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- All Subjects: Social Media
- Member of: Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
- Resource Type: Text
- Status: Published
"No civil discourse, no cooperation; misinformation, mistruth." These were the words of former Facebook Vice President Chamath Palihapitiya who publicly expressed his regret in a 2017 interview over his role in co-creating Facebook. Palihapitiya shared that social media is ripping apart the social fabric of society and he also sounded the alarm regarding social media’s unavoidable global impact. He is only one of social media’s countless critics. The more disturbing issue resides in the empirical evidence supporting such notions. At least 95% of adolescents own a smartphone and spend an average time of two to four hours a day on social media. Moreover, 91% of 16-24-year-olds use social media, yet youth rate Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter as the worst social media platforms. However, the social, clinical, and neurodevelopment ramifications of using social media regularly are only beginning to emerge in research. Early research findings show that social media platforms trigger anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and other negative mental health effects. These negative mental health symptoms are commonly reported by individuals from of 18-25-years old, a unique period of human development known as emerging adulthood. Although emerging adulthood is characterized by identity exploration, unbounded optimism, and freedom from most responsibilities, it also serves as a high-risk period for the onset of most psychological disorders. Despite social media’s adverse impacts, it retains its utility as it facilitates identity exploration and virtual socialization for emerging adults. Investigating the “user-centered” design and neuroscience underlying social media platforms can help reveal, and potentially mitigate, the onset of negative mental health consequences among emerging adults. Effectively deconstructing the Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (i.e., hereafter referred to as “The Big Three”) will require an extensive analysis into common features across platforms. A few examples of these design features include: like and reaction counters, perpetual news feeds, and omnipresent banners and notifications surrounding the user’s viewport. Such social media features are inherently designed to stimulate specific neurotransmitters and hormones such as dopamine, serotonin, and cortisol. Identifying such predacious social media features that unknowingly manipulate and highjack emerging adults’ brain chemistry will serve as a first step in mitigating the negative mental health effects of today’s social media platforms. A second concrete step will involve altering or eliminating said features by creating a social media platform that supports and even enhances mental well-being.
Social media posts included in the discussion were taken from Twitter and explored using the qualitative research-based Grounded Theory. Four celebrities were selected as case studies to illustrate hate that popular music artists receive. These celebrities were Justin Bieber, Shawn Mendes, Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande. Before the data collection process transitioned to Twitter for specific examples, Google Search was effective in providing background information on each celebrity's controversies. With open coding as the chosen stage of data analysis, tweets were grouped with those containing similar content (e.g. two tweets using the same insult).
Social media users can uncover problematic tweets and refuse to forgive celebrities for past mistakes, send threatening messages that encourage celebrities to kill themselves, shame celebrities for their physical appearances and sexualities and so forth. All of these concepts are observed within the respective literature review and discussion sections. The types of online harassment included are insults, devotion defending, threats and hacking.
The gathered data found that difference in the online harassment that female pop stars receive versus that toward male pop stars often lies in how people perceive their sexualities and physical appearances, as well as the distance perceived between the social media user and the celebrity. In the examples provided, women were regarded as “whores” for wearing certain clothing and blamed for issues in their relationships, whereas men were not seen as the problem and criticized for appearing too "feminine."
It is recommended that people become more aware of the consequences of online harassment in general, but particularly toward celebrities who are viewed as being unaffected by hate comments. Due to the limitations of this study, future research within this area should include people of color and various sectors of the entertainment industry.
These difficult flowcharts and confusing websites have a huge impact on a student’s ability to adequately receive the information they need and, in the end, can have a negative impact on their ultimate decision when deciding if Barrett is right for them. A better user experience can be a more effective way of displaying information to students. A better design that allows to user more interaction would allow for the user to better understand the information they are presented. Instead of a monotone flowchart displaying the requirements necessary to graduate with honors status, A web application where a user can input their information and get an output of the necessary requirements tailored to the unique circumstance would be more informative, useful, and easier to use. The web app would take information such as a student’s year, whether it be an incoming freshman or transfer student, and their current and previous course credit to determine the specific number of honors credits, The Human Event courses, and Thesis project required for this user to complete the requirements for Barrett Honors College. This application would give the user a better understanding of what is required of them and in turn lead to a better user experience.