Social Media and Society- Final
Social
Media and Society Final
Cell phones. A device
that is easily becoming the most powerful force to mankind. With this,
essentially, box, you can interact with people across the world through phone
calls, text, video chat, perhaps the easiest form of communication has become
social media. Weather it is used to keep up with family, to lure you into
marketing traps or simply to keep you informed or distracted, we can conclude
that Social Media has become an enormous time consumption. To gain a better
understanding on the reach and impact of social media, I reached out to
individuals who have taken a break from social media and some that have
completely cut off from social media to find out reasons for attempting to kick
the habit and how it benefited them. I applied these results to the theory of Epistemic
Distraction from the book “Stand Out of Our Light” by James Williams. This
paper has data that will likely be surprising to some and predictable to
others, overall it provides valuable insight to what social media does in our
daily lives.
I am analyzing the amount
of time spent on social media and the affects it can have on society and what
benefits taking a break, or removing yourself from social media completely, can
have on an individual. To research this, I have reached out to my Twitter
followers and my Facebook friends to seek those that have taken a break from
any social media cites. Taking data from users of Twitter and Facebook gave me
a better variety of participants as my Twitter followers are primarily composed
of people in their 20s. My Facebook friends list gave me the opportunity to
reach out to former teachers, family friends, my grandma’s friends, so I had a
lot of diversity. After posting Twitter responses as to why users took a hiatus
from social media, I was able to post these responses to Facebook to see if
public school teachers, public school teachers who are also parents and
parents, could weigh in on the trends. In addition, I was able to have a face
to face conversation with someone who has quit social media and have found
journals and articles from others that did the same.
The first journal I decided to analyze was from blogger, Jason Zoot, he ended his “30 Days Without Social Media” blog with a quote that states, “My productivity, attention span and clarity of thought all increased greatly with living without social media for a month. I felt like I broke bad habits (refreshing feeds and checking notifications) in a very short period of time. If all of that can be done in just 30 days? It’s well worth trying.” From this quote and my prior portion of research, I was curious to see how much time people spent on social media apps based on the percent of their battery they used and what the preferred social media cite was among different individuals and what they had in common. I once again reached out to Twitter and Facebook for this. I had much more responses for this than the break from social media question. I have intense (overwhelming) amounts of data for this from a very diverse group of ages.
It is important to
understand our intense time investment to social media and think about this as
our technology is constantly progressing. The analysis and understanding of
what we devote our time to will help us predict what social media trends we can
see in the future and which of those will be successful. Being able to
understand how social media effect individuals can negatively is important to
know so we can better modify these trends to have more of a positive impact. A
great example of this can be social media marketing, something that is on the
rise and likely to only grow. According to the McRae Agency, “There is nothing
like social media when it comes to cultivating a community. When your followers
become part of your community, you gain instant access to them. That means you
can find out what challenges they are facing and what they like and don’t like
about your offerings. You can engage in ongoing dialog that can be more
valuable than any kind of paid market research.” Reiterating the fact that
knowing what people like and dislike helps these advancements.” They also touch
on the idea of spreadability with a statement that “There is an old marketing
adage that says it takes six to eight exposures to a product before a customer
decides to buy. A clear benefit of social media is repeat exposure with your
network. You have the opportunity to remind them over and over again about what
you have to offer, which can shorten your sales cycles dramatically.” This also
goes hand in hand with knowing how people respond on different sites and what
they respond to. Therefore, on Twitter, we often see tweets from franchises
that could be considered inappropriate. It is what people laugh at and retweet,
and that what fuels the fire for marketers.
To support my research, I
am using the book “Stand Our Light” by James Williams. I will be studying
Williams thoughts of “The Spotlight”, “The Starlight” and “The Daylight” with a
specific focus to “The Daylight” and his thoughts on epistemic distraction. Through my data you will see just
how much time people spend on social media, helping to support Williams claims.
We have become increasingly reliant on our cell phones, social media, and the
internet to help us through life. This reminds me of a story that one of my
professors, Dr. Bollinger tells his students. A story along the lines of one of
his former students at the grocery store and the person in front of her had a
heart attack, her immediate thought was to go to her cell phone and google what
to do rather than calling 911 so they could tell her how to help while sending
an ambulance. While that is a societal example a social media example could be
the new Spider Man, Tom Holland, accidentally revealing a movie poster and
release date for Avengers: Infinity war, on Instagram live. He was so excited
about this package and impressing his fans that he didn’t realize that there
was a letter saying he was the first to see this and failed to see the large
text on the back that read “CONFIDENTAL, DO NOT SHARE”. It
can be concluded the time consumption and investment of technology is a “newer”
phenomenon that likely became more common around 2007 with the release of the
first iPhone, something I found from a Ted Talk presented by Adam Alter titled
“Why our Screens Make Us Less Happy”. In this video he goes into depth on what
we invest our time into and shows a graph that shows the increase in the time
we spend in front of the screen.
In this book Williams
begs the question “What
do you pay when you pay attention? You pay with all the things you could have
attended to, but didn’t: all the goals you didn’t pursue, all the actions you
didn’t take, and all the possible yous you could have been, had you attended to
those other things. Attention is paid in possible futures forgone.” (Williams 45)
A further analysis of this in paragraphs to come will help reinforce the
responses I received that claimed users were spending too much time on their
social media accounts rather than focusing on what matters like school or
relationships. It causes me to reflect to times I’ve been distracted by my phone.
With the time we spend on social media or in front of any screen watching TV or
playing video games, what else could we be doing? How many books could we have
read or how many miles could be have walked?
These questions lead me
to one bigger question… “What are the negative effects of social media and how
does it affect us?” Social media is ever present in our daily lives, for some
more than others. While it can make us feel good and have positive effects, it
can also become addictive and carries negative effects. Some cannot recognize
that social media isn’t making them feel good while others can recognize it.
Some of those that can recognize it ignore it and others have taken the bull by
the horns and steered (steer… moo… bull, ha-ha) clear of social media. In the
data section of this paper we will explore responses from those that have taken
a hiatus from social media and those that have shut off completely.
To
help direct our interpretation of my data in the paragraphs to follow we can
get a summary of Williams idea of Spotlight, Starlight and Daylight. “The
“Spotlight” Our immediate capacities for navigating awareness and action toward
tasks. Enables us to do what we want to do. The “Starlight” Our broader
capacities for navigating life “by the stars” of
our higher goals and values. Enables us to be who we want to be. The “Daylight”
Our fundamental capacities – such as reflection, metacognition, reason, and
intelligence – that enable us to define our goals and values to begin with.
Enables us to “want what we want to want.” These three “lights” of attention
pertain to doing, being, and knowing, respectively. When each of these “lights”
gets obscured, a distinct - though not mutually exclusive – type of
“distraction” results.” (Williams, 49) So, with the Tom Holland example, he was
distracted by the desire to please his fans and probably wanted some attention
from them, excitedly went to Instagram live and made a minor, but viral,
mistake. This is just one of many examples that show our desire for attention
and desire to spend our time on social media is getting out of hand. As you read my data it is important to
consider “The Daylight” and the idea of Epistemic Distraction.
To further explain Epistemic
Distraction in terms of “The Daylight” in terms of Social Media and Technology.
Epistemic Distraction can be defined as “the diminishment
of underlying capacities that enable a person to define or pursue their goals:
capacities essential for democracy such as reflection, memory, prediction,
leisure, reasoning, and goal-setting. This is where the distractions of the
attention economy most directly undermine the foundations of democracy such as
reflection, memory, prediction, leisure, reasoning, and goal-setting… Epistemic
distraction can make it harder to “integrate associations across many different
experiences to detect common structures across them. These commonalities “form
abstractions, general principles, concepts, and symbolisms that are the medium
of the sophisticated, ‘big picture’ thought needed for truly long-term goals.”
(Williams, 68) This can all be exemplified through, our removal of intentional
action, a diminishment in intelligence, anxiety, time consumption, and moral
outrage.
Williams describes the
absence of the capacity to effectively plan projects and goals and removal of
“reflected-upon intentional reasons for actions,” (Williams 68) as “epistemic” as
it distracts from knowledge of the inner and outer world which prevents us from
being able to function as a “purposeful, competent agent.”. It can also be
classified as an “Epistemic Injustice” as it prevents us from not only being a
knower of the world, but also a knower of one’s self. Epistemic Distraction in
this sense can sometimes be considered any “existential distraction”.
It can also be said that “Our daylight can also be obscured
via the diminishment of intelligence or other cognitive capacities. A
Hewlett-Packard study found that distractions decreased the IQ scores of
knowledge workers by 10 points, which the researchers note is “twice the
decline recorded for those smoking marijuana.”7 Similarly, researchers at the
University of Texas found that the mere presence of one’s smart-phone can
adversely affect available working memory capacity and functional fluid
intelligence.” (Williams 69) This is concerning as I am sure each person
reading this has a smart phone near. It causes me to be even more worrisome of
my own education and the education of others. Typically, in class I keep my phone
in my bag and forget about it during lecture. But this helps bring me to
Williams next point of the anxiety cellphones can cause through the phenomenon
of “email apnea”.
Email Apnea occurs when a person
opens their email inbox to find many unread messages, inducing a “fight-or-flight”
response that causes the person to stop breathing.9 In addition, recent
research has also associated social media usage with increased social anxiety, depression,
and lower mood.10” (Williams 69) This can be seen in my upcoming data section. Another
example would be “cyberchondria”, the anxiety we get when we attempt to self-diagnose
via the web.
Our constant commitment to
our cell phones is a distraction to our ability to reflect, according to
American philosopher Christine Korsgaard. “Reflection is the way we “turn our attention on to our own
mental activities” to “call our beliefs and motives into question.”12 When the
technologies of our attention inhibit our capacities for reflection, our “daylight”
gets obscured in ways that have particular implications for politics. For
instance, notifications or addictive mobile apps may fill up those little
moments in the day during which a person might have otherwise reflected on
their goals and priorities. Users check their phones an average of 150 times
per day 13(and Touch them over 2,600 times per day), 14 so that would add up to
a lot of potential reflection going unrealized.” (Williams 70) As you will see
this was a common response when analyzing why people took a break from their involvement
in social media. I know that as a study break my first impulse is to check Snapchat
or Instagram, but wouldn’t it be healthier to get up, stretch and walk around instead
of continuing to sit stationary glued to your phone?
One final aspect of Epistemic Distraction that can be applied
to my data is Moral Outrage.” Moral outrage consists of more than just anger:
it also includes the impulse to judge, punish, and shame someone you think has
crossed a moral line. You’re most likely to experience moral outrage when you
feel not merely angry about some perceived misdeed, but angry and disgusted.20”
(Williams 72) Moral outrage has always been present in society but has modified
with the emergence of social media. With the how prominent social media has
become, some extent of moral outrage has become inevitable. It is unlikely that
you will scroll through social media cites and completely agree with everything.
An example used in “Stand Out of Our Light” is the example of the dentist who went
on a hunting trip in Zimbabwe and killed a “well-known” lion named Cecil. The
death of Cecil caused an up roar (lion ha-ha) and became viral. The dentist received
countless derogatory statements including “ROT IN HELL”, “Murderer! Terrorist!”.
An interesting point made in following paragraphs is the realization that when
children speak to other children like this is, it is recognized as cyberbullying
or harassment but when adults do this we take it lightly it seems. Now that’s not
to say that some things don’t deserve anger “but if justice is our goal – as it
should be – then it is not all clear that these dynamics of moral outrage and
mob rule advance it. If anything, they seem to lead in the opposite direction.
These all tie back to “The
Daylight” (our fundamental capacities such as refection, metacognition, reason
and intelligence- that enable us to define our goals and values) as the anxiety,
time consumption, moral outrage are all things that can be negatively influenced
through social media and cause a distraction from what should really matter to
us.
DATA:
Now for the more
interesting portion of my paper, the data! I have analyzed: time consumption
for different social media platforms for different age groups; Taken polls regarding:
the addiction, time consumption and negative effects of social media; Gathered
responses from people that have taken brief hiatuses from social media and
finally gathered information from people that have completely cut off from
social media.
The different pieces of
my data can be a bit overwhelming. I decided it would be best to begin
understanding our commitment to social media by investigating what apps are
most commonly used and by what age group. To do this I had iPhone users submit
screenshots of their battery usage breakdown. This shows what apps have used
what percent of your battery time. Initially I expected that participants would
primarily be users of Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat with the primary age group
being college aged students (18-24) Facebook would be used the least of all
platforms by primarily adults. (25-60). There were some limitations to this
research that could have affected my results. I collected responses from my Facebook
friends and Twitter followers, so my friends on these lists were primarily
college aged students with some adults in the mix. Another limitation was that
I only collected responses from iPhone users rather than anyone with a phone.
Another possible improvement would have been asking participants to include a
screenshot of the log that tells you how long each app used screen time. But
never the less I still collected data that provides valuable insight on what we
use our phones for.
The least commonly used
Social Media site among participants was Instagram. Out of my 55 participants,
6 used this the most and 5 of those were “college aged” while only one was an
“adult”. I found this interesting as I primarily use Instagram when I am using
social media, so I was expecting more of my participants to also use this. I
suppose if I have reached out for responses on Instagram that data could have
come out differently.
Twitter was used almost
as little as Instagram with 7 of my participants spending most of their battery
life on this app. Surprisingly enough, 6 of these were college aged students
and one was an adult over 50.
Snapchat was used the
most from 20 of 55 participants, all participants were “college aged”. In my
opinion I look at Snapchat as more of a way of communicating than I do social
media. I feel like that plays a part in the justification of what age group
uses this.
I was most surprised to
see that Facebook was the most commonly used social media site among my
participants. 22/55 spent most of their time on Facebook. My first thought was
that this would be the least used and that those that did use this app would
primarily be an adult population. 12 of these 22 were college aged students
while 7 of these were adults under 50 and 3 were over 50. From this we can
conclude that while there are many participants that use multiple platforms the
primary social media platform from my participants are college age students on Facebook.
To further my research, I decided to take to the polls… of Facebook and Twitter.
I asked a series of different questions to discover what opinions of social
media my followers have. An improvement on this method of research gave me
expanded my group to more cell phone users than those with iPhones. I started
by asking my friends and followers if “in your opinion has social media/
technology decreased the value of a face to face conversation?” From Facebook I
had 33 responses, 22 that found there was a decrease in the quality of a face
to face conversation and 11 that do not feel there has been a decrease in face
to face conversation. On Twitter of 49 people that voted 34 said yes and said
no. Forbes author, AJ Agrawal states, “Perhaps one of the biggest differences
in why Millennials struggle with face-to-face communications is because they’ve
always had the ability to edit a message. Even for the most mundane of
conversations, younger generations have always had the time to think something
over. This not only removes a sense of vulnerability but the raw emotion that
could come with it. While yes, this ability has its advantages in that we get to come off in our best light, that’s not always the most human approach. We’re supposed to make mistakes with what we sometimes say, as these errors contribute to us being stronger mentally.” (Forbes, Agrawal)
Responses from those that feel technology/ social
media has not decreased the value of a face to face conversation included:
“Technology and Social Media has increased the quality
of a face to face conversation because you are able to better appreciate having
a conversation in person when you are used to texting the person you are
talking to.”
And similarly, “I think it may have
reduced the frequency of face to face interaction, but I don't think it has
reduced the quality. In fact, in some cases, it may increase quality because
people can discuss picture or posts that they have seen each other post. I have
had this experience with some people I feel like I know even better because of
what they post…” with the example of family visiting and being able to laugh about a lot of the
things posted, leaving the feeling that they knew more about what they had been
up to in life.”
Responses from those that feel that the quality of
conversation has decreased included:
“It's devalued
it due to the constant need to look through a screen to get a ride in dopamine
and emotions because of the social validations we choose to pursue instead of
talking to our followers in person. It's kind of like a popularity contest
now.”
This led to inquire about how many of my followers
would consider taking a break from social media. I was surprised by this data
as I only reached out to Twitter, I had 80 total responses with 62 people that
would consider taking a break from social media. I then analyzed how many of
these people have taken a break from social media. I once again reached out to
my Twitter followers and Facebook friends to find people that have taken a
break from social media. Most of my responses came from Twitter, where 21/62
had taken a break and 21/38 from Facebook have taken a break from social media.
The explanations for
taking a break were very varied but included many: finding themselves spending
too much time on social media or getting bored of social media, not wanting to
see what other people are saying, cyberbullying and the contribution social
media has on their anxiety.
The primary response I received
justifying taking a break from social media was influenced because the time
they spent on social media could be spent studying or spending time on social
media. In deleting my Instagram, I found that I was able to focus better when I
did my homework or spent time studying, my breaks in between periods of working
became shorter and I felt more focused on my work. This ties back to Williams’
claims on page 70 as it shows the ability to acknowledge these distractions and
better focus on goals. A better way to prevent additional distraction would be
to mute notifications, but I have found leaving my phone in another room while
working is the most beneficial.
As a college student who
has had a cellphone since the 5th grade (I only received my own
cellphone when I was a sophomore in high school). I felt that I had a biased
opinion to how social media is involved in our daily lives. I posted my
responses to Facebook to get the opinions of parents and teachers. One response
that stuck out with me was from one of my high school English teachers who
stated “As a parent and as a teacher, I've seen
teen's anxiety levels skyrocket over the past few years in part because of
social media and phones in hand 24/7. When my son recently went to summer camp,
he was looking forward to handing over his phone for the week. At the end of
the week he said that it felt so good to not be burdened by being tethered to
technology. He felt way more present, and he was able to concentrate on what
was important. Four years ago, phones in the classroom were nuisances, but
students didn't mind putting them away. Today they are ever present, and when I
ask--or demand--that students put them away some are fine with it, while others
respond with anxiety or even direct refusal; it's like phones are their
security blankets because they have not learned how to just be in their own
thoughts and feelings and/ or they haven't learned social etiquette and
behavior (how to be among their peers without having anxiety while phoneless).”
This relates to Williams argument of Epistemic Distraction in the sense that we
are constantly plagued to check these notifications. It would be interesting to
further research the stress having unopened notifications has on individuals. Personally,
this isn’t something that bothers me where as my sister was on my phone and
noticed my 19,254 emails (literally) and was incredibly bothered my lack of
desire to open them.
I had some responses of
people that didn’t delete all their social media or take a break but rather
went through their friends and followers and combed out people they didn’t feel
like seeing posts from and added filters to limit what was coming up on their
feeds. This can be tied back to the
point of moral outrage but the ability to control your moral outrage by
defriending people who’s posts you do not want to see or putting up filters
that mute certain terms. This can prevent your “moral outrage” as you will see
less of these posts. Although, as stated, moral outrage is unavoidable, you
will always have a run in with something you disagree with or something that doesn’t
specifically make you happy.
My curiosity didn’t stop
with finding people that only took a brief break but expanded in causing me to
want to find people that have completely cut off from social media. This being
an online, 4-week, summer course made social media necessary for all aspects of
this research. So how was I going to find people that no longer use social
media… without using social media? Have a face to face conversation with
multiple people until I found just one that completely cut off from Facebook?
Yikes… That’s essentially what I had to but additionally researched and pulled
information from blogs where writers who cut social media from their lives.
My first participants were
found through a face to face conversation with a coworker when describing this course.
He knew of another co-worker that no longer used social media and set up a time
for us to have an in-person conversation. When talking to Tiffany her biggest
justification for removing herself from Facebook was the fact that her friends
list was composed primarily of people she hadn’t spoken to in years. It caused
her to beg the question “Is the simplicity of keeping up on Facebook through
occasional likes, preventing people from having the desire to reach out to
spend time together in person?”. With that Tiffany considered the rarity and
quality of spending time in person. These interactions either, don’t happen
because you can catch up through a text or Facebook comments, or are made less
valuable with constant interruptions from the cellphone whether it be a
notification that breaks the focus or the need to constantly check and respond
to email, cell phones were taking over. So, with that Tiffany posted one last
status explaining she would be deleting her Facebook and left her phone number
to those that wanted to meet up at some point and not a single of her friends
has made the effort to reach out to her.
This conversation led me
to consider my Instagram and the value of the relationships with my followers.
With what we have learned in this class and my realization of my intense and
unnecessary time spent on Instagram specifically, I decided to delete my
personal account from my phone. (I say personal account because I also have an
account for my dog, Winston, like every normal person.) In addition to my time
consumption I constantly noticed I was comparing myself to girls I follow or
accounts that came up on my “explore” section. With my dogs account, I am less
tempted to go online to begin with. With the distraction of social media, we
are plagued by “wantonness” which is what causes us to impulsively check our
phone and social media accounts for updates. We know we have other things to do
but have a void to fill so we subconsciously go onto social media. But
Winston’s explore section is a lot more enjoyable to immerse myself in as it is
primarily pictures of other dalmatians or puppy accounts. As a comparison here is what would
come up on Winston’s explore as compared to what comes up on my explore.
I think we can all agree
that there are many benefits to social media, but we can also agree there are
negative aspects as well. If the trends in technology and social media continue
I think we are only seeing the beginning of what is to come. Through my
research and Epistemic Distraction, we need to have the capacity to recognize when
we are becoming too invested in social media and take a moment to limit
ourselves and consider what is important. We can continue to use cell phones
and social media for networking and keeping in touch but spend time together in
person from time to time. To better focus on our “Daylight” we should have less
of an investment to our notifications to prevent the anxiety that comes with,
focus on self-reflection and our goals, and control our moral outrage.
Works
Cited
“10 Reasons Social Media Marketing
Works.” McRae Agency, 19 Mar. 2013,
www.mcraeagency.com/10-reasons-social-media-marketing-works/.
Beauregard, Kenny. “Will Humanity
End up like What Was Portrayed in the Movie ‘Wall-E’?” What Is the
Difference between SAP HANA and s4hana? - Quora, www.quora.com/Will-humanity-end-up-like-what-was-portrayed-in-the-movie-Wall-E.
“Tom Holland Accidentally Reveals
Poster For Avengers: Infinity War And Release Date.” YouTube, YouTube,
28 Nov. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKFy_pyK7E8.
“What I Learned From a 30-Day Social
Media Detox.” JasonDoesStuff, by Jason Zook, 6 Mar. 2018,
jasondoesstuff.com/social-media-detox-recap/#final.
Williams, James. Stand out of Our
Light: Freedom and Resistance in the Attention Economy. Cambridge
University Press, 2018.
Agrawal, AJ. “Millennials Are Struggling With Face To
Face Communication: Here's Why.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 5 May 2017, www.forbes.com/sites/ajagrawal/2017/05/04/millennials-are-struggling-with-face-to-face-communication-heres-why/.
Comments
Post a Comment