Digital Citizenship- Week 4

If social media has been associated with depression and anxiety and many of us are living unbalanced lives, why is it that we continue to use it? The first Ted Talk discusses "stopping cues" and the fact that when scrolling through your news feed or Instagram, there is no end to it signalling us to stop. This opposes other forms of traditional media consumption, like reading a newspaper, watching the news or a show, or reading a book. There are cues to stop, like the end of the chapter or an episode.

Boyd asserts another explanation for the amount of time spent on social media, which may work in conjunction with a lack of stopping cues. Users may be entering flow, which "is the state of complete and utter absorption. It’s the same sense that’s colloquially described it as being 'in the zone.' Time disappears, attention focuses, and people feel euphorically engaged" (Boyd, 2014, p. 80). As time both slips away and many platforms do not have stopping cues, users may find themselves absorbed in social media for an inordinate amount of time.

There are other biological reasons as well, such as the rush of dopamine that people experience when they receive a "like", "follow", etc. As referenced in the second video, this rush of dopamine, a 400% increase, is similar to that experienced when on cocaine. This is astounding. It's no wonder that many users are incapable of putting their phones down.

My last thought concerning the cause of the imbalanced life that many live concerns peer pressure and social norms. If the majority of a teens' peers are engaged in social media, they may experience fear of missing out. Their interpersonal interactions are intertwined with their social media interactions. As such, not being part of the online interactions leaves one feeling excluded from an integral aspect of a group's social interactions. Boyd supports this when she states that teens' "use of social media as their primary site of sociality is most often a byproduct of cultural dynamics that have nothing to do with technology" (Boyd, 2014, p. 80). Teens' need to socialize and the social norms they are subjected to perpetuate their use of social media platforms. 

References

Alter, Adam. (2017, August 1). Retrieved February 1, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K5OO2ybueM

Boyd, Dana. (2014). It’s Complicated: the social lives of networked teens. New Haven, CN: Yale University Press.

Kotler, Steven. (2017, February 21). Retrieved February 1, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4GHVUCcW4A