’re definitely a try hard. Not enough and people assume you are weird or not popular. 

Want to post too casual of a photo? No way. Too formal? Ew, stop trying so hard.

Unedited picture? Are you sure you don’t want to touch it up? Too edited? Gosh you’re trying so hard.

Too much skin? Too slutty, stop posting “thirst traps.” Not enough sex appeal and you’re a prude. 

Especially as a communicator, I feel immense pressure to have a certain type of social media presence: a healthy mixture of the fun, real me being myself with my friends and family, but still professional. Everything I post, I have to think “my grandparents, professor, boss, young family, parents, siblings, schoolmates, friends, university, sorority, employers, future can see this.” Talk about context collapse (before I had any idea what it was)! How does one post for all of those audiences?

In came Finstas. Ahhh, the memories...

I remember the first time I heard the word Finsta. I thought my friend was just slurring their words or messed up. Once I was introduced to the idea, I was sold. I had always longed for somewhere I could do whatever I wanted for my closest friends. 

My Finsta became my diary: Funny story or video? On the Finsta. Bad day and need advice? Finsta friends to the rescue. All of my friends and I had a close-knit network of secret accounts that interacted only with each other (and your real accounts to like pictures...it’s all about those stats! So, if you get a like and follow from all of your friends AND their Finstas, those add up quick.). Follower counts were kept low and posts were uncensored and honest. 

Well into college, Finstas reigned supreme... until sororities caught wind. Greek organizations are very critical and have strict rules regarding how members are allowed to post and present themselves online. My organization did not allow any underage drinking or obvious bar pictures if you were under 21. At one point, their rules got so controlling that they got mad at people for holding cups or water bottles at all. If they deemed your photo too provocative, they would make you take it down or you could get in trouble or fined. If the picture was bad quality or the caption suggestive or lewd, they would make you take it down. So, many people turned to Finstas to publish their NSFS (Not Safe for Soritrity) content.

As one can imagine, Greek life was NOT having any part of the Finsta craze. Immediately, my organization was calling people out for having Finstas and forcing them to delete accounts. At one point, the president literally made people delete it in front of her so that she saw they actually did it instead of just changing the name and hiding it. Finsta snitches became a thing. It was Greek Life cyber-warfare.

I was one of the first to give up my Finsta for good. I had already began to use it less and less, so by then I was okay with deleting it. But, for many of my friends who used them for more wholesome, diary-like purposes (rather than somewhere to be trashy like others), losing years of photos, memories, posts and comments was hard. It was really like deleting that “truer version” of themselves (p. 16). 

Flash forward to today, and I use my Instagram as a personal promotion tool more than anything. I just have my one public account. I have deleted any and all embarrassing pictures (well, some are embarrassing still but in an okay way) and all posts are purposely posted to be seen by the world. I have also long left behind some of the more ridiculous and rigid unspoken Instagram “rules” I used to abide by and no longer focus as much on the numbers in a negative way. I use it to be myself in a way I want anyone to see, and I wish I had always had an outlook like this.

Follow me @sarah_grobety for a decent time and intermittent posts about my relatively boring existence. Or don’t. I don’t care any more ;)

[sgrobety]

reddit

I am a reddit dummy. When I realized this week we were learning about reddit, I immediately ran down the hall and asked all three of my roommates if they use reddit and knew how to explain it to me in a minute or two. My personal experiences with reddit are very limited and minimal. My only real memory is dumb kids in high school showing their friends r/FiftyFifty, a page where the title is two very different things and you click the link knowing there is a fifty-fifty chance it is each of those. For example, a post might say “Man dies on live TV | dozens of cute puppies” and one would click the link to see which thing it was. It very legitimately was half good and half bad, but still pretty messed up and weird. I recommend taking a look, but the page can get pretty dark and NSFW. 

Until this course, nobody has ever really talked about reddit in school or used it for anything, which surprises me to think about. I have used most platforms for school in some capacity, but there has been a real lack of reddit use in my life. I have no friends that use it. My brother uses it to “look at memes sometimes but never to post.” I like to think I have friends in many walks of life and fields, and none seem to really use reddit. So, I had to really delve into this book to get much real insight. 

In reading Participatory Culture, Community, and Play: Learning from reddit, many of my broad questions were answered, like “what the hell is this site?” and “should I use reddit?” I learned that reddit is a link aggregation social media platform, which means much of the content is linked out to other pages and not hosted directly by reddit. 

Founded by two University of Virginia roommates, one of whom went on to marry SERENA WILLIAMS (shout-out Alexis Ohanian!! He is KILLING the game), reddit hosts discourse on any subject without official intermediaries.

I also learned that reddit is extremely diverse in content and that each thread can contain so many forms of media, including gifs, links, puns and sexist speech, all in one. Because of this diversity in content forms, reading reddit threads can be both extremely entertaining and robust or very hard to follow. I do not think I will ever use reddit regularly or to browse, but I do appreciate the site’s ability to connect professionals and experts with the masses. 

Important scientists, politicians, and other leaders using sites like reddit to break down barriers with the community is really impactful and helps the flow of information in many ways. COVID-19 threads are abundant, from pages dedicated to experts, unconfirmed cases, trials and other news and resources available. To many, these pages may offer some of the only information they will consume on a topic, so the diversity in sources and ideas is impressive and important. 

Overall, however, this book makes me want to stay as far away from reddit as I can. There are so many intricacies involved in the community and language that I feel I would not effectively understand or care to learn.

[sgrobety]

Second Screening

Now-a-days, everyone has beaucoup screens, devices and other electronics they use every second of every day. In class, students use laptops, stare at projected computer screens and check their phones all within five seconds of each other. At home, Netflix is always on in the background while homework and social media are pulled up on our laptops and our phones are ringing. Me sitting in my bed writing this, I can count five electronics that I am actively using right now: my phone, my television (Hell’s Kitchen is my homework background noise of choice...don’t knock it ‘til you try it), my Roomba automatic vacuum is whirring under my bed, my Echo Dot (Alexa) is in the corner timing my cooking food and my laptop is on my lap. Five electronic devices, being controlled by me, at once.  Talk about MULTI-TASKING!

In this week’s readings, second screening is discussed in great detail from multiple perspectives including social and political media use. Second screen use, according to Zuniga, Perdomo and McGregor’s article, is an aspect of hybrid media in which television viewers are accessing the Internet and social media sites to get more information about or to discuss what they are watching. The article underlined the two main reasons people second screen while watching news specifically: discussion and information seeking. 

I grew up watching ABC World News every night with my dad. We would record it (it came on during dinner, so of COURSE we had to wait the extra hour) then watch it together. Anchors like Charlie Gibson, Diane Sawyer and David Muir sparked my interest in news, politics and world affairs because their eloquent 90-second stories sparked a lot of second screening to research and discuss the events. I would sit on my couch with my dad clutching my Lenovo (school-issued) computer, ready to Google places, people, names and other sides of the stories.  Now, as I watch the news and other television programs, my behavior is mostly the same: I clutch technology and use it to uncover every tiny detail I desire.

In writing this blog, I came to realize that my passion for news and attention to the world around me is in no way universal. I asked two of my roommates about their second screening while watching the news (which they don’t), and their answers kind of surprised me. Miranda, my engineer roommate, doesn’t watch much news but would use her phone if she did to “distract her” and convey information to others. “If I was watching and I saw something that was applicable to people I know, I would text them about it. Other than that, I would use my phone to play Candy Crush to ignore the news.” I had never considered that other, non-political people would use phones or second screens as deliberate distractions from reality. That shocked me.

In the articles we read about political involvement and second screening, I think it would be important to distinguish that those results really only apply to those who wish to be politically active anyways. Yes, discussion and information seeking are exactly why politically-involved and global-affairs-interested people are second screening during news coverage, but for many, it’s just something drowning out the background noise of news.

[sgrobety]

Contexts are Collapsing...

Making more private accounts is nothing new. In 2009, my friends did it on Facebook. “Fake” Instagram accounts called “Finstas” became prevalent in the last couple of years. Teens and young adults make new, private accounts intended for consumption only by their closest friends and inner-circles. Finstas are used as diaries, exposing your thoughts, secrets, and day to day life. In college, that translates to exposing drama, embarrassing stories, and day to day school hardships. 

Snapchat also has a similar feature to tap into the need for audience fragmentation called private stories. With one account, you can have as many different “stories” as you desire, with different privacy and collaboration settings on each one. While I do not use Finstas, I do use private stories in the same manner: to broadcast to my tight-knit group things that I don’t need all of my followers to see. Having a bad hair day? A funny thing happen between classes? Probably on my private story. For scale, I have about 125 friends total on my Snapchat account, but less than 50 are on my private story. Some people are more or less exclusive or have more than one private story. One of my friends has at least 5 tiers (that I know of) because she segments her audience for every single thing she publishes. 

Having different publics on social media is nothing new. Context collapse is used to describe how “people portray different images of themselves to different audiences in different social contexts” and perfectly encapsulates why people feel the need to have accounts with varying levels of viewership. Because the internet makes everything so easily accessible and centralized, context collapse must translate to social media. From a professional perspective, having a LinkedIn account and strict privacy settings on social media are imperative to maintain a professional and employable facade. Personally, it is nice to be friends with your extended family online, but they do not necessarily need updates from Mardi Gras on Bourbon Street. Segmentation is ESSENTIAL online.

Segmentation online takes many forms, including hashtagging and private messaging. In Jackson et al.’s research on trans women on Twitter, they noticed trends in hashtags and messages that promoted in-group solidarity and publicized it. Twitter was a logical choice for this experiment because of its hashtagging and retweeting features because tweets are more easily shared, tracked, and analyzed. However, segmentation and new social media are not helpful for everyone. Research has shown that in the music industry, new technology is glorified, but actually not as beneficial as many suggest (Haynes & Marshall, 2018). Exposure is hard to achieve and even harder to monetize because of traditional social media functions. However, I believe that with increasing amounts of segmentation on every platform, musicians are also just having a hard time reaching enough people. Too much personalization can mean you end up with an echo-chamber or filter bubble situation.

[sgrobety]

Social Media Affects.

Social media can do anything. People influence companies, celebrities and politicians with Tweets and DMs. Social media can launch careers overnight. Social media can rally thousands around a cause, person or idea. Social media can empower.

On the flip side, social media can do ANYTHING. People can manipulate and negatively influence others. Social media can launch people into the public eye overnight. Social media can rally thousands around hateful speech and causes that are detrimental to society. Social media can strip power.

Many people love social media because they can be themselves and find communities online that mirror their interests and passions. When choosing media, people look for familiar groups and will prefer platforms that have audience homophily. Audience homophily comes from the human need for "self-consistency" and describes peoples' preferences for "partisan media websites catering to a homogeneous, likeminded consumership" (Dvir-Gvirsman, 2017). When searching for a community online, people gravitate towards people like them. So, platforms tend to naturally homogenize as people form online communities. Because "media selection is an act of self-reinforcing," over time, this behavior will polarize political identity through a "spiral of reinforcement" (Dvir-Gvirsman, 2017). Entire websites and platforms can slowly morph into echo chambers of possible misinformation and chaos.

Social media influences people physically as well, especially young girls. Instagram and other photo-sharing applications and platforms kill the self-esteem of young girls all the time by glamorizing edited photos and unrealistic lifestyle choices and bodies. Manipulated photos on Instagram are rates more positively than originals, despite filters and effects being blatant and obviously noticed. Scarier still, the reshaping of bodies in these edited photos was not noticed much, and both the edited and real photos were considered realistic (Kleemans et al., 2016). Young girls are literally being brainwashed into thinking that Khloe Kardashian's body ACTUALLY looks like that. Even when celebrities have photoshop fails and noticeably bad edits, young girls like and worship them nonetheless.

Politics and social media are also extremely intertwined for one of the first times in history. The 2016 presidential election showed an unprecedented use of political social media and politicians around the country are adjusting their social media use to benefit them in any way they can. One tactic used is personalization or using social media to tell constituents about yourself and appear more personable. Men personalize more than women, and Republicans personalize more than Democrats (McGregor et al., 2016). In my humble but left-leaning feminist opinion, that is because men and Republicans both tend to be less personal than women and democrats in real life. So, they are trying to use social media to make up for it among younger audiences who are less likely to vote for them. But hey, that's just me.

Another factoid about political social media use I found noteworthy is that passive receivers of political information on social media are more likely to support Trump than politically engaged users (Groshek & Koc-Michalska, 2017). Yes, my predispositions are left-leaning, but this does not surprise me at all. Trump uses bully-like tactics on social media, so it does not surprise me at all that passive receivers fall for it. 

At the end of the day, social media is not going anywhere. The negative effects will only continue to grow, so media literacy is more important than ever to understand how to not become a victim of social media. Nobody is safe. 

[sgrobety]

Comfort Media?

Fine. I’ll say it: I am addicted to social media. 

I love Twitter for the community. I use Twitter primarily for entertainment, but also to join and follow people and communities I identify with or I am interested in. On Twitter, I follow friends, celebrities, professors, thinkers, organizations and brands, and even goofy meme and funny Twitter pages. Because my feed is tailored to what I want to see (thanks algorithms!!), I am constantly happy scrolling and, subsequently, feel very at home on and accepted by my timeline.

 And trust me, I am not crazy. For many, social media brings out feelings of being accepted, comfortable and heard that they may not have experienced before.

Like in real life, we surround ourselves with like-minded people online to feel included. On my Twitter feed, I see content that probably 90% of the time aligns with what I believe, or at least is relevant or interesting in some way. It can be rare for me to go out of my way to find incongruent information. If I saw incongruent information, I certainly would not go out of my way to analyze and correct it if incorrect. On Twitter especially, false information can easily circulate within like-minded networks. Because these networks believe similar things, they form social networking groups that then contribute to the increase in circulation and community building that makes Twitter feel so comfortable and homey. The Twitter community does not typically function as much of a fact-checking apparatus, as those who do fact-check or reject rumors typically do not form communities (Shin et al., 2016).

Feelings of support and comfort are not uncommon for avid social media users, even on other platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. Recently, I remember seeing an article about  Instagram influencer Jessy Taylor who had her account removed from the site. In tearful videos, she sobs about how losing her Instagram account hurts her. On top of losing her livelihood, she also lost her community of people who made her who she is today. 

Social capital, or “the resources contained within a person’s network,” is more important today than ever (Lu & Hampton, 2016). With the ability to not only connect with so many people but also to capitalize on their connections as well, social media users have expansive networks at the tap of a screen. On websites such as Facebook, people use features such as private messaging and status updates to feel more supported and included with their networks. This “pervasive awareness” of activities and networks of one’s social ties occurs because of social media interactions. So, for example, when I scroll down my Facebook feed, I am inundated with what my friends, family and other Facebook engagements are doing. In doing this, I feel more connected to my network and by extension feel much more aware of my network’s activities and social ties. This feeling of connectedness is one of many reasons that social media enthusiasts (and addicts), like Jessy, feel as if their account being deleted is “homicide.”

Now, I would not call the police if my social media was tampered with or deleted, but I do agree that it would be very upsetting to lose such a curated and (for many, including myself) important part of my daily life. To go from having platforms that surround you in homophilic and positive environments to nothing could be hard, especially for those whose incomes depend on it. Feeling included is healthy, but dependent and addicted is not. 

[sgrobety]

Unpoppable Filter Bubbles

I used Google to better understand how to escape Google’s filter bubble. Wrap your head around that. I wanted to know if there was easily accessible information, provided by Google, about how to avoid falling prey to their algorithmic search tampering. 

The term “filter bubble” was first coined by Eli Pariser in his 2011 book The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You. In his book and Ted Talk, Pariser uses the example of asking two different people Google searching the same word at the same time and getting completely different and diverging perspectives. In his Ted Talk, he told the story of how he had two friends both search the word “Egypt.” One of his friend’s feeds was almost completely news about protests and other relevant, world information. The other friend had no news, but simply tourism and fun fact information. 

So, who do companies like Google tailor information in such a way? The purpose of Google’s filter bubble is “providing and consuming content that is closely aligned to your preferences results in the creation of a bubble or chamber, restricting your view of the wider picture.” Using your personal data, including location, device, search and click history and other information, Google edits and tailors your search results to show you what they believe you should want to see most. Every Google user, logged in or out, experiences these algorithms. So how do we get around these? How do we avoid being exposed to this Google-tailored version of reality? 

So, as I would do with any other question I have, I Googled it. And I learned a lot.

Logging out and clearing your history and cookies will not protect you as well as I would have thought. Even doing both of those things and using an incognito or private browser will not completely hide your activity or keep you safe from the algorithm. Simply using your IP address and location, Google still subjects any and all searches to their own “internal bias.”

Unfortunately, Google is everywhere. Escaping their filter bubble is made even more impossible by the fact that Google is not the only website that employs these tactics. Facebook slowly edits out or hides posts from friends and pages you interact with that you are less likely to interact with. Yahoo! News curates their news results based on what they believe you are most likely to click on. 

Clicks are money, and these companies are trying to rake it in. By showing you a curated list of content you are likely to click on, these internet companies are simply trying to set themselves up for success. The continual improvement of algorithms and websites is important because it is how companies keep us coming back. Updating websites for stickiness and speed is exactly how users keep wanting to come back. 

Since avoidance seems impossible, awareness is the next best thing. As informed readers, we must take it upon ourselves to search for diverse information and points of view to escape our own filter bubbles. Interacting online with others who have differing viewpoints is important in making sure that we are challenging our own biases... and popping our Google filter bubbles as well. 

[sgrobety]

Spoon-fed Internet

To many, the Internet is the marketplace of ideas and the pinnacle of the American freedoms of speech and expression. But, after more than 20 years of commercialization and capitalistic competition, that really is no longer the case. The Internet has given users a false sense of security and freedom to choose, when, in reality, every choice you make is spoon-fed. 

Algorithms control more of the world around you than you may realize. Traffic lights use algorithms that include road speeds and traffic patterns that determine when they change colors. In stores, they are laid out based on consumer patterns and sales initiatives to most effectively manipulate how we shop. It is no coincidence that the juniors and women's clothing is often in the front of Target while the tools and home supplies are in the back: they are specifically laid out to maximize profits. 

Online is no different. Think of Google as a Target. You can get just about everything you could ever want or need at Target. You can go just to buy one necessity, or leave with a cart full of crap you do not need. In this analogy, Googling something is the same as going to that section of the physical Target store. In the center of the shelves is the most expensive, name brand products. The more expensive brands (or just the ones the store is trying to sell faster) are positioned to maximize their odds of being purchased, whether they are exactly what you were looking for or not. Cheaper brands are shelved above, below and behind the more desirable brands. 

Google works in a similar way. Brands pay more to be the first thing that the algorithm shows in the search results on Google because it maximizes brand exposure and, in turn, sales. So, companies are financially incentivized to optimize their search engine placement. This leads to an issue that Hindman calls inequalities in the “cost of search[ing]” for certain brands (Hindman). More money always means more exposure. Hindman believes that the internet favors scale, or that the most favorable outcomes online come from large-scale entities that have the manpower and/or money to rule the internet. These differences cause an imbalance in the concentration of power, however, that ends up perpetuating the issue and making it worse. 

Brands and internet service providers essentially are responsible for showing us everything we see. Google carefully curates every page of search results and tailors them to what their algorithm believes I will most want to see and interact with. Most of the time, users click on links on the very first page that Google shows us, making the thousands of other pages of search results obsolete. I remember growing up, however, and actually being told that we needed to look past page one for search results. Ten plus years ago, the algorithm was not close to as precise, and applicable and useful results often were on the second or even third page. Now, it is unheard of to look that far because of how specific and individualized their algorithmic abilities have become.

In the summer of 2018, net neutrality regulations in the United States came to an end, allowing internet service providers to charge more for increased internet bandwidth. Ending these fair-internet practices will only make the concentration of power differences more starkly apparent and disadvantageous for those who cannot afford it. These regulations were put in place largely to protect the growing digital divide, and without them, companies can profit more than ever off basic internet use. 

Freedom of internet use and accessibility should be inherent rights as Americans, no matter their socio-economic status. Because of our capitalistic roots, it is important to understand that the internet will always be commercialized and monetized. However, through better education, increased awareness, and some government regulation and intervention as needed, the internet can be used to benefit the masses. Let’s work to keep the internet fair and accessible for all. 

[sgrobety]

Digitally Divided

Because media is becoming more and more accessible with every cell tower that goes up and new iPhone generation launch, it sure does seem like everyone and their mother has an Internet addiction. Social media platforms and video-sharing sites are more popular than ever. Facebook has over 2.4 billion active monthly users and Instagram also has over a billion. Over 200 million people use Snapchat every day. But, of these millions of posts, likes, comments and shares, what amount are original, creative content?

I rarely Tweet original thoughts. Of the over 500 million Tweets published daily, usually zero of them belong to me. But, according to my iPhone screen time, I spend HOURS a day on Twitter. My use in no way is reflected by what I publish. And it isn’t just me.

In the conversation about the digital and technological divides, it does not always immediately occur to people that being online and being active and advancing knowledge are not synonymous. In further research on the causes of these differences, scholars seem to come to the consensus that socioeconomic status (SES) plays a large role. People with lower SES, women, less educated people and less wealthy people tend to show lower levels of Web know-how than others (Hargittai, Schradie). These lower levels may include less content production, Internet use that does not further knowledge and less time online overall (Schradie, Reisdorf).

These differences are often looked past by those who do not understand that access does not always mean educated use. While my iPhone screen time use may reflect 8+ hours of phone time some days, my productive Internet use might be non-existent. Gaming and mindless social media waste Internet time for billions of people a day. On lazy weekends, my teen brothers easily could sit on their Xbox for half a day at a time, only taking breaks to check their phones and eat. Unfortunately, playing Call of Duty is not considered knowledge advancing Internet use.

The digital divide no longer is defined by just having access to the Internet and has been expanded to include Internet use as well. This is especially important today because scholars have suggested that the digital divide plays a major role in reinforcing existing social and societal inequalities (Scheerder). Those who do not use media and the Internet for self-benefit, but solely for entertainment and gaming, have lower media literacy and are on the other side of the digital divide from those who benefit from their online content creation. Because it takes skills and knowledge to use the Internet in such a way, there lies the endless circle of the digital divide. Without the knowledge necessary, those with lower SESs have a much smaller chance of using the Internet to their advantage.

As someone who has never been overtly technologically talented, it has always impressed me when my classmates and friends were able to use the Internet in such extraordinary ways at such a young age. I had friends in middle school who were starting blogs about history or YouTube channels about makeup and fashion. These students are now going on to win mock trial tournaments and become influencers. I grew up in an affluent, privileged environment. I attended a private Catholic high school in suburbia Atlanta. We had computer classes in school every year that taught us how to do the bare minimum on most platforms and sites, both social media and professional and academic resources. I found so much of this so normal. We all used social media at a young age to communicate and publish our own content. But, I never considered it special. I thought all teens did this. Reading about the digital divide in SES opened my eyes to just how different things are for others who are less fortunate. I had no idea that my own experiences with technology growing up were not universal.

[sgrobety]

Side Effects May Include...

Social networking sites, or SNSs, have risen to popularity as the World Wide Web has become more and more accessible and prevalent. With the continuous influx of new and improved sites and the shift to Web 2.0, people today have more options than ever to express themselves online in creative and personalized ways. Features such as shares, likes and “friends” lists allow users to connect with others in a one-on-one setting, such as email and instant messaging (IM), or in a more social and public sphere on sites like Facebook or MySpace. Depending on the person and how they intend to use SNSs, there are sites with privacy and social networking functions and options for everyone. For example, those with more open personality types tend to use more public sites such as Twitter, whereas one with less of an inclination to publish their information publicly might enjoy the more private world of email or IM (Stoycheff, Liu, Wibowo & Nanni, 2017). However, these sites may hide some dangerous truths that researchers still do not know much about including false senses of security and privacy, dependency and addiction and altered perceptions of the bounds between what is real and fictional.

Social networking sites’ “friend’-centric design enables users to add people they know to their network, but also allows for users to follow others that they may not know in real life. Because you can interact with those you do not know, “friends” lists can give users false senses of security or privacy online, even with they realistically only know less than a third of their list (Ellison & Boyd, 2013). These false notions of privacy are especially prevalent in job markets and college admissions. More businesses and schools turn to candidates’ social media footprints to judge and generalize about people. But, what can be especially detrimental to reputations of SNS users is the discrepancies in how they behave in real life and how they choose to represent themselves online (Boyd). Often, people represent themselves differently online than they would want others to see simply because the Internet can give some a sense of false anonymity. While it might not seem like it matters in the moment, social media presence can have a severely negative impact on their futures if not properly safeguarded.

Lee, Ho and Lwin’s 2016 article raises more important points regarding the side effects of social media. Dependence and possible addiction to media is becoming more and more concerning as more emerging media platforms are created and as technology advances to produce better devices. There is a very real fear that people are becoming more and more attached and dependent on media. As the lines between what is real and what is online become more and more blurred, people have begun to know themselves through “what [they] do and how others react to [them]” online (Davis & Jurgenson, 2014). Unfortunately, this shift can lead to an increased risk of addiction or improper use and psychological dependencies that many people today face. Social commentaries have even been made about it in films such as Pixar’s 2008 movie Wall-e. The film, which takes place in the future, features sedentary, obese humans that are completely dependent on media and technology for every aspect of their lives. Wild stories like that are not as far fetched as people may think. With the current extreme lack of research on media addiction and other dependencies and problematic use, it is difficult for scholars to understand and predict the effects that technology can have.

While there are many amazing and helpful features and uses for social networking sites such as work-related uses, entertainment and communication, it is still important to remember to acknowledge the negative consequences of our social networking on our mental and physical health. As little research has been done on this rapidly changing field, academic scholars need to fill the information gap to best predict and adapt to the negative effects of SNSs (Borah, 2015; Boyd, 2015). But, it is not always that easy. Because the Internet knows no bounds, it is essentially impossible to perform an exhaustive search or analysis of every trace of a topic or site. Additionally, when researching, it is possible to “produce more noise than signal,” further complicating the research process (Venturini, Bonegru, Gray & Rogers, 2018). The information can be especially difficult to pin down and analyze, but nevertheless, it needs to be done to protect people and best understand what SNSs are doing to us.