Social Media and Social Life Fall 2022

The Guardian article titled "Facebook aware of Instagram's harmful effect on teenage girls, leak reveals" speaks to the negative impact social media platforms have on teenagers, specifically girls. According to this article, the main issue causing depression and anxiety among Instagram users is what Facebook data scientists call "social comparison". I briefly mentioned this in my last blog post, how "Influencers" portray a false image of reality that pushes an unattainable standard of beauty and life by altering the shared truth of popular culture.  Baym discusses four perspectives on the relationship between technology and society, all of which can help us further understand the anxiety about the interactive nature of social media as evidenced in the aforementioned Guardian article. Namely, the perspective of the social shaping of technology.  In other words, technologies have the potential to force change upon society but, simultaneously, individuals...

  Kayla is a middle school girl who struggles with social anxiety yet she has this whole different persona on the internet. The film shows various instances where Kayla is seen on her phone for long periods of time. Kayla portrays herself as this fun and excitied girl on social media yet in real life she just tries to fit in with the others. As the film progresses, it is obvious that Kayla has always had social media in her life and she did not know anything else outside of it. This can be related back to one of Baym’s four perspectives on the causal relationship between technology and society. Domestication of technology focuses on how technologies have become a major part of our lives that their negative effects become ordinary (Baym, 2020). This goes back to the portrayal of Kayla’s life in the film because she has vastly different lives online and in real life. She talks more on her YouTube channel and has a more intriguing persona on there. However, in the real world she does ...

 

     Popular among my generation, Instagram enables users to highlight and design their brand through the posting of photos and videos for user audiences. While there is fun in social media platforms such as Instagram, we need to recognize the negative affects by which social media contributes to poor mental health standards.       To look further into these detriments, we can turn to Nancy Baym, who argues that the widespread diffusion of digital media forms and practices throughout our everyday lives is often the source of individual and collective “anxiety.” In her discussion on the casual relationship between technology and the social, she proceeds to for theoretical perspectives. Of these four, we look to technological determinism in relation to an article published by The Guardian: "Facebook Aware of Instagram's Harmful Effect on Teenage Girls, Leak Reveals."       Within the article, Damien Gayle displays how “[t]eens blame I...

For my third Blog Post, I selected the article on the discussion of Facebook and how they deliberately have been removing research surrounding the adverse effects young girls are experiencing when on Instagram. A study concluded that "40% of Instagram users who reported feeling "unattractive" said the feeling began on the app; about a quarter of the teenagers who reported feeling "not good enough" said it started on Instagram" (Gayle, 2021). Instagram has become a very influential app for young girls. However, teens constantly compare themselves to other users who seem to have "the perfect life" and bodies, altering their own opinion of themselves (Gayle, 2021). Thus, this connects to Nancy Baym's theoretical perspective on the social shaping of technology and how technology is altering people's opinions of themselves.  This article is an excellent example that young girls with technology start to create their social constructivism base...

 The film we watched in class Eighth Grade is closely connected to Baym's perspective on technological determinism when she talks about  theoretical perspectives on the causal relationship between technology and the social in order to help understand these anxieties. Technological determinism is the idea that technology has an important effect on our lives.  It is closely related to Eight Grade as the main character Kayla revolves her life around social media.  Baym states " Most anxieties around both digital media and their historical precursors  stem from the fact that these media are interactive . Especially in combination with sparse social cues,  interactivity raises issues about authenticity and well-being of people, interactions, and relationships that use new media . "(24).  This quote can be used to directly dissect Kayla's anxiety on social media.  She posts videos where she pretends to be someone she is not and gives advice based on her...

  Social media in society is what we may look at as a tool or a resource, it allows us to communicate with one another through a fast and efficient form of technology. However, the downside of social media is that it has the potential to consume us, and it can be argued that social media can be addictive. Although it is fun and entertaining to watch and post fun videos online it also, however, can affect our mental health ( i.e. , depression, anxiety) . In the film Eight Grade, a young girl (Kayla) is infatuated with her online presence , it is evident that social media is a huge part of life especially in young adults and youth. However, in comparison to Nacy Baym’s perspective in Personal Connections in the Digital Age, she points out that technology can be seen as a positive and negative tool . Baym then pulls a quote from (Ling 2012) that st ates that there are “competing narratives between phones as ostentatious, expensive, stressful, and prone to creating bad manners a...

  In today's generation, technological determinism is widely impacted in our everyday lives which can sometimes be a positive or negative attribute onto your life. Since technology specially the internet, cell phones are really prevalent in our lives right now, we tend to use it too much leading to the possibly of constant addiction. For example, the most popular apps on social media right now is TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat, these platforms are very addicting and from what we learned in lecture today,  many students have said that they use their phones specially social media apps as a way to pass time. After reading the article on The Guardian by Damien Gayle, it talks highly about how Instagram is a toxic environment and how through the harmful effects of technology, on people's lives, partially teenage females, are very evident.  Instagram's originally intend was the ability to give people the power to build a community and bring the world closer (About Instagram’s O...

  The film Eighth Grade , focuses on an eighth grader named Kayla who is going through the difficult task of navigating the transition from eighth grade to high school, in a world where social media plays a forefront role in the lives of the majority of people her age. This relates directly to Nancy Baym's Theoretical perspective of social construction of technology. In the reading titled New forms of personal communication and Making New Media make sense because Baym discusses the diversity seen amongst online communication mediums such as the mobile phones which can be used for a plethora of things ranging in interactivity  levels from  voice recording to texting, taking  photos and video exchanges (Baym,7) .As well as YouTube Instagram and instant messaging (Baym, 7). She discusses the topic of social interactivity which revolves in how individuals are able to use this medium to interact with one another. Baym discusses that unlike television, digital media allow...

The film Eighth Grade , focuses on an eighth grader named Kayla who is going through the difficult task of navigating the transition from eighth grade to high school, in a world where social media plays a forefront role in the lives of the majority of people her age. This relates directly to Nancy Baym's Theoretical perspective of social construction of technology. In the reading titled New forms of personal communication and Making New Media make sense because Baym discusses the diversity seen amongst online communication mediums such as the mobile phones which can be used for a plethora of things ranging in interactivity  levels from voice recording to texting, taking photos and video exchanges (Baym, 7). As well as YouTube Instagram and instant messaging (Baym, 7). She discusses the topic of social interactivity which revolves in how individuals are able to use this medium to interact with one another (Baym, 7) . Baym discusses that unlike television, digital media allows...

     S ocial media has become the norm in society as we increasingly rely on these platforms for news, information, and public interaction. It is a very convenient way of communicating because a variety of platforms are accessible and have the ability to reach people globally. Furthermore, Matrix's theories also call into question the sources of the information, the level of control it may exert, and even its capacity to influence viewers. The issue highlighted in The Guardian article is Facebook's knowledge of the negative implications of social comparisons on Instagram. Unfortunately, coercion has been heavily used in the growth of social media, not by threatening people, but rather by using social media as a potent tool to divert people from reality and change their views. This exposes people to unrealistic expectations and viewpoints about how they should look (in this situation).       In theory, suppression is being used on various platforms sinc...

 As argued by Nancy Baym in Personal Connections in the Digital Age , many people experience anxiety surrounding digital media. Through using the domestication of technology perspective of Baym's four theoretical perspectives on the causal relationship between technology and social order, we are able to identify anxieties surrounding social media in the article done by The Guardian.  In the article "Facebook Aware of Instagram's Harmful Effect on Teenage Girls, Leak Reveals" by Damien Gayle, the negative impact of Instagram on teenage girls is strongly evident. This is shown through the quote "Teens blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression". Baym's perspective of the domestication of technology examines the social shaping of technology and society and how it influences our day to day lives. When applying Baym's perspective to this statement her sentiment of technology being integrated into our everyday lives is clear. While...

In this week’s course content, the idea of technological determinism was examined in relation to social anxieties about interactivity and the documentary called Eight Grade . In order for one to understand how anxiety about the interactivity of our new digital media and technological determinism relates to the chosen film, the concepts of interactivity and technological determinism must be defined. Technological determinism is an external agent that operates upon and transforms society. Interactivity can be defined as the ability for one to interact with people. Considering such, one can identify how the chosen perspective, technological determinism, proves that the anxiety of interactivity is present in Eight Grade. It can be strongly argued that technology has greatly impacted Kayla’s life in terms of her social anxiety. At one point in the film, Kayla was invited to a party through the communicative platform, Instagram. Although this invitation can be viewed in a positive manner, Ka...

In the film Eighth Grade, it was apparent that social media had a huge influence on Kayla's life. Social media has become a huge part of out lives, filtering the way we act in real life and behind a screen. Kayla evidently portrayed a different persona as soon as her camera turned on. This is commonly seen in society because of social media. I find that it is easy to fall into the hole of social media, where you begin to filter yourself. Whenever I consider posting on social media apps, I find that I over analyze my pictures because I am worried about what people will say about my post. Kayla's use of social media can be tied into Nancy Bayms theoretical perspective of domestication of technology. Nancy Baym theory of domestication of technology introduces the idea that technology has become a huge factor of our life. This can be seen in nearly anyone, I think many individuals hide behind a screen and portray an online persona. Furthermore, many influencers who people look up t...

Nancy Baym explores 4 different causal relationships in Personal Connections in the Digital Age , which include the social construction of technology, the social shaping of technology, the domestication of technology, and technological determinism. For this blog post, I will be focussing on the causal relationship of the social shaping of technology in relation to the social anxieties produced by social media. I will be using this perspective to explain Kayla's experiences in the movie we watched in class, Eighth Grade . The social shaping of technology is the way that society shapes the usage of technology. It is the way that dominant social values and ideologies affect how technology is used. The cellphone is a perfect example of the social shaping of technology, not only has it allowed us to gain information instantaneously, but it has also allowed people to communicate with whoever they want, wherever they want. The cell phone has then led to social media platforms being easily...

In the movie Eighth Grade , it is evident the amount of influence that social media has on Kayla’s life. We live in a society where so much of our everyday lives revolve around technology and the use of social media. As shown in the movie, Kayla was constantly on her phone, posting on social media and she felt that in order to fit in she had to. Everyone her age is posting on social media apps such as Snapchat and Instagram. For Kayla, since she grew up with social media in her life that is all she has ever known. She communicates with her friends online and doesn’t know what it is like to only communicate with her friends in person. This can be related to Nancy Baym’s theoretical perspective of the domestication of technology which explains that technologies have become so embedded into our everyday lives that we don’t know any different. This can be seen in Kayla’s case as she doesn’t know anything other than having social media in her life and she has become more comfortable on soci...

  In Personal Connections in the Digital Age, Nancy Baym’s position explains how the widespread diffusion of digital media forms and practices throughout our daily lives is often the source of individual and collective anxiety. The experience of Kayla in the film Eight Grade directly correlates to Baym’s discussion on technological determinism as the movie portrays Kayla and the anxiety she faces about the interactivity of digital media.   Technological Determinism is a theoretical perspective that believes technology plays a significant role in the day-to-day lives of society. This perspective believes that technology has a complete influence over how we function on a daily basis. In terms of the movie Eight Grade, the film does a good job showing how technological determinism is relevant within our technologically driven society without us even noticing all the time. More specifically, the film follows emerging teenager Kayla around as she tries to make the transition from e...

     Last week we learnt about Nancy Baym and her position that the widespread diffusion of digital media forms and practices throughout our everyday lives is often the source of individual and collective "anxiety". Baym goes further to say that she believes this is because a lot of these media are interactive (Herman, 2022). The article titled F acebook Aware of Instagram's Harmful Effect on Teenage Girls, leak reveals  is   an example that demonstrates Baym's argument. Research has shown that there is a substantial amount of harm done to teenage girls who use Instagram (Gayle, 2021). When looking at Baym's third perspective on the causal relationship between technology and society, social shaping of technology, we can find connections in the way that people use Instagram. Instagram acts as a highlight reel of a person's life, focusing on the positive and perfect aspects of their lives that they want to showcase to their followers. Something that has becom...

  Baym certainly makes some excellent points about the anxiety that stems from digital media. Just as she states, these media raise significant issues regarding authenticity and well-being of people, interactions, and relationships, and this is reflected extremely well in the movie, Eighth Grade . In the movie, Kayla, the protagonist, is emblematic of our entire generation that has been raised on social media. She is quite awkward and appears to have difficulty forming relationships at school. She is often seen using social media, whether it be scrolling through her feed, posting a Snapchat story, or filming a YouTube video. However, just as Baym described, she is very clearly not acting authentic over social media. For example, in her YouTube videos, she gives social advice and acts as if she possesses very strong social skills. Most often, she gives advice that is completely contradictory to her own actions. Or, as I mentioned in my previous blog post, there is an instance in w...

 Eighth Grade and Technological Determinism - By Sarah Humphreys Eighth Grade , directed by Bo Burnham, is a film that explores adolescence in the digital age of social media. The film stars Elise Fisher as Kayla, a middle schooler who struggles with the coexistence of social and anxiety, leading her to grapple with not "fitting in" with her peers. The film explores Kayla's journey through her last weeks of eighth grade and shows her attempt to "fit in" with her peers. In Baym's reading, we come to understand that social media has genuinely altered daily practices (Baym, 2015, p.32) and that there is ongoing anxiety associated with digital media in today's digital world.  Eighth Grade proves Baym's discussion as Kayla is heavily influenced by social media, leading her to struggle with self-image, and try and conform to technological standards, with the end goal to "fit in" with her peers. This idea can be explained through a technological d...

 The film, Eighth Grade, is exemplary in that it portrays the anxieties that Kayla faces as a tween in the age of digital culture. Kayla is wholly immersed in the era of digitalization as she is an avid social media user and video blogger who speaks about her daily interactions and relationship issues. While she is primarily unaware of how much of an impact social media can create regarding values, norms and standards, it is apparent to the audience that it can negatively affect individuals. This is evident through the fact that Kayla maintains two different identities, one that she portrays online and one that emerges in social situations, mostly when surrounded by her classmates. Her authentic self is seen when she creates video blogs and by using social media platforms to express herself, however, during in-person situations, she masks her true identity and tends to societal norms by attempting to relate to her peers. Through this, we can infer that Kayla has some personal insec...

A few weeks ago we watched the movie, Eighth Grade, in class where the main character Kayla was pretty clearly addicted to social media and in having that addiction caused some issues with anxiety. Looking at the anxiety Kayla felt through Baym’s perspective on the domestication of technology, it was clear that all of Kayla’s uses of social media had become regular and the norm without her understanding the addiction she was building to it. She had built all of her devices and social media into her daily routine and once she was without them it was clear to see her anxieties and issues. Nancy Baym describes the domestication of technology as being so woven into the fabric of everyday life that their issues of their positive and negative effects become banal and ordinary. An example of this in the movie was when Kayla was on her phone snapchatting and calling her friend who she made on the tour of the high school and she felt connected and more comfortable through her phone but when the...

The diffusion of Instagram has influenced collective anxiety among users as it has been confirmed to inflict harm on the larger population (Gayle, 2021). Instagram is an interactive media that raises questions regarding authenticity. Rather than offering a nuanced perception, it is common that it nearly provides a dystopian presence instead. It is an often occurrence that Instagram users (including influencers) highlight an idealistic narrative through the content they produce. With an abundance of editing tools available, distorting one's perception of realism occurs within the realms of the application without any regulatory rules in place. Instagram has been found to especially impose challenges for a younger age demographic (Gayle, 2021). From a technological determinist approach, teens are viewing Instagram as an active force of change. Specifically, in Facebook’s analysis of Instagram, it was determined that it initiates “body image issues for one in three teen girls” (Gayle,...

  The 20th century embarked on lives being consumed by online presence. Overall it has caused a negative impact on the lives of its users. According to StatsCan, overtime social media begins to affect their lives, whether it be a lack of sleep, bullying/harassment, less physical activity, or in the case of Nancy Baym, a collective “anxiety.” Due to its interactivity and freedom, it is difficult to judge a person's authenticity or well-being via social media. Taking a technological deterministic viewpoint, social media has generally negatively affected the lives of its consumers. According to StatsCan, roughly 94% of people between the ages of 15-24 regularly use social media. These are the prime ages of a person's life, when they are supposed to be focusing on education and personal development. However, many of these individuals stay online for longer than expected. This will ultimately cause a lack of concentration in tasks or activities, and therefore cause an overall sense ...

In class, we talked about Baym’s four perspectives on the causal relationship between technology and society, which technological determinism is evident in The Guardian's article discussing Facebook’s Awareness of Instagram’s Harmful Effects on Teenage Girls . Technological determinism is when technology plays a principal role in society’s transformation, ultimately having an effect on our everyday lives. Although Instagram was originally intended to share photos and videos with one’s friends and family, it has provided new opportunities for social media influencers and celebrities to post heavily filtered content of themselves and their lives to showcase a glamourized lifestyle. What was once a fun and carefree platform has now become a competition for others to gain popularity based on their looks and lifestyle, breeding toxicity within the platform. With the constant comparison, young individuals, especially teenage girls feel pressured to achieve this ‘perfect’ life, which affe...

  So far in CS371 we have learned that the fundamental purpose of communication technologies has been to deliver messages while not being co-present. Technologies now have ‘affordance power’. But we are now looking at the effects of these technologies in our social lives. In this week's blog post, I have chosen technological determinism in order to discuss the anxieties of interactive media. Specifically, I am looking at the Stats Can article on Canadians’ assessments of social media in their lives. In this article, it is evident that social media usage has a negative impact on a minority of the Canadian population. Schimelle et al. (2021) explain “Among all social media users aged 15 to 64, around one-fifth reported that in the previous 12 months, they had lost sleep (19%), gotten less physical activity (22%), or had trouble concentrating on tasks or activities (18%) as a result of their social media use. Around one in eight users (12% to 14%) reported feeling anxious or depressed...

Nancy Baym discusses the role of social media in creating anxieties around the interactivity of social media and our reliance on technology. This can be fully illustrated by applying Bayms theory of the domestication of technology to the StatsCan report on social media use in the lives of Canadians. What is interesting about the StatsCan findings is the difference in reporting of negative consequences of social media among age groups. Chart One shows that the study reported that teens and young adults (under 30) experienced increased feelings of anxiety and depression, loss of sleep, trouble concentrating, and decreased physical activity (Schimmele et al., 2021). In addition, the study found that 9 in 10 Canadians between 15 and 34 use social media regularly compared to 6 in 10 of those aged 50 to 64 (Schimmele et al., 2021). These findings illustrate how younger generations feel more negative effects of social media than their older counterparts because they are more dependent on this...

 Throughout the film Eighth Grade that we had watched in class, it is clear to see that the experience Kayla was facing could be seen through a domestication of technology perspective. Kayla had grown up during a time where technology was a predominant aspect in her life. From the moment she woke up, to the time she went to bed, Kayla's phone was the first thing she would use, almost as if it was an addiction. Kayla's interaction on the internet, specifically social media apps such as Snapchat and Instagram, had become a part of her everyday life, therefore altering and distorting her views on the values, norms, and interests she had prior to the internet. In Nancy Baym's article Personal Connections in the Digital Age, she describes domestication of technology as technological and societal influence that impact our everyday life. She provided examples of social problems that could be interfered with due to the internet, such as strains in relationships (Baym, p. 52). We c...

The theoretical perspective I chose to focus on in relation to the movie Eighth Grade, was technological determinism. I felt as though this perspective was most appropriate when considering the challenges children specifically, must face as a result of social media use. Technological determinism essentially evaluates the impact of technology especially in its ability to change how we communicate, how we learn, and how we live our lives on a day-to-day basis. These changes can lead to anxious behaviour and this is a theme portrayed in Eighth Grade.  Relating to the film, Eighth Grade, we see Kayla reach out to Kennedy, the most popular girl in school, and Kayla thanks her for inviting her to her birthday party. Kennedy never responds or acknowledges Kayla and in doing so, this definitely worries her and makes her feel bad. We as social beings crave that recognition from people who are popular or liked by many and if we do not get it, anxiety or stress stems from this rejection. Tech...

A lot of anxiety comes from social media users as Baym suggests that there are issues surrounding what is really being posted is authentic, as well as interactions and relationships on social media can affect the well-being of people. We see this anxiety first hand with the study surrounding facebook's awareness of instagrams harmful effects on teenage girls. This study indicated that instagram is having a negative impact on the self esteem of young teen girls due to constantly being around images of “the perfect life” and “perfect bodies”, it can be difficult to not compare your own life and appearance to these instagram influencers/models. Looking at Bayms perspective on the causal relationship between technology and the social, these personal and social anxieties of young teen girls can be understood as an impact of the social shaping of technology. This emphasizes the affordances technologies enable (such as posting photos on instagram) and the emergent and often unexpected way...