Media psychology researchers are beginning to tease apart how time spent on social media is, and is not, impacting our day-to-day lives.

Social media use has skyrocketed over the past decade and a half. Whereas only five percent of adults in the United States reported using a social media platform in 2005, that number is now around 70 percent.

Growth in the number of people who use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and other social media platforms — and the time spent on them–has garnered interest and concern among policymakers, teachers, parents, and clinicians about social media’s impacts on our lives and psychological well-being.

While the research is still in its early years — Facebook itself only celebrated its 15th birthday this year — media psychology researchers are beginning to tease apart the ways in which time spent on these platforms is, and is not, impacting our day-to-day lives.

Social media and relationships

One particularly pernicious concern is whether time spent on social media sites is eating away at face-to-face time, a phenomenon known as social displacement .

Fears about social displacement are longstanding, as old as the telephone and probably older. “This issue of displacement has gone on for more than 100 years,” says Jeffrey Hall, Ph.D., director of the Relationships and Technology Lab at the University of Kansas. “No matter what the technology is,” says Hall, there is always a “cultural belief that it’s replacing face-to-face time with our close friends and family.”

Hall’s research interrogates that cultural belief. In one study, participants kept a daily log of time spent doing 19 different activities during weeks when they were and were not asked to abstain from using social media. In the weeks when people abstained from social media, they spent more time browsing the internet, working, cleaning, and doing household chores. However, during these same abstention periods, there was no difference in people’s time spent socializing with their strongest social ties.

The upshot? “I tend to believe, given my own work and then reading the work of others, that there’s very little evidence that social media directly displaces meaningful interaction with close relational partners,” says Hall. One possible reason for this is because we tend to interact with our close loved ones through several different modalities–such as texts, emails, phone calls, and in-person time.

What about teens?

When it comes to teens, a recent study by Jean Twenge, PhD, professor of psychology at San Diego State University, and colleagues found that, as a cohort, high school seniors heading to college in 2016 spent an ” hour less a day engaging in in-person social interaction” — such as going to parties, movies, or riding in cars together — compared with high school seniors in the late 1980s. As a group, this decline was associated with increased digital media use. However, at the individual level, more social media use was positively associated with more in-person social interaction. The study also found that adolescents who spent the most time on social media and the least time in face-to-face social interactions reported the most loneliness.

While Twenge and colleagues posit that overall face-to-face interactions among teens may be down due to increased time spent on digital media, Hall says there’s a possibility that the relationship goes the other way.

Hall cites the work of danah Boyd, Ph.D., principal researcher at Microsoft Research and the founder of Data & Society. “She [boyd] says that it’s not the case that teens are displacing their social face-to-face time through social media. Instead, she argues we got the causality reversed,” says Hall. “We are increasingly restricting teens’ ability to spend time with their peers . . . and they’re turning to social media to augment it.”

According to Hall, both phenomena could be happening in tandem — restrictive parenting could drive social media use, and social media use could reduce the time teens spend together in person — but focusing on the latter places the culpability more on teens while ignoring the societal forces that are also at play.

The evidence is clear about one thing: Social media is popular among teens. A 2018 Common Sense Media report found that 81 percent of teens use social media, and more than a third report using social media sites multiple times an hour. These statistics have risen dramatically over the past six years, likely driven by increased access to mobile devices. Rising along with these stats is a growing interest in the impact that social media is having on teen cognitive development and psychological well-being.

“What we have found, in general, is that social media presents both risks and opportunities for adolescents,” says Kaveri Subrahmanyam, PhD, a developmental psychologist, professor at Cal State LA, and associate director of the Children’s Digital Media Center, Los Angeles.

Risks of expanding social networks

Social media benefits teens by expanding their social networks and keeping them in touch with their peers and far-away friends and family. It is also a creative outlet. In the Common Sense Media report, more than a quarter of teens said that “social media is ‘extremely’ or ‘very’ important for them for expressing themselves creatively.”

But there are also risks. The Common Sense Media survey found that 13 percent of teens reported being cyberbullied at least once. And social media can be a conduit for accessing inappropriate content like violent images or pornography. Nearly two-thirds of teens who use social media said they “‘often’ or ‘sometimes’ come across racist, sexist, homophobic, or religious-based hate content in social media.”

With all of these benefits and risks, how is social media affecting cognitive development? “What we have found at the Children’s Digital Media Center is that a lot of digital communication use and, in particular, social media use seems to be connected to offline developmental concerns,” says Subrahmanyam. “If you look at the adolescent developmental literature, the core issues facing youth are sexuality, identity, and intimacy,” says Subrahmanyam.

Her research suggests that different types of digital communication may involve different developmental issues. For example, she has found that teens frequently talk about sex in chat rooms, whereas their use of blogs and social media appears to be more concerned with self-presentation and identity construction.

In particular, exploring one’s identity appears to be a crucial use of visually focused social media sites for adolescents. “Whether it’s Facebook, whether it’s Instagram, there’s a lot of strategic self presentation, and it does seem to be in the service of identity,” says Subrahmanyam. “I think where it gets gray is that we don’t know if this is necessarily beneficial or if it harms.”

 

Communication Indirect

Teenagers have mastered the art of keeping themselves busy in the hours following school, well past bedtime. They’re on their phones and online, texting and trolling. Before Instagram, teens were also active. However, they preferred to chat on the phone or in person while hanging out at the shopping mall. While it may have seemed like aimless hanging out, they were experimenting, learning new skills, and interacting with others in real-time. Today’s kids miss out on these opportunities. Modern teens learn to communicate by looking at screens and not with other people.

As a species, we are highly tuned to social cues, says Catherine Steiner Adair, EdD. She is a clinical psychologist and the author of. There’s no doubt that kids are losing out on critical social skills. It’s not that texting or online communication creates a learning disability. But it does put everyone in a context where they are nonverbally disabled, as body language, facial reactions, and even minor vocal reactions become invisible.

Cyberbullying, imposter syndrome, and cyberbullying

It is also easier for kids to be cruel as they communicate more indirectly. Donna Wick, a clinical psychologist EdD, says that kids text things they would never say to someone’s face. The following are some examples of how to improve your ability. psychologist. She says that this is especially true for girls who don’t want to argue with each other “in real life.”

You want to show them how to disagree without destroying the relationship. But social media is teaching people to disagree in extreme ways and to destroy the relationship. She says, “It’s the exact opposite of what you want to happen.”

Dr. Steiner Adair also agrees that girls face a greater risk. “Girls, and girls in particular are more socialized to compare themselves with other people to develop their identity, which makes them more susceptible to the negative effects of this.” She warns a lack of solid self-esteem can be to blame. We forget that relationship aggression is a result of insecurity, feeling bad about yourself, and wanting to make other people feel worse.

For adolescents, peer acceptance is important. Many of them are as concerned about their appearance as they would be if they were running for public office. It can even feel serious to them. Kids today get actual polling results on how people feel about them and their appearance through things like “likes.” It is enough to make anyone turn around. Who wouldn’t like to look better if they could? Kids can spend hours reshaping their online personas to create an idealized image. Teenage girls sort through hundreds of pictures and agonize over which to post online. Boys try to get attention by outgrossing each other. They push the envelope in an already uninhibited online environment. Kids are ganging up on one another.

The use of social media has always been a problem for adolescents, but now they have more options – and more traps – than ever before. It is only adding to the pressure when kids see what everyone looks like. What happens when the photo-shopped kid next door also looks like a magazine model? What if your profile doesn’t reflect the person you really are?

Dr. Wick says that adolescence, and especially the early 20s, are years when you become acutely aware of contrasts between what you seem to be and who you think you are. It’s like the “imposter syndrome” in psychology. You begin to feel the gap shrink as you gain more experience and mastery. Imagine your greatest fear being that you’re not as good as you appear and then having to constantly look good! It’s exhausting.”

Self-esteem is a result of consolidating your identity. The more you pretend to be someone else, the harder it will be for you to feel good about you.

Stalking (and being ignored)

Another major change brought about by new technology, and smartphones in particular, is that we’re never alone. Kids can update their status and share what they are watching, listening to and reading. They also have apps which let their friends track their exact location at any time. Text messages are always available, even if someone is not trying to update his friends. Kids feel more connected to each other. It’s like the conversation is never ending, and there’s always a new thing happening.

“Kids never get away from social media. They are always there, no matter what we think about the’relationships.’ In some cases they even initiate them.” Dr. Wick notes. “And this, by itself, can cause anxiety.” Everyone needs time to relax, recharge and regroup from the demands of intimacy. If you don’t get that time, it is easy to become emotionally depleted and fertile ground for anxieties to grow.

In the midst of all this hyper-connection, it’s surprisingly easy to get lonely. Kids know when they are being ignored with a depressing degree of certainty. When you are waiting for a response, and it doesn’t arrive, the silence is deafening. The silent treatment can be an insult, or it could just be the result of a relationship between two teenagers that started very intensely and then faded away.

In the past, when a boy wanted to end a relationship with you, they would have to talk to you. “Or at least, he called,” says Wick. Dr. Wick says that he may disappear from the screen and never return.

Even if the conversation continues, waiting indefinitely can cause anxiety. We are being put to the back of the line, as well as others. Our very human need for communication is also delegated.

Researchers found that people give privately because they believe the cause aligns with their values, while those who donate publicly do so to please others. The recent tendency of American political polls to misread voters’ intentions may be due to this peer pressure. People may respond to polls according to what they believe the pollsters want or in a way that they believe will please their peers. But in the privacy and security of the voting booth, they vote according to their true preferences.

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1. Social Media and Commerce

It’s rare to find a company that doesn’t use social media platforms in order to reach their customers and prospects. Social media is a powerful tool for connecting with customers and generating revenue.

Companies have realized that they can use social media for insights, to stimulate demand, and to create targeted product offers. These functions are essential for traditional brick-and-motor businesses and also, of course, e-commerce.

[Related Reading: 9 Social Media Skills You Need Now]

Numerous studies indicate that implementing social networks in the workplace can enhance knowledge sharing. This results in improved project management and the dissemination of specialized information. Social technologies can be fully implemented in the workplace to remove boundaries, eliminate silos and increase interaction.

On the flip side: A low number of social shares can cause negative social proof, and damage business credibility

After experiencing the negative effects of social media firsthand, it is interesting to note that some companies have gone against the grain by removing the social sharing buttons on their website.

In a case study conducted by Taloon.com in Finland, the e-commerce retailer found that their conversions increased 11.9% after removing share buttons from product pages.

These results show the dual-sided nature of social media’s impact. Shares can boost sales when products are popular. When the opposite is true, the customer begins to distrust both the product and the company. Dr. Paul Marsden is a psychologist and the author of “The Social Commerce Handbook,” who calls this effect’socialproof’.

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1. Social Media and the Workplace

Social media has a profound impact on hiring and recruitment. LinkedIn is a professional social network that can be used by anyone who wants to make a name for themselves in their field. People can create and market their personal brand.

According to a recent CareerBuilder survey, 19% of hiring managers base their hiring decisions on the information they find on social media. According to CareerBuilder’s 2018 social media recruiting survey, 70 percent of employers research candidates on social networking sites.

Read this: Personal branding vs. business brand

1. Social Media and Training: The Impact on Training and Development

Candidates who are able to master the most recent and advanced social media technologies will be more attractive to employers.

OnePoll, on behalf of Pearson and Connections Academy, surveyed 2,000 U.S. high school students and parents in 2020. Social media is a tool that 68 percent of students, and 65% of parents, believe will become a part of high school’s new normal.

Many educational institutions use blogs, Wikis, LinkedIn and Twitter. Facebook is also used. The use of social media in online education has increased.

social media platforms are still used in education despite concerns about privacy and cheating.

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1. Social Media: The Challenges

Social Media is a relatively new technology. It is, therefore, difficult to determine its long-term positive and negative effects. Multiple researchers have found a strong correlation between the heavy use of social networking platforms and an increased risk of depression.

Fear of missing out (FOMO).

Social media addiction is a result of long-term use. FOMO is the feeling that others are having more fun or living better than you. This makes you want to check your notifications every second just to feel better.

Cyberbullying

Teenagers want to be liked, popular, and outdo other teens. Social media was not the first to make this process difficult. Teenagers are now under pressure to grow too quickly in the online world, thanks to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

In the Cyberbullying Institute’s 2019 survey, over 36 percent of U.S. middle school and high school students reported having been cyberbullied. Of those, 30 percent had been victims twice or more. Nearly 15 percent of respondents admitted to cyberbullying someone at least one time, while nearly 11 percent admitted to doing so two or more times. Teenagers may misuse social media to spread rumors or share videos that are meant to ruin reputations. They can also use it to blackmail other people.

Lack of privacy

Social media users are at risk of stalking, identity theft and personal attacks. They may also be exposed to misused information. The users are usually to blame, as they share information that shouldn’t be public. Confusion arises because users don’t understand how private and public parts of an online profile work.

Deleted private content can be difficult to remove. The content can be problematic for people in their personal and professional lives.

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1. Social Media and Relationships

Social media encourages people to form “social media friends” and treasure them over real friendships. Social media’s use of the term “friend” is a pale shadow of a traditional friendship. Friendships are real when people know each other and interact with them regularly.

Top 20+ Social Media Advantages and Disadvantages

Social media, which is integral to communication, is a must-have for anyone who lives a busy lifestyle and relies on it even for the smallest of updates. People can stay in touch with their friends and family via a variety of platforms. In 2021, social media was the most popular online activity. 82% of Americans were on social networking sites. This is a 2% increase from 80% in the previous year. In 2020, there will be about 223 million users of social media in the United States.

Social media has grown exponentially in the last ten years. In 2005, there was a minimal amount of participation in this industry. Most people were not aware of the industry in 2005. Those who did know that the MySpace pages they could create usually featured elaborate backgrounds and custom playlists rather than direct connections. In the 1980s, accounts on blogs were the first social media platforms. The evolution of chat rooms and free platforms created more social opportunities. Later, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media revolutionized the industry.

Awareness

Social media has made people more aware. It is a great source of information that can lead to success and innovation by developing knowledge and skills. Social media is a great way to keep people informed about global events.

Social media has changed our lives in a way we never imagined. What is the future of the industry and its leaders?

In less than a decade, social media have gone from being a fun extra to becoming a part of almost every aspect of life.

Facebook’s testimony before the Senate Banking Committee on Libra , its proposed cryptocurrency, and alternative financial system was met with skepticism. Justin Bieber, a heartthrob in politics, tweeted President Obama asking him “to let those kids out from cages.” The Philadelphia Police Department terminated more than a dozen officers for racist remarks made on social media.

Elon Musk has hinted that he will eventually create a brain implant which connects human tissues to computer chips.

All of this in a span of a few days.

Social media continues to change at a rapid pace, making it difficult to predict what direction it will take next. SixDegrees.com and Makeoutclub.com all used to be the next big things. One survivor, however, has grown in astounding ways. Facebook had 7.3 million registered users in 2006 and turned down an offer of $750 million to buy it out. In the first quarter of 2019, Facebook could boast 2.38 billion users with a valuation of around $500 million.

In 2007, I predicted that Facebook would not exist in 15 years. Jonah Berger is a Wharton professor of marketing and the author of Contagious: Why Things Spread. He says that the challenge is to stay relevant and not just have the best features. “Social media doesn’t have the same utility as power or water. It’s unlike power or water, where people only care if it works. The young are concerned about how their platform choice will reflect on them. “It’s not cool for your parents or grandparents to use the same website, so they are always looking for a new thing.

Kevin Werbach is a Wharton professor who teaches legal studies and ethics. At that time, the discussion was about technology start-ups.

Werbach says, “Today Facebook is the world’s most valuable company and at the forefront of a wide range of public policy discussions. The scope of the issues we are thinking about now with social media has widened.”

Werbach stated that Cambridge Analytica and the impact of social networks on the last presidential election may have eroded the public’s trust. But “social media is now fundamental to how billions of people access information and communicate with one another, raising the stakes tremendously.”

Just Say No

Sherrod Brown, a Democratic Senator from Ohio, said at the July hearing of the Senate Banking Committee that “Facebook was dangerous.” Facebook has told Americans to “just trust us,” and every time they do, it seems that they get burned.

Do Americans share Brown’s view on social media? In 2018, according to a Pew Research Center survey , 42% of respondents had stopped checking Facebook for several weeks. 26% had removed the app from their phone.

Despite the damage social media had done to its reputation, in the 2019 version of the same Pew study, social media usage was unchanged from 2018.

Pinar Yildirim is a Wharton professor of marketing. She says that Facebook has critics. They are concerned with two main things: the mismanagement of consumer data, the poor management by third parties to access it, and disinformation spread on Facebook.

“Social media aren’t utilities.” It’s unlike power or water, where people only care if it works. “Young people care what their use of a platform says about them.” – Jonah Berger

“The question that we need to ask is: Are we at a stage where social media organizations, and their activities, should be regulated in the interest of consumers? “I don’t think that more regulation is going to help. But this is certainly on the table,” Yildirim says. In the run-up to the 2020 U.S. Presidential elections, there will be a variety of discussions on regulation in the tech industry.

Yildirim notes that some proposals are related to stricter regulations on the collection and use of consumer data. The European Union has already adopted stricter regulations in the past year with the General Data Protection Regulation. She says that a number of U.S. companies and others around the globe have adopted the GDPR protocol to cover all their customers. This is not limited to EU residents. We will probably hear more about the regulation of these data and see more strict regulation.”

The separation of Big Tech into smaller, more easily regulated units is another topic that will intensify. Most academics don’t think that breaking up organizations into smaller units will improve their compliance. Yildirim says that it does not mean they are less competitive. For example, It is still unclear how Facebook would be broken up because it has no clear divisions between its different business units.

Yildirim points out that even if the regulations are never implemented, “the discussions may still hurt Big Tech’s financial position, as most of the companies are listed on the stock exchange and this adds to uncertainty.”

Jaron Lanier is a prominent critic of the negative effects of social media. His fervent opposition can be seen in the title of his book, 10 Arguments for Deleting your Social Media Accounts Now. Lanier cites the loss of freedom of choice, the erosion of truth, the destruction of empathy, and its tendency to make users unhappy. The last chapter is entitled “Social media hates your soul.”

Lanier is not a tech troglodyte. He is a polymath who bridges digital and analog worlds. He has been a writer and musician, worked as a Microsoft scientist, and co-founded the pioneering virtual reality firm VPL Research. He writes that the savagery that online life brings out in people “turned out like crude oil for social media companies and behavior manipulation empires who quickly became dominant on the internet because it fed negative behavioral feedback.”

 

In increasing numbers, we use social media platforms to find the information and ideas that structure the agenda and the content of public discussions (Newman et al. 2019). Social media giants have risen to the top of their industry and now control many of what users see, hear, or read regularly. Content moderation and distribution, i.e., the composition and accessibility of social media content, is done by a combination of human and algorithmic decision-making processes. However, in general, current practices are not transparent and offer little recourse to users whose content has been removed or demoted.

This has become an important issue for democratic societies. In legislative, policy, and academic circles, the responsibilities of social media giants are being discussed. However, many initiatives don’t adequately account for freedom of expression or other fundamental rights. International experts on freedom of expression are unanimous in their belief that regulating speech through contracts (a company controlling its platform based on terms of service or community standards) does not provide sufficient transparency or protection of freedom of expression or other human rights. Content moderation obligations in legislation, such as the German Network Enforcement Act, tend to create systems where private actors must apply criminal law and national legal provisions within short deadlines with the threat of heavy fines. These systems fragment the legal obligations of social media companies and leave users with little recourse to stop hasty removal of content.

This has become an important issue for democratic societies.

The media landscapes, and the diverse roles played by tech companies, have evolved at an accelerated pace. This will continue. Democracy now demands that we engage in an ongoing collective learning process in order to organize online content moderating in a way compatible with international standards for freedom of expression. In this context, it is becoming increasingly apparent that a public monitoring system for social media content moderation is needed.

ARTICLE 19 – a global leader in free speech – has proposed to create the “Social Media Council,” a model of a multistakeholder accountability system that would allow for an open, transparent, and independent forum on social media platforms, addressing content moderation on the basis international standards of human rights. The SMC model takes a voluntary approach to the supervision of content moderation. Participants (social media platforms and all stakeholders) sign on to a system that doesn’t create legal obligations. The SMC model relies on the voluntary compliance of platforms who, by signing up to it, agree to follow and implement in good faith any decisions or recommendations made by the SMC. David Kaye, UN Special Reporter, endorsed this proposal in April 2018, when he recommended that “all segments of ICT that moderate content or act a gatekeeper should make the creation of industry-wide accountable mechanisms (such a social media Council) a priority.” (UN General Assembly 2018 para. 72).

ARTICLE 19 originally envisioned the SMC with an ambitious scope. A network of national and regional SMCs entrusted to provide general guidance to social networking platforms and decide individual complaints brought forward by individual users. They would operate on the basis of international standards for human rights while coordinating via the mediation of an International SMC. Such multi-stakeholder, transparent, accountable, and independent fora could weave freedom of expression within all aspects of online content moderation and distribution across all social media platforms, from integrating international standards in decisions to delete or demote content to ensuring exposure to the broadest possible diversity of information and ideas through a form of human-rights-optimized algorithmic distribution.

The SMC model proposes a voluntary approach for the supervision of content moderation.

ARTICLE 19 submitted the proposal, along with the UN Special Rapporteur for the Promotion and Protection of Freedom of Opinion and Expression and Stanford University’s Global Digital Policy Incubator, to a meeting of academics and civil society organizations, and social media companies. This led to intense discussions, as recorded in the conference report (Global Digital Policy Incubator ARTICLE 19 & Kaye 2019). The conference, and subsequent meetings, have shed light on questions big and small raised by the creation of an SMC. For example, see the comments made by the Electronic Frontier Foundation in McSherry 2019. Different visions exist about the roles and functions that this new mechanism will play, the location where it should be located, or the interaction with other initiatives such as Facebook’s creation of an oversight panel (ARTICLE 19, 2019).

The first topic of discussion should be the rules that will govern the moderation of content. There is growing agreement that the international standards for human rights are a universal legal framework. However, different approaches to applying this set of rules may exist. The SMC can refer directly to these rules, and the authoritative interpretations by international and regional courts and special mechanisms will provide all the necessary guidance for the SMC to inform its decisions. A code of principles relating to human rights could be adopted for the purpose of content moderation. Adopting a code that adapts international standards for online content moderating would allow the SMC to operate under more strict guidelines than merely referring to international standards.

Shameless self-promotion on Facebook. Love it or hate it, there’s always someone doing it. And many of us are guilty of it. But why do we do it? Comparing Facebook users in the US and Japan, I suggest it’s the power of the social context that may determine who struts their stuff and why.

The question of what makes some Internet users more prone to overt self-promotion online than others is probably as old as the Internet itself. Not surprisingly, then, it’s a question that has already found some answers in research, especially in regard to personality: Narcissists and extroverts are more prone to self-promotion on Facebook than other personality types (Carpenter, 2012).

But like any good social psychologist will tell you, it’s not just personality that makes people behave the way they do. People also behave in response to social stimuli (Lewin, 1936). So in this blog post, using some recent data from the US and Japan, I’ll introduce the idea that different social environments might actually drive people on Facebook to strategically self-promote themselves (or not) in order to adapt to those environments.

Self-promotion in context

It’s important to emphasize that for a long time, social psychologists have argued that self-expression, in general, is something people do strategically (Goffman, 1959). Say the right things to the right people, and you’ll increase your likelihood of increasing connections with other desirable individuals. Self-promotion is part of this: make sure people hear how awesome you are, and you’ll increase your chances of being chosen by desirable people and keep those desirable relationships you’ve already got.

There’s a catch, however. Imagine if you lived in a society where there were relatively few opportunities for meeting new people and cutting off current relationships. Where relationships were long-lasting and difficult to replace. Believe it or not, despite its high population density, Japanese society has been shown to be just that sort of society: It’s a society where the mobility of relationships (i.e., relational mobility) is low when compared with North American societies like the US (Yuki & Schug, 2012).

I argue that in a low relational mobility society like Japan, trying to tell everyone how great you are is likely to have limited value as a relational strategy; you may just incite status jealousy and competition, causing disharmony among one’s long-lasting and difficult-to-replace relationships. Better instead to keep direct references to greatness to a minimum. Accordingly, it’s fair to expect people in Japan to display relatively lower levels of self-promotion on Facebook.

On the other hand, active self-promotion makes more sense in societies with high relational mobility, like the US, where there is a relative abundance of opportunity and freedom to make new acquaintances. In a relationally competitive society like this, what should your adaptive strategy be in order to attract and keep desirable partners? One strategy would be to advertise what you’ve got in order to increase your chances of both keeping and finding desirable relationships. So, following the logic, we should expect Facebook users in the US to be relatively more prone to self-promoting behavior.

Self-promotion: the power of the social environment

Here at our research lab in Japan, we wanted to find out if our expectations about Japanese and American Facebook users could be confirmed, so we did a web survey recently of almost 100 Facebook users from each country. Results from the survey confirmed our hunch: Facebook users in the US tended to self-promote more on Facebook than Japanese users did. But more importantly, the difference in self-promoting behavior was partially due to differences in relational mobility.

That is, it’s possible that in the US (a high relational mobility society), where there are plenty of opportunities to meet and make new friends, people may promote themselves more on Facebook, in part, to keep current and attract new desirable relationships. In low relational mobility Japan, however, Facebook users may hold back on overt self-promotion because 1) opportunities to attract new desirable partners are less common in the first place, and 2) overt self-promotion within long-lasting relationships might just be asking for disharmony.

In conclusion, what kind of people self-promote on Facebook? Our data suggests that people living in a more relationally mobile society (like the US) may tend to self-promote more on Facebook. Why? Not because they’re more prone by nature to be loud and proud. Self-promotion might just be a good strategy for making the most of opportunities for relational success.

 

 

In this digital age, selfie is a form of self-expression. This post will describe our research into how selfies reveal their owner’s personality and how people judge other people’s personalities based on selfies. (Qiu Lu Qu & Zhu 2015).

Expression of personality in social media

The results of psychological research have shown that social media can reveal personality, for example, in Facebook profiles (Back and others). The number of albums and photos on Facebook (Eftekhar Fullwood & Morris 2014) and the words used in tweets are all indicators of personality. There is little information about the relationship between self-portraits and personality. Do selfies reveal the personality of their owners? Can selfies be used to predict someone’s personality?

Does a photo reflect personality? Why might selfie be different?

In the past, studies have found that photographs can reveal personality traits. In portraits taken from others, for example, smiling is associated with Extraversion.

Selfie is different from other photos in two important ways. selfie allows users to take photos in a way that suits them. Users can control the facial expressions, camera positions, and background objects. The motivation behind taking a self-portrait may differ from that of other types of photos. Selfie can be used to express oneself and share it with others on social networks. Selfies can be used to show off a person’s personality. They may use impression management techniques to create a socially desirable image of themselves (Lin Tov & Qiu 2014).

What did the study reveal?

A collection of 123 photos from Sina Weibo, a popular microblogging site in China, was coded using thirteen cues. Selfie users completed the Big Five personality assessment. The results showed that individuals who were agreeable were more likely to display positive emotions and take their self-portrait below. Due to privacy concerns, conscientious people were less likely than others to include private locations in their selfies. Duckface was more common among those with higher neuroticism. The cues did not relate to extraversion.

Eight undergraduates acted as judges in a project to predict personality based on selfies. Only one personality dimension was accurately predicted: openness to experience. It is possible that they used invalid cues to make their judgment. They used, for example, whether the self-portrait showed positive emotion or pressed lips in order to judge extrovert. Their conscientiousness rating was related to displaying public information, showing positive emotion, and avoiding duckface when taking selfies. The higher rating of Neuroticism is related to duckface but not positive emotion. Judges also rated those who pressed their lips and showed a full face in selfies with a lower level of openness.

Implications

Our research indicates that selfies contain personality-related cues. People cannot judge the personality of others based on their selfies. This may be because selfie owners used impression management techniques to make it impossible for people to accurately assess other’s personalities. This study presents (a) new evidence on how social networking is associated with personality; (b) a code for analyzing selfies, and (c) a set of cues to predict personality based on selfies.

References

Back, M. D., Stopfer, J. M., Vazire, S., Gaddis, S., Schmukle, S. C., Egloff, B., et al. (2010). Facebook profiles do not reflect self-idealization but rather the actual personality. Psychological Science 21(3): 372-373.

Eftekhar, A., Fullwood, C., & Morris, N. (2014). How much exposure is needed to capture personality in Facebook photos and other photo-related activities? Computers in human behavior, 37, 162-170.

Qiu, L., Lin, H., Ramsay, J., & Yang, F. (2012b). You are what your tweet is: Personality and perception via Twitter. Journal of Research in Personality 46(6): 710-718.

Qiu, L., Lu, J., Qu, W., & Zhu, T. (2015). What does your self-portrait reveal about you? Computers in human behavior, 52, 443-449.

Naumann, L. P., Vazire, S., Rentfrow, P. J., & Gosling, S. D. (2009). Personality judgments based on appearance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 35(12), 1661-1671.

Vazire, S., Naumann, L. P., Rentfrow, P. J., & Gosling, S. D. (2008). Portrait of a Narcissist: Physical manifestations of narcissism. Journal of Research in Personality 42(6): 1439-1447.

Hall, J. A., & Pennington, N. (2013). Self-monitoring and honesty to cue usage on Facebook. Computers in Human Behavior 29(4): 1556-1564.

Platforms like Instagram and Facebook are now a part of the daily lives of many people. It is essential to ask whether social media use impacts body image, self-esteem, and self-concept in adolescents and young adults. Recent studies have shown mixed results. Researchers are now examining these questions empirically. This article reviews these findings, offering possible explanations of the effects of Social Media on Body Dissatisfaction. It focuses on Instagram, Facebook, and other popular image-based platform.

Essena O’Neill is a 19-year-old Australian Internet Star who quit Social Media back in November 2015 to prove that Social Media was just a way of faking self-promotion. Essena O’Neill was a star of Instagram, Tumblr, and YouTube, as well as other social networking platforms. She had over 600,000 Instagram followers (McCluskey 2016). Her fans and friends were in a frenzy as soon as she stopped posting. The Australian teenager was accused of closing her social networking accounts to gain more attention and fame. In response to Essena’s decision to quit social networking, her fans, friends and followers posted blogs and videos. Some even sent death threats.

Mahita Gajanan, a journalist for The Guardian, interviewed other young women the same week Essena left Instagram. She asked them about their sense of self-esteem as well as their experiences with Social Media. She found that most women interviewed were feeling insecure. Women reported being obsessed with the number of likes they received, worried about not looking good in photos, believed that people would perceive them differently on social networking compared to in real life, and wondered what aspects of their lives would be seen. Women spent a lot of time thinking about which image to upload, editing it, and checking their page regularly to see their updated “likes” count, causing them to feel insecure. Even though they were aware of their actions, many women were consumed by the need to be accepted on social networking. They struggled to change their habits. Many young women said that their lives were dominated by social networking, and they regarded the media as more important than life itself. The compulsive behavior that follows this preoccupation with Social Media may contribute to Body Dissatisfaction. The research results are mixed, and it is not clear what the exact relationship is between body dissatisfaction and social networking.

Media Influence

The use of social media has been increasing dramatically in the past decade. Pew Research Center reports that 71% of teens aged 13-17 use Facebook. 52% also use Instagram, and 41% Snapchat. In addition, teenage girls are more likely to use -image-based social media than their male counterparts. 61% of girls and 44% of boys use Instagram. This increase in social networking usage, particularly Facebook and Instagram, could negatively impact adolescent and young women’s self-confidence and satisfaction with their bodies (Lenhart 2015).

Researchers have shown links between Body Dissatisfaction, eating disorders, and women’s exposure to television or fashion magazines (Grabe et al., 2008; Levine &Murnen, 2009). These studies looked at Body Image and showed that there could be a connection between seeing images of a thin body and Body Dissatisfaction. Becker and coworkers (2011) found that media effects could be indirect. The authors investigated whether exposure to mass media, such as television, video, CD players and MP3 players, Internet access, and mobile phone access, was associated with eating disorders in Fijian teenage girls. The authors found that both direct mass exposure (i.e., personal media exposure) and indirect mass exposure (i.e., media exposure from people in the peer group) were associated with eating disorders in Fijian adolescents. The study, despite its limitations (such as whether or not the findings could be generalized) (Becker et al., 2011), suggests that, at least in this instance, social networks played an integral role in the relationship between eating pathology and media, which may extend into a relationship between body unsatisfaction.

These findings should be viewed with the knowledge that other researchers have not found a link between viewing image based media and dissatisfaction. Holmstrom (2004) performed a Meta-analysis of the existing literature, focusing on media exposure in general and Body Dissatisfaction, Body Image, and Eating Disorder Pathology. Holmstrom (2004) focused on 34 studies using media as the independent variables and a form of dissatisfaction as the dependent variables. The overall effect size for these studies was small. The research revealed that women felt better about themselves after viewing images of overweight bodies but had no change in Body Image when viewing thin bodies. These findings suggest that there is a relationship between media and body image. Further research should be done.

Ferguson (2013) conducted a more recent meta-analysis that incorporated the findings of 204 studies. Holmstrom (2004) and Grabe and coworkers (2008) were also included in this meta-analysis. Ferguson focused on publication biased, more specifically, that statistically significant findings are more likely to be published while null results are not. Meta-analyses are a collection of biased findings. Ferguson (2013) found that there was little or no correlation between media and Body Dissatisfaction among males. However, the prevalence of Body Image problems in women, particularly those who were predisposed to , was higher but still very low. The meta-analysis, in general, encouraged researchers to be conservative when claiming a link between Social media and Body Dissatisfaction due to the inflated effect size, study design limitations, and publishing bias.

Social Media Usage

Social Media is a collaborative platform for social interaction among seemingly infinitive numbers of people. has identified several benefits of social networking. The six main benefits identified were (1) increased interaction with others, 2) more readily available, shared and tailored health information, (3) greater accessibility and wider access to health data, (4) social and emotional support from peers, (5) potential to influence policy (Moorhead, 2013). social networks and image-based social networks have many benefits, but some of their uses can lead to unwanted effects. This review focuses on three of the most popular image-based social networking platforms: Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook.

 

 

 

It is too early to tell what the long-term effects of Facebook use will be on our well-being. Photo by www.pexels.com, licensed under CC0.

Recently, there’s been a great deal of discussion about Facebook. Much of it has focused on Facebook’s role as a platform for journalism and politics. It’s also been discussed in relation to user privacy. There are also discussions on Facebook’s own product, which focus on the users’ health and mental health. Some political commentators make some inaccurate and exaggerated statements about the psychology behind Facebook. They claim that it is unhealthy and makes users feel lonely and depressed. This article will help us to think critically about the topic.

Matthew Yglesias, a Vox columnist, criticized Facebook’s core functions in an [1] as well as a [2] podcast. He claimed that Facebook was linked to poor mental health and social isolation. Yglesias cited a few studies that systematically examined the relationship between Facebook usage and people’s wellbeing. These studies support his thesis. Why would anyone use a product which makes them feel miserable and alone? Yglesias, Ezra Klein, and Sarah Kliff use a crude comparison that Facebook is similar to an unhealthy candy like Sour Patch Kids. It is both “bad” and “pleasant.” [2]

Is the scientific consensus on Facebook so one-sided, really? The psychological research is more mixed than Yglesias wants readers to believe. Many studies show positive links between Facebook and happiness (rather than negative associations), but other studies found no significant effect for most people.

Time spent on Facebook was only associated with depression in highly neurotic people. Researchers in Singapore and the U.S. conducted a study that found Facebook to be associated with depression when people feel envious. They suggested that emotional intelligence could help people control envious feelings and enjoy Facebook.

The data are only correlational, and therefore, it is difficult to infer causation. Researchers in Germany and the U.S. conducted a study in 2012 that used an experimental design. Participants were randomly assigned to receive a daily email telling them to update their status. Participants in the “post updates” group felt less lonely than the control group over a seven-day period.

Social networking sites can have a positive impact on people who are shy or have a low sense of self-esteem. They may find it more difficult to initiate and maintain social connections. Facebook offers socially shy people a way to connect with others. Researchers Julia Brailovskaia and Jurgen Marragraf stated that “People with low Self-Esteem benefit from using SNS because they make new friends and satisfy their desire to belong.” [3]

Facebook has admitted that Facebook is bad. According to Yglesias’s report, Facebook has admitted that the site is bad for mental health and discourages employees from using the site the same way as the rest of the public. Facebook’s comments were more general. Facebook scientists stated in a blog that they were studying both the positive and the negative effects of Facebook use and that they were working to create Facebook so that it would be beneficial and healthy for everyone. [7] There is no evidence I can find that Facebook employees are using it differently from consumers or that Facebook discourages their employees from using it the way people do.

Some studies have shown a negative association between Facebook usage and well-being [8]. However, other studies have found dramatically different results. What’s the solution? What’s the answer? It could be both, depending on the way Facebook is used. Take a look at the different activities that people do on Facebook. Some people use Facebook for entertainment (e.g., funny memes), while others use it to get information (e.g., news). Others use it for connecting with people they know (family & friends), while some use it as a way to meet new people. Facebook is used in two ways: Active involves direct communication, and Passive involves mindless scrolling. Passive use can be detrimental to your well-being. However, the same cannot necessarily be said for active use. It’s not possible. Researchers have noted that many studies don’t differentiate between the different activities that people do on social networks and that “aggregating” these activities can cause problems.

The research findings regarding Facebook and well-being are (at best) mixed. However, one thing is certain. Political commentators have exaggerated the psychological effects that Facebook can have. Why are so many people so convinced that Facebook is bad for wellbeing? Are we all misunderstanding something? Some people believe that Facebook is causing a Moral Panic, which could be due to superstitions regarding new technologies. [4] This kind of moral panic can be an exaggerated and extreme concern over something that might not be that problematic. It’s important that journalists and pundits provide the correct context when reporting on psychological research. We wish for the American public and lawmakers to refrain from reacting in a way that could create more problems.

References

[3] Brailovskaia, J., & Margraf, J. (2016). An exploratory study comparing Facebook users with Facebook non-users. Plos ONE, 11(12).

[4] Chow, T. S., & Wan, H. Y. (2017). Is it possible to have a ‘Facebook Depression?’ Explore the moderating role of Neuroticism, Facebook Social Comparison, and Envy. Personality Differences 119,277-282. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2017.07.032

[5] Tandoc, E. J., Ferrucci, P., & Duffy, M. (2015). Facebook use, depression and Facebooking among college students: is it depressing? Computers and Human Behavior 43,139 -146. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2014.10.053

[6] Deters, F. g., & Mehl, M. R. (2013). Does posting status updates on Facebook increase or decrease loneliness? An online social network experiment. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 4(5), 579-586. doi:10.1177/1948550612469233

[7] Ginsberg, D. & Burke, M. (2018). Hard questions: Is spending time on social media bad for us? Retrieved from https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2017/12/hard-questions-is-spending-time-on-social-media-bad-for-us/

[8] Kross, E., Verduyn, P., Demiralp, E., Park, J., Lee, D. S., Lin, N., & … Ybarra, O. (2013). Facebook use predicts declines in subjective well-being in young adults. Plos ONE, 8(8).

[9] Verduyn, P., Lee, D. S., Park, J., Shablack, H., Orvell, A., Bayer, J., & … Kross, E. (2015). Passive Facebook use undermines well-being. Experimental and longitudinal evidence. Journal of Experimental Psychology

Have you ever considered the criteria for recognizing a couple as official on social media sites? You may have felt annoyed that your partner’s ex liked his/her new profile photo. You may have used social networking to spy on someone after a breakup that you thought was your successor. You have probably answered yes to these questions at least once. Our relationships today are heavily influenced by social networking platforms. It is, therefore, useful to gain a deeper understanding of the answers that science can provide to these questions.

We all have an idea of how we want to be perceived by others. (Goffman’s Self-presentation Theory) This also leads to a strong desire for us to control what impressions are made about us. social networking allows us to present ourselves the way we wish. That is why identity-presentation is a (or more likely the) core motivation of social media usage (2). Our social lives are often conducted online. This means that our romantic relationships also have a digital footprint. In the virtual worlds of social networks, romantic relationships are often formed, maintained, and even ended. Online platforms change not just the context but also the content that’s displayed about a relationship. social networks have expanded the rules for sharing personal information. Scrolling down your Instagram or Facebook feed, you will notice that information which was private only a few short years ago has now been made public. What impact has this had on romantic relationships, and how?

Does Social Media bring the Green-Eyed Monster out or make us more dedicated?

Several studies have examined the impact that social networking sites can have on our everyday lives, including our romantic relationships. Overall, the picture is ambivalent. In this respect, social networking seems to generate at least as many conflicts as pleasures in even the most harmonious and trusted relationships. In one of the first empirical investigations into this issue, it was found that SNSs trigger our fear of abandonment due to their unique features. For example, Facebook offers a lot of information but is easy to misinterpret without the right context (3). Moreover, our friends can comment and follow every piece of content that is related to our relationship. Not to mention, the history of our previous relationships can also be seen by our current partner if we’re not careful enough. Snapchat is more geared towards flirting and can elicit even stronger negative feelings. Snapchat, which allows users to see who their friends are most likely to communicate with, elicits greater jealousy, according to a study. Facebook can also easily cause tension between couples (4). Instagram can be a minefield as well in this respect. Posting selfies is one of the most common activities on Instagram that can lead to negative outcomes in relationships. Due to the positive feedback they receive from their Instagram followers, users are willing to risk creating a conflict on Instagram or a negative romantic relationship outcome. In order to avoid awkward misunderstandings and awkward situations, some users make their relationships on social networks as explicit as possible. It is not always a sign of harmony to have a timeline full of pictures of happy couples. According to a study, people who are insecure regarding their partner’s emotions tend to post more about their relationship on Facebook (7). Despite all this, there is scientific evidence to support the positive effects of social networking in romantic relationships. SNSs allow couples to share their joy with their friends, which can evoke pleasant feelings. Text messaging via online platforms is another way couples can express their affection.

Instagram is now the official Facebook

In 2018, Instagram was more popular with adolescents and young adults than any other Social Media website in Western societies (11). Instagram is a much easier way to share information than Twitter or Facebook, which are primarily text-based. It also allows users to upload pictures, videos and GIFs. This seems to appeal to younger users more (12). The fact that grandma is unlikely to leave inappropriate comments under their posts, as she does on Facebook, or watch their Instastory can also be a factor. In turn, content relating to romantic relationships is now moved from Facebook over to Instagram. If a couple wants to be “official” on the internet, they will announce this with a picture of them together (possibly accompanied by a hashtag) rather than updating their relationship status on Facebook. They will also feature more details about their relationship on Instagram. If we are interested to know the interaction between social networking and relational factors, then it would be appropriate to focus on Instagram. Signaling theory, which is a concept from evolutionary biology that examines communication between individuals, is one tool you can use to explore these issues. According to Judith Donath (a renowned media researcher), this theoretical framework is sufficient to analyze online activity. She argues that SNS profiles and online activity in general can be defined by her as signals (15). Signaling is everywhere on Instagram, for instance: the way we introduce ourselves, what pictures we post, who we are following, etc. In addition, in relationships, the way we appear on Instagram is a sign that we are close to someone. Donath says that online communication is easily falsified, but it can also be shaped by circumstances offline. A recent study found that online behavior can vary depending on the relationship circumstances, such as a new beginning or a breakup (16).