Technological Determinism and Social Media (Blog Post #3) - Jake McMorran
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 Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression.” Gayle further proves this through statistics which reveal 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." This can be observed and explained through Baym’s perspective of the technological determinism.
The technology of social media and the internet enforces the standard of ‘if you’re not on it, you’re not connected.’ Through the usage of social media, we can see direct evidence to how people feel that this technology is inherently one of the most important tools of today, because as mentioned, if you’re not using it, you’re not connected. Left out. Excluded. Thus, the engagement for these teenage girls is vital to their lives.
While on platforms, Instagram in particular, we can see the effects of other technologies coming into play as people develop their brands. Photoshop being a largely used technology which enables users to edit photos which commonly are posted to Instagram by idolized celebrities which these teenage girls look up to and aspire to be like. These edited photos often change the facial and body structure to be the ‘ideal.’ Through the importance of the usage of social media, they are constantly exposed to these false presentations of the human body, developing this feeling of imperfection.
Great post! I really enjoyed reading your post. I would agree with your statement that Instagram can be used for a variety of beneficial purposes, but I also recognize that it has the ability to be harmful for others. Additionally, there is a fine line as well as if you are not using these forms of digital media as it is challenging to keep up with trends, friends, family, and more. Since we tend to use digital platforms as a main form of communication, it is more likely that people will post to distribute specific news like graduating on these platforms to vastly get information out to a mass amount of people. Therefore, I agree with your relation of technology bringing a form of “anxiety” as mentioned in Baym’s article. Furthermore, how technology can encourage an abundance of negative emotions. Do you think digital media imposes more positive or negative outcomes for society?
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