(PERSONAL PROJECT ESSAY) iPhones, laptops, tablets, facebook, instagram, twitter… who doesn’t have one nowadays. The internet and social media apps have grown at such a large scale and at such a quick pace that it is so hard to keep track. With having social media apps such as instagram, twitter, facebook, etc, comes its positives and negatives aspects to it. What I will be examining in my paper is social media in connection to cyberbullying and the psychological analysis behind it and its impact on society.

Cyberbullying is where people use electronic communication to essentially bully a person online and this includes sending threats and aggressive, insulting language towards the receiving end. According to the article by Darrin, the side effects of the receiving end of hateful messages is that people tend to have an increase in emotional stress, lowered self esteem, isolation and withdraw, and indulging in harmful habits such as excessive drinking or smoking. Using harsh words towards other people on the internet is so easy nowadays. Due to the physical detachment of viewing others, the screens allow them to feel disconnected from people, thus not seeing the impact that their words online have on the receiving end. An example of this is people commenting on celebrities pages because at times, people forget that celebrities are people as well and not just figures or icons.

In the screening from class, we watched an episode from black mirror called ” Hated in the Nation.” This episode is a fantastic example of society’s mindset when it comes to how they treat people online in connection to hateful messages. As a quick overview, In the episode it starts off with a journalist who released an article and is receiving tons of backlash for it. She is receiving hate mail, hate messages, death threats and a trend was evolving to where they would post online “death to”and the recipients name on the end. With that trend, it was designed for the people to vote and decipher who the top three hated people were that week and then whoever has the most votes for them would die. There was also an ADI bee that crept into the persons brain, the one who was number one on the death poll, and the bee would press on the pain center of the brain and cause them to kill themselves in order to be free of the pain. The hacker who controlled these bees, deviated from targeting the people who were on the death poll and instead targeted people who participated and posted the thread #deathto_. In the episode, the hacker wanted to give people a lesson, a moral lesson, that their actions have consequences.

With online and being a part of a trend, whether it is hateful or not, people experience deindividuation. Deindividuation is where people see themselves in groups and not as an individual and therefore they act in a antinormative behavior. “ Regardless of who is in a crowd, the individual’s conscious personality fades, and the group’s unconscious personality prevails.  The crowd, in his position, constitutes a single collective being that is guided by a mental unity and a collective soul that makes individuals feel, think and act differently than they would independently. With the help of suggestion and contagion mechanisms, feelings and ideas can quickly become actions. The individual may display automated behavior, increasing the likelihood of violent occurrences (Le Bon 1895,1995)“. This is the main concept behind cyberbullying in connection to the psychological backgrounds and how violence occurs. With technology, as mentioned before, it acts as a blocking barrier from you and the other person and therefore, because you cannot see the other person, you do not see the impact of your actions or words. 

With cyberbullying and hateful speech online, not only does it impact the person psychologically but also physically. There is a study shown that hate speech online and using harsh words, correlates to an increase in violence. According to the article by Laub, there was a correlation found in Germany between anti-refugee facebook posts by the far right alternative for Germany party and the attacks on refugees. The scholars, Karsten Muller and Carlo Schwartz,  observed that upticks in attacks such as arson and assault, followed the spikes in hate mongering posts. There is a link to the articles below if you want to see more information about it or any other incidences that occurred that is related to cyberbullying and the connection to violent attacks. It is very interesting to me why posting hateful and threatening posts is in connection to violence or even to the recipients themselves. What I am referring to here is suicide. Referring back to the episode in black mirror, people were dying because society targeted them. My interpretation of the bee pressing on their pain center was that people who were targeted and were being bullied online, it takes a toll on their mental health and essentially over time, they feel as thought there is no way out other than to commit suicide. There is a correlation between the increase in social media users and an increase on suicide rates according to the article by PMC. The hateful messages follow you into your home and there is no break from it. It follows you everywhere and the internet is forever so some people feel like their life is over. 

People who take part in cyberbullying think of it more as funny and not real life when in fact it is. As mentioned before, people experience deindividuation which is how people experience deindividuation, which is when social norms are withdrawn because identities are concealed, and they also experience disinhibition because they cannot see the consequences of their actions, so therefore they so not see it as real so that is what occurs when people spread hate online and especially towards other people. I also touched on how the consequences of cyberbullying and the spread of hateful messages online correlates to physically harm and violence, whether it is self harm or harm to others. Social media plays a big part in the increase of these antics.

References 

Laub, Zachary. Hate Speech on Social Media: Global Comparisons. 7 June 2019, http://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/hate-speech-social-media-global-comparisons. 

authors, All, et al. “Deindividuation: From Le Bon to the Social Identity Model of Deindividuation Effects.” Taylor & Francis, 5 Apr. 2017, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23311908.2017.1308104. 

Luxton, David D, et al. “Social Media and Suicide: a Public Health Perspective.” American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, May 2012, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3477910/.

This week my group had to present our book presentation and we all had to watch “The Social Dilemma”. Both materials showed how social media and the news are insidious. We are being manipulated by both. In this blog I will address my takeaways from the book “Information Wars” by Richard Stengel and the Netflix documentary “The Social Dilemma”.

“Information Wars- How We Lost The Global Battle Against Disinformation- What We Can Do About It” by Richard Stengel was a great read. Stengel spoke on a story that was a great example of disinformation and it was “The Lisa Story”. The story was about a Russian-German girl who was supposedly abducted and raped by migrants. One news stream reported the story and then others followed after them. This led to political uproar and protests. After a couple of days the real story came out and the rape that never occurred made many lose trust in the news of Germany. What actually happened was the 13-year old girl ran away from home because of a fallout with her parents. The Berlin police interviewed the girl along with viewing phone records and concluded there was no rape or abduction. This shows how the news deceives people because after the truth came out the German government tried to make accusations that the actual story was a cover up and this case study was just one example of the deception shown throughout the book. I just found that one the most interesting and felt it needed to be shared because of the severity of the lie that was told. When I read this it reminded me of that one episode of “The Newsroom” we had to watch where after the Boston Marathon bombings they rushed to get a story out on the perpetrator and it was the wrong person all because of social media. This was virtually the same exact situation in my eyes.

“The Social Dilemma” was an interesting movie. I liked how in the beginning they had us believe the people were embarrassed but as the documentary unfolded they were actually apologetic. They had many executives from social media sites on the documentary speaking on how the innovations they had on all these sites were intended to be good they swore, but society turned it into something else. For the most part I agree with them, but find it hard to believe they did not know the capabilities of what they created. One story was how the inventor of the like button for Facebook said he created it to spread positivity, but now if people do not get likes they get their feelings hurt. I think he was trying to create something good, but he know the possibility of what could have been in store from it. What I also think is that is how society is made in modern day. People are so sensitive to likes and not just getting their point out. I personally feel they should not be so hurt over likes because in the end of the day they mean nothing. Your post are still being seen whether someone likes them or not.

WEEKLY NEWS: https://abc7ny.com/nyc-coronavirus-schools-reopening-covid-closed/8089194/

This week’s topic “Reality, Authenticity & making Sense of it All” is the closing topic for the blogging. And it is covering the rest of the material. The articles and the materials give for this topic is all relevant to the topic.

Starting from the article, “Addicted to Distraction” the author has made the discussion about how we are so addicted to the things that make us distracted. He raised the point that when a person has access to so many seductive things, he/she would get distracted so easily. He further said that: “It’s not only substances that can be addicting; it’s activities as well. If an activity compulsively pulls you toward it to the extent that you shirk responsibilities, fail to finish projects, neglect your relationships and more, and consider yourself addicted to distraction.”

The next article: “The Kids Are Not Alright” the author mentioned the story of a young man who used to have a shelter when he was studying and when he passed out he was left all alone and he had to have a gun with him all the time. After sometime, he was gotten out of jail after serving six months for gun charge. The author said that: “In recent decades, policy makers have recognized early childhood as a critical developmental period. Yet emerging science indicates that young adulthood may be just as significant. Early adults’ brains are still developing, and, as Kim writes, it’s an important transition time, when one learns to live on one’s own. Universities and colleges provide support for young people who are fortunate enough to attend. But we’ve done little to help young people who come from families of limited means.”

He mentioned in the article that kids who used to get raised in a poor neighborhood or children from the foster houses are more vulnerable as compared to other children. So these children end up having an insecure future and bad habits and thus fall in crime. I felt this thing, I think there should be proper policies and these policies should implemented in order to protect the rights of such children.

What do you guys think about this fact? Do you agree that policy makers should make it clear that policies are being implemented or not?

The next article: “The Decade the Internet Lost Its Joy” the author said that the internet was always bad, but at least it used to be fun. At the start of this decade, being online still had less of the feeling of chaotic good than the years preceding it, but it wasn’t yet consumed by the monolithic forces that rule today’s web. Since the turn of the millennium, we’ve been used to the flood of emerging platforms — Myspace, Xanga, Friendster, Napster, Flickr, Tumblr, Neopets — each vying to be a better version of the last.

The author further added that “As user experience became more seamless, we began to miss the internet’s seams. We used to begrudgingly click through individual pages and archives — now everything has an infinite scroll. Where we once felt in control of the amount of a site we wanted to see, feeds now pull us down and down into the ever-widening abyss.”

I agree with the author. The internet had given us many of the problems as compared to the benefits. What is your opinion about this fact?

Keeping in view this week’s topic, I am going to share an article relevant to it foster children and the crime rate.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1541204020939643

Final Blog 

This week, I learned about social media dependence, the effects it has on the generation z, and I read the article “Addicted to Distraction” by Tony Schwartz. In this article, I learned a lot about the addictive effects that social media brings to everyone especially generation z, “Almost immediately, the man turned his attention to his phone. Meanwhile, his daughter was a whirlwind of energy and restlessness, standing up on her seat, walking around the table, waving and making faces to get her father’s attention. Except for brief moments, she didn’t succeed and after a while, she glumly gave up. The silence felt deafening.” This shows that people may be addicted to the media. In the restaurant, Tony Schwartz saw a reflection of himself in the past when didn’t have control of his addiction to social media. In life, people realize later when they were in a loss of self-control to become more aware of themselves to improve and later have a better future in life. 

When trying to overcome an addiction one would have to accept the fact you have faith in yourself to change and seek help from other people that you trust. When becoming an adult one should know right from wrong to make smarter choices that can lead them higher mindset. People’s struggles for everyday reasons are expressed on social media, for example, popular posts on popular websites Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube can lead people into situations where can either come up from or down. On social media, people can express very positive, eclectic posts that will inspire other online people to do better. In a generation z, the availability for technology is easy for children to have a certain measurement to the internet even on an app called “Tik Tok” created by 19 other people. The access to endless information on a device called a “Smartphone” can people more attached to absorb information to satisfy their own needs yet there are many people who use such a device for negative selfish reasons for their own petty desires. In today’s world, people have become more influential especially online when trying to involve others to support their cause or promotional reasons. When dealing with overcoming addiction the constant thirst for information on celebrities or any major influencer can get cut off with strong discipline and rehabilitation can help you get rid of your addiction with their many methods. What do you think addiction is? Do you know how to control your addiction without harming your body, spirit, and spirit? 

Five things I think are positive about my generation, that are positive are very Ambitous in what every we put our mind to, the way our generation is very Social with others, we are very entertaining, we have advanced techonloy, and rebellious. 

Five things I think are negative about my generation, is the racism that is still here, the corona virus situation, the access to internet, the treatment of women is blinded by some men, and the president selection.

Work Cited:

Schwartz, Tony. “Addicted to Distraction.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 28 Nov. 2015, www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/opinion/sunday/addicted-to-distraction.html?_r=1.

This week consisted of four articles, watched two videos, and browsed one website. In class this week we heard from group 5 and they presented the book Information Wars: How We Lost the Global Battle Against Disinformation. They did a great job and it seems like they understand the book and it was perfect for this discussion. Our generation is the most affected by the change in technology. In the older days, people could easily escape what people or bullies said about them. In today’s society mean comments and stereotypes of what you should be is everywhere. “I think social media has taken over for our generation. It’s a big part of our lives, and it’s kind of sad.” (Kendall Jenner) In our article, The Kids Are Not Alright, the number of young people who are struggling is rising, experts claim, and they are trying to find out how best to help. Teen minds have often longed for stimulation, and by default, their emotional responses are urgent and often weakening. The biggest variable then is the environment in which this stage of growth is navigated by teenagers. There was a pervasive feeling in hundreds of discussions with adolescents, parents, therapists, and school counselors around the nation that becoming a teenager today is a draining full-time job that entails doing schoolwork, managing a social-media persona, and fretting about career, climate change, sexism, racism, you name it. For hours or days after the event, every fight or slight is reported online. They’re exhausting and teens are exhausted. 

In our other article, Rushkoff Study Guide, we read about how social media and our phones have affected us and have changed the way we think. Time is a notion unknown to our digital devices. This condition has led us to be more concerned with the latest information than with the most important information. We must extend the notion of time to our digital devices in order to remain functional, productive humans. The digital world offers the potential for interaction between groups of individuals who may not be close to each other physically. This is an exciting technology growth, which has many proven advantages for bringing people together and enabling knowledge to be crowdsourced. There are elements of physical interaction, however, which can not be simulated by the use of digital media. In translation into the digital world, eye contact, physical touch, facial expression, and movements are sometimes lost. Choice number one should always be in-person contact. In our world, we should reconnect with people and not let ourselves be drawn into the allure of checking our phones every two seconds. It is essential that we can not forget what personal interaction is and how important it is to us, because if we forget what is left for the generations after us? Will they know personal interaction or will they be subject to phone interaction and not knowing how to talk to others? It is a scary thought that we could be subject to exclusively phone interaction and no human contact. During covid, we have all felt this and I can say I personally hate it. Not being able to go anywhere or being forced to facetime the people we miss instead of seeing them in person. 

Have you felt this? How are you doing through this pandemic? What do you think life would be like if we didn’t have interaction with others?

Weekly news:

This week was one of our last decisions of the semester and I think it was a really good discussion. This week has a good centralization about the different generations and how they act compared to the other. Now these generations are a very loose interpretation of people, and by no means does the stereotypes of these generations identify you if you happen to all into that category, but for the sake of this discussion lets group people into specific categories this time. According to the article, Generations Nicknames and Groupings Theory, there are 10 generations since 1890 that have been identified and grouped. Being born in 2002, I happen to fit into the generation z grouping of people which stretches from 2000-present. The timing on this is a little iffy though because they might cut it off sooner then 2020 so it is pretty much just a waiting game at this point to see what happens.

I think that there are a lot of good things about my generation, but there also some gleaming bad things that happen to be a trait in some people my age. Now everyone knows the classic stereotypes, like millennials are super lazy and baby boomers don’t like to have any fun with anything, but today I think I am going to dive deeper with it and really see the strength and weaknesses of my generation.

Now for starters we are all really good with technology. This comes to no surprise to anyone but if you really look at it e are the next generation to start entering the work force, and the demand is more serious for people like us who are tech savvy. Just look at the series Silicon Valley that we watched this week and see how people then were few and far between, seen as taking a huge risk trying to make a startup, and now there is the highest demand ever for people who know what they are doing with a computer. I also think we know that we have to work for things more than ever now because of the increase of competition out there everywhere. Back in the day not a lot of people went to college because you could just get a pretty good paying job without a college diploma. Now almost everyone is going to college and that means increased competition, and I think our generation is up for it. I think that Gen Z is also the most accepting of any generation which is very evident in the strides we have taken as a country in unity among our age group.

One of our biggest strengths that we can being to the table is creativity and innovation. I think most of our generation is keeping an open mind and hearing new ideas which ties into the ability to listen to the people that have the knowledge, that we need to learn from. Those are the five things I think we are best at as a whole.

Now onto the 5 worst, I think there is a fair share of those also. I think technology has really hindered our abilities to do things that had to be done in years past, like reading a map, or knowing information off hand. I also think that we are a very distracted generation by our phones and I think we are infected by social media, as pointed out in Addicted to Distraction and Social media dependency. I think we don’t go outside enough and I almost envy the old days without technology where you could just go be free from all of this nonsense. And finally I think that we have a lot of mental health issues caused by the increased stress that we put on ourselves week in and week out. So I ask you, do you think that we are doing well as a generation?

Check out this article about covid:https://www.foxnews.com/health/new-covid-19-breathalyzer-test-in-the-works-at-miami-university

The thirteenth week of Social Media & Society has introduced us to our last book presentation Information Wars: How We Lost the Global Battle Against Disinformation by Richard Stengel. We also watched Social Media Dependency Silicon Valley: Minimum Viable Product, discussed the overall data and influence of several different generations. Group five’s interpretation and feedback on Stengel’s book was extremely relevant to society today. The impact of disinformation from Russia and terrorist syndicates such as ISIS have plagued social media and silently influence an entire generation. Media platforms have activated a new cyber war on the web that is far from over. I believe in fact we have only scratch the surface of technologies potential but face growing threats of its abuse or misuse.

Generation Z (my generation) has several different qualities and dynamics. This generation covers the mid-to-late 1990s through the early 2010s. One quality I believe to be bestowed upon us is lust for education or knowledge. We are a generation growing and developing in uncertain times. Between the pandemic and social rights movement, we are constantly evolving and adjusting new perspectives. Another dynamic of our generation is diversity. We vary both culturally and ethnically. I believe generation Z is more accepting of diversity and equality. Generation Z is also associated with the rise of technology. Our usage of social media and constant communication over platforms is a daily occurrence. Generation Z wants authentic genuine brands as well. We engage with content and trends that interest and capture our attention. Lastly generation Z has been smothered with Covid -19. However, how we handle and continue to move through this pandemic will be our true judgment of character.

There are also negative attributes associated with this generation. Generation Z was burdened with an economic recession which may have affected families financials. We are linked to borderline obsession with social media and a much lower percentage in reading compared to prior generations. We also are known as a generation that is constantly stressed and dealing with depression. Emotions such as anxiety and panic have become problematic for individuals today. Lastly, generation Z struggles to handle serious issues around the spectrum. From mass shootings, immigration and individual acts of violence, we viewed and struggled to handle these matters. Much like Covid-19, it’s hard to blame a generation for a pandemic. However, how we confront these challenges will be a testament to our authentic behavior.

The concise Talk Space clip was moving and a reflection of social media. Strangers on the street shared their thoughts and experiences of media platforms. Some were adapting to new frontiers as others were overwhelmed with information. The Talk Space theory wants users to understand their true worth, not likes or pictures on a screen. Technology and media are great tools to expand our horizons and develop new forms of communication. However, we need to understand social media’s true potential before wrong intentions destroy beautiful inventions.

Published by: Samuel Erickson

Weekly News Article: 10 Defining Characteristics of Generation Z was published by Dave Clark on his TTI blog. This may not be a reputable source, but I believed Clark’s perspectives and insights on what truly motivates generation Z was accurate. His use of a blog to display his opinions also captured my attention and drew me in further. It’s been a pleasure Dr. Schlegel, till next time…

https://blog.ttisi.com/10-defining-characteristics-of-generation-z

This week for our last blog we watched a documentary that’s called Social Dilemma. This documentary taught me a lot of things. even a minute into the movie I learned that there is a thing called Snapchat dysmorphia which is something that makes u want to have surgery in order to look more like you would in the filters on snapchat. That was just mind blowing to me if that’s actually a thing.

There is a quote from this movie and I goes, “Have we all been put under a spell”. And this really hit home for me. Like have we? In the movie it is largely talked about that everyone is addicted to social media and most of the people that realize it are in the tech industry. Personally I really do find myself on my phone all of the time most days and struggle to get off of it and get stuff done, and a lot of people are like that and it has to stop.

It also talks about the apps that you have on your phone like instagram, facebook,snapchat, and YouTube and I never really noticed this interesting fact, but all of these platforms are honestly trying to fight for your screen time and your attention. They basically are fighting to make you more addicted to there app or site and its just mind blowing to me how they are doing this. Thats like saying yes lets try and take this persons time and how much time in your life can we get you to give to us .

I just topped the video and am actually mind boggled right now. Social media sites can see ow long you look at someone’s picture and monitor if your an introvert or extrovert or how long you look at your ex’s post lolol.

I think is crazy how they explain the model and the avatar and how social media can predict our emotions so that we will watch our screens longer. Advertising is actually huge in social media to keep you on longer. The more and Moree I watched this movie the answer to my earlier question is yes, we are under a big big spell.

There is another saying and it goes the only two things that call there customers users is illegal drugs and social media. And that got me thinking dang we really are addicted to our cell phones and its basically a drug to connect to other people and these networks are basically taking over our minds like wow.

Overall from watching this amazing and eye opening documentary it really scared me that this is actually happening and I learned that im basically addicted to my phone. People like talking and connecting with other people and we’ve actually become addicted. Social media platforms do a really good job of keeping you on the screen for a long amount of time and Its starting to take over some peoples identity. and it has to stop. Society has a social media addiction.

Weeky news: Heres some news about the corona virus : https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01989-z

The Social Dilemma was an eye opening film that broadcasted the reality in which humans live obsessed with technology. Also, the perspectives of people who left high ranking positions from social media apps such as Google, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter to give their warnings of social media on the society and experience with working with those companies. This film expressed the dramatization of our reality with a family struggling with their social media usage. It was designed to sound the alarm about the dangers of social media.  They implicate social media and a number of societal problems. For example, the propagation of misinformation including the promotion of conspiracy theories, political polarization, mental health consequences. The film focused a lot on addiction and they looked at the anxiety and depression with girls, data of privacy and targeted advertising including using the term surveillance capitalism.

The overall message at the end of the film was to be aware about the potential dangers of technology use to consider reducing the amount of time on social media. The information given throughout created an interesting claim that the documentary makes that social media somehow caused or greatly contributed to this trend of misinformation. I think the truth is the social media makes spreading misinformation easier and more efficient, but the lack of critical thinking skills is the real problem. Many people have trouble discerning between legitimate and illegitimate sources of information. I think social media technology has simply accelerated a problem that was already there. Conspiracy theories were everywhere before the internet and before the widespread use of social media usage. This technology is simply making it so that we have to face this problem and we need to address the critical thinking epidemic.

However, more people need to be aware of social media’s negative affect and be willing to make the change to decrease the screen time and find other activities to use their time instead of scrolling. I personally know how hard it is with taking social media hiatuses only to end up browsing on the internet browser for Facebook after deleting the app. Simply put, social media is addicting, but I believe there will come a time where we find the balance for our sanity for humanity’s sake.

Five things I think are positive about my generation ‘Generation Z’ are that we are very rebellious, outspoken, health driven, entertaining and ambitious. 

Five things I think are negative about my generation ‘Generation Z’ are that we can be unfocused/distracted, immature, imperious, impatient and eccentric.

Weekly News:  7 ways to help young people with anxiety

https://www.npr.org/2020/11/11/933797230/how-to-help-your-kids-reframe-their-anxiety-and-reclaim-their-superpowers