2:30pm in Melbourne

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So...what’s up with China?

It’s common knowledge that there’s pretty gnarly internet censorship in China, especially in regards to social media. The great firewall of China has made access to popular social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram ‘banned’ in that you can’t directly access it (although there are ways around it which I will mention later). As an alternative to that, a company called Sina launched a platform called Weibo which seems to be a combination of all major social media platforms that Chinese people aren’t able to access. On Weibo users can make posts of up to 140 Chinese characters, post images, like/repost images etc. I knew Weibo was a thing, but had no idea of all the functionalities of it. I just thought it was a spinoff of Facebook. As of 2014, Weibo boasts over 500 MILLION registered accounts….that’s a hell of a lot! Given that the local Chinese people understand that they are still being monitored on their social media platform of choice, they have somewhat created their own ‘encrypted’ language to hide profanity and anti-governmental speech (which is pretty damn cool). Now, on to the difficulty in accessing our beloved social media sites. All you need is a VPN installed on whatever device you want to access them on which spoofs your location so that you can still access them. A lot of people in China know this and use this on the daily. A perfect example is how I was recently contacted by a Chinese TV production company via Facebook of all platforms. Not email, not Whatsapp…Facebook which just goes to show that the locals are in the know and can access these sites if they want to. I’ve actually got a friend over there at the moment who is constantly posting to Instagram, so clearly it’s not THAT difficult (which is good to know because I might be heading there soon and I’m an Instagram addict). I personally don’t believe in Chiu, Lin and Silverman's claim that "Social media is exploding worldwide, and China is leading the way" as the amount of/speed of innovation between Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat are near incomparable.

Sources Chiu, C, Lin, D and Silverman, A 2012, 'China's social-media boom', McKinsey and Company, 1 May 2013 Wilfred Yang Wang (2015) 'Remaking Guangzhou Geo-identity and Place-making on Sina Weibo'

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A Virtual Life

Online games have particular characteristics that help to create their own digital community. Games such as MMOGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Game) have contractual environments with their own sets of rules and regulations where the user must accept the EULA (end user license agreement) before they are able to access the game. This is made so that there are contractual rules to help moderate the users of these games to make sure there is a safe environment for all.

Now, let’s get on to the psychology behind the sense of community these gamers feel.

The concept of a psychological sense of community (PSOC) can be defined as ‘a feeling that one is part of a larger dependable and stable structure’ and has been known to exist online. Studies in 2009 examined users of online gamer’s level of PSOC experienced from playing single player, multiplayer, and MMOGs and found that all gamers experienced an online PSOC related to their game of choice. Not only that, but the online social support players received from online team mates also contributed positively to their psychological sense of well-being.

The world of social gaming, as a community, can provide a lot of benefits for people. Take for example the socially awkward, introverted school kid. He/she may not have a lot of face-to-face interaction at school, but when they are at home playing their games they have a bunch of friends spread out all over the world that share their same interests that they can socialise with and receive similar psychological benefits that they may be missing out on due to their lack of sociability at school. And this may in turn make them feel more confident over time so that they then are able to be less socially awkward in real life situations.  At least, that’s what I think.

I feel that there is such an importance about finding others, whether it be online or offline, who share your interests so that you can socialise with them. Personally, I have made a lot of friends around the world purely by finding the digital community for my niche and interacting with them.

P.S Apologies that my posts usually centre around psychology…I can’t help it

Sources: Melissa de Zwart & Sal Humphreys (2014) The Lawless Frontier of Deep Space: Code as Law in EVE Online' Cultural Studies Review

Pavlova, M.K. & Silbereisen, R.K., 2015. Supportive Social Context and Intentions for Civic and Political Participation: An Application of the Theory of Planned Behaviour. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 25(August 2014), pp.432–446. Available at: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/5625/home.

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Unrelated, I just love Kanye

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Paging Dr. Google

Did you know that just under half of Australian teens feel that their peers are living and having more rewarding experiences than them due to what they constantly see on social media? Yep, it’s true, the FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) factor is hella strong as a contributor to anxiety and depression among young people who use social media. What these people fail to realise is that the vast majority of us are very selective about what we post on social media, therefore creating a ‘highlight reel’ of our best moments but playing it off as if ‘my life is always absolutely fanfuckingtasic’. It’s this obsession to only show the glamorous parts of our lives that makes others feel upset about their own lives in comparison. Imagine if we posted the things that actually go on in our lives: ‘ran out of food so I had cereal for dinner…again’ (don’t lie, I know we’ve all been there). I bet that if everyone did that, there would be less people becoming anxious and depressed from the use of social media.

But social media isn’t all bad. It has also become a platform for people to share their experiences and get recommendations/help from others who may be suffering the same things as them. There are also online communities dedicated to different illnesses where people have access to a bunch of other people who can empathise with them and help them through tough times. Even outside of these dedicated platforms, you can use hashtags on major social media sites to find others who have the same illness as you and you can connect with them that way. But with this, also comes people who superficially jump on the bandwagon for their own narcissistic exposure. This was seen during the Movember campaigns run in 2013 where people (including celebrities and sporting personalities) used this opportunity not to help out with the cause, but to use this trending campaign as a way to gain more exposure.

To end on a lighter note, here’s a little story about me that happened a few years ago. I left my computer logged into my facebook account while with my best mate and he went on and posted a status ‘is it normal to have traces of blood in your urine?’. I got SO MANY people responding sounding genuinely concerned and trying to offer help, it was a pisser (pun intended).

Sources: Burgess, J., Cassidy, E., & Light, B. (2014). ‘Deeply superficial Digital Media Engagement? The Case of Twitter and Movember 2013’. Paper presented at AoIR 15, Daegu, Korea.

McCosker, Mental Health and Social Media Chapter

Lecture

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Why are trolls assholes?

This post will mainly be about the psychological perspective of internet trolls. Am I allowed to write about psychology in a non-psych unit? Fuck it, it’s my blog. An internet troll is someone who comes into online discussions and posts comments purely designed to upset, offend, or disrupt the conversation. Usually, it seems like their comments have no other purpose except to upset everyone involved, or in some occasions, a specific person in the discussion. Trolls will lie, exaggerate, and insult/offend in order to get a response. But what personality traits make up these assholes? Well, Canadian researchers pondered this question and decided to find out. Surprise surprise, turns out the people who said trolling was their favourite internet activity scored the highest among the Dark Tetrad of personality traits (consisting of Machiavellianism, Narcissism, Psychopathy, and Sadism). WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT RIGHT!? These associations between trolling and the Dark Tetrad were so goddamn high that the authors wrote in their paper:

“…the associations between sadism and GAIT (Global Assessment of Internet Trolling) scores were so strong that it might be said that online trolls are prototypical everyday sadists.”

While that’s sinking in, let me hit you with another brilliant quote from the article:

“Both trolls and sadists feel sadistic glee at the distress of others. Sadists just want to have fun…and the Internet is their playground!”

I know right, how good are these quotes! These researchers must have been having a good laugh during this study. But for real though, trolls on the internet are a bunch of assholes who live off of the distress of others. It is other people’s suffering that brings them pleasure, so the best way to fight back is to try and not let it affect you and ignore it, or, to put it in a more common way ‘don’t feed the trolls’. Because then they will starve, and die (not literally, because that would be murder).

Sources: Buckels, Erin E., Paul D. Trapnell, and Delroy L. Paulhus. "Trolls just want to have fun." Personality and Individual Differences (2014): 97-102

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What’s the deal with ‘hacktivism’?

Hacktivism [hak-tuh-viz-uh m] Noun 1. the practice of gaining unauthorized access to a computer system and carrying out various disruptive actions as a means of achieving political or social goals: Origin 1995-2000; hack (in the computer sense) + (ac)tivism

Hacktivism is one of the most powerful forms of digital activism in the present day. One of the most notorious hacktivist groups, Anonymous, are known for successfully breaking into a number of corporate servers, disabled government security sites, obtained sensitive information and defaced commercial websites. One of their most infamous attacks was in support of the Arab Spring movement in 2010 where they executed “Operation Tunisia” which recruited a number of Tunisian hackers to assist in the take down of eight government websites using a hacking technique called Distributed Denial of Service Attacks (DDoS). But isn’t this just plain ol’ hacking? Why is it branded as ‘hacktivism’? Well, the main reason is that ‘normal’ hacking is usually done for some sort of financial gain, whereas the work that these digital vigilantes do is for the sole purpose of expressing opposition against internet censorship and control, as well as to challenge governments and organisations who go against their morals.

As illegal as it is, I think hacktivism is goddamn brilliant. The digital sphere has allowed for people to stand up for their rights in such a way that requires no physical ‘fire power’, instead knowledge of the inner workings of technology is the ammo used by regular people who want to make a difference in the world (all while sitting on the couch watching Netflix, I’m assuming).

What does the future hold for this form of digital activism? Well, in its current state, hacktivism is extremely powerful to fight against governments and organisations who are doing things that don’t align with the morals of the general public. The only way that I can see this progressing in the future is the ability for these hacktivists to make enormous physical action via the use of remotely controlled weapons….which I feel isn’t too far away given the current state of the world (WW3 anyone?)

Sources:

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/hacktivism

Lecture

https://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/us/security/news/cyber-attacks/hacktivism-101-a-brief-history-of-notable-incidents

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Political Engagement x Social Media

So let’s talk about Trump. During the 2016 US presidential election, Donald Trump was VERY active across all social media platforms, using them in a way seen as amateurish and unprofessional considering the position he was trying to secure. People were shocked at the amount of support he was getting taking into account how hasty and irrational a lot of his social media posts were. But I think people inherently know why people gravitated towards him despite the unprofessionalism of his posts. He was keeping shit real. His posts were raw, unfiltered, and straight from the heart (or lack thereof). It was such a sudden change from the completely fake posts by other politicians where each of their tweets were crafted in a room full of social media and marketing experts, and the people of America liked that. They liked that although he wasn’t the greatest person in the world, all of his undoings were out in the open and he was ok with that and embraced that, whereas in the past, other political leaders had a myriad of secrets that were later exposed, causing distrust amongst voters. At least people knew as much as they could about Trump, and voted for someone whose flaws were out in the open rather than vote for someone who hid behind secrecy. President Trump agrees that social networking platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram helped him win the presidential race, and states that “social media has more power than the money they [Hillary] spent”. Now, you may be asking how aren’t his followers also influenced by mainstream media and their coverage of the campaigning between both parties. What’s really interesting is that an analysis done at MIT found that Trump’s supporters and followers formed a particularly insular group when talking about politics and shared very few connections to Clinton or the mainstream media. How crazy is that!? Trump has a combined following of 28+ million people…who needs media coverage when you have an enormous reach like that? Just thought I’d finish this post off by saying that I am in no way shape or form a supporter of Trump, but at the same time, it’s hard to deny how crafty he was using social media platforms during the election, whether it was intentional or not. I look forward to the next US election #Yeezy2020

References:

https://news.vice.com/story/journalists-and-trump-voters-live-in-separate-online-bubbles-mit-analysis-shows

http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/13/13619148/trump-facebook-twitter-helped-win

My own opinion

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Is Tumblr a blog or a social media network?

Porque no los dos?

Before the term ‘social media’ even existed, blogs at their core were and still are the backbone of what most social media platforms work on. The primary ethos of essentially all social media platforms today is to create a place where everyone is allowed to share their thoughts, experiences and discoveries online. Blogs were the first platforms available that allowed the everyday person to have a space to express themselves in that way, thus paving the way for newer social media networks. So, in a sense, blogs are seen to be synonymous with ‘social media networks’. Tumblr defines itself as a ‘microblogging’ site which is locked into its own ecosystem to give it more elements of what is considered social media in the modern day. So, by it’s own definition, Tumblr is both a blog and a social network. I feel as if there is no need for the terms ‘blog’ and ‘social media network’ to be mutually exclusive, they are both embedded within each other and over-defining these terms isn’t necessary (also provides no advantage).

Ref: 

Walker Rettberg, J. (2013), 'What is a Blog' ch1; and 'Blogging Communities and Networks', ch 3 in Blogging. (2nd edn) eBook Library