Category: Free Inquiry

Over the semester, through my inquiry on “how does social media affect society?”, I learned that social media is essentially a megaphone for humanity’s ways. Social media is not inherently bad, at least it doesn’t have to be. I’ve learned that how social media is being used right now is not a good way. There are parts of it that are great like body positivity, getting news out fast, bringing communities together, and acting as a creative platform. But inside all of the positives, there are some severe negatives; cyberbullying, spreading of fake news, photo editing causing unrealistic body standards, comparison of “the highlight real”, it being a drive for young people to grow up to fast. Overall, I come away feeling like we need to learn how to use social media. We as a human race never learned how to. By becoming more educated on how to use social media as a positive platform that can create real change, it will once again return to a place of peace and harmony.

A different avenue that I looked into was the addictive side of social media. There is no denying that it is extremely addictive, and we have grown to not see a problem in that. Now, I don’t think that cutting it out of our lives is probable, but maybe becoming more aware of how much we use it could be a place to start. I think this is especially true for young people. Limiting how much time you have the world showing you what you should be doing or looking like is greatly beneficial to your mental health.

So my advice to you is, limit your time on social media, edit who you follow and who follows you to create a space that you feel supported and inspired, be cognizant of how you comment and interact with social media to make sure it is kind, and finally, remember that social media is a highlight real and that you are never getting a person’s real life. By doing all of these things, you can begin to cultivate a more positive and healthy social media experience. And there is nothing wrong with that.

Social media is an ever-changing landscape. With the development of new and different ways to explore content, the rules, actions, and content itself change with it. An article titled ‘How the social media landscape is changing in 2019’   Grayson Kemper talks about how most recently, social media has started to lean toward visual content rather than written. This is putting Facebook to the backburner and bringing forward platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok. All generations have different preferences, but Kemper claims that in all generations 80% of the population uses social media.

Two ways that this idea of visual vs. not visual are exemplified are on Facebook and YouTube.

Facebook has lost support over the years. In the last four, it has” lost almost 20% of its users age 18-24”.  Gen Z prefers visual content and more personalized experience. Contrary to that older users prefer Facebook, as they see it as an all in one platform. 

One of the most diverse platforms in its viewers’ age is YouTube. The personalized content that is never-ending keeps people watching. The plethora of genres that exist allow all users to find their place on the app. The visual aspects draw in younger audiences, and the educational side brings in the older audiences. 

Overall, this article shows that social media is ever-changing with consumers. Younger generations what personalized viewing experiences and older generations want ease and connectivity. The constant is that people are using it.

According to the article by BBC written by Kelly Oakes titled “The Complicated Truth behind Social Media and Body Image,” there are no causation studies when relating social media and negative body image. However, there is strong evidence of a correlation between the two. This means that there are many research projects that tie a person’s lack of body confidence to the use of social media. In doing this, the research is validating what has been presumed since the beginning of social media. Oakes begins to layout many research projects that outline this correlation.

The article mentions a survey done with university students in which they found that women find acquaintances and distant friends to have the most effect on their own body image. Not celebrities or close friends and family. This is strange to here but when I began to think about it, those are the people I most often compare myself to.

Oakes then mentions the body positivity side of social media. She states that body-positive accounts are great, but that they are still focused on the body, not on the person that exists within that body. However, body positivity accounts, in research do create more kind-to-self viewers. Overall, she isn’t saying to stop using body positive accounts, because they are better than following the newest supermodel, instead, she is saying that they should not be the end all be all. One has to know their worth as well as their beauty. 

She also says that research has deemed selfies as leading to negative self-talk and lower self-esteem than before the selfie was taken. This again creates space for an over analyzation of oneself that is unhealthy.

Most research on the topic of body image has done surrounding women, but men suffer the same realities as women. One main commonality that this article has linked is “fitspo” or fitness inspiration. All people are negatively affected when the use of inspirational pictures are used for fitness purposes. Not all bodies can look the same and it is often a much longer journey to reach fitness goals. These pictures act as constant reminders of what you are not looking like at the moment and lead to thoughts of what you can not achieve. 

Overall, this article supports that body image is affected by social media use. Oakes’ suggestion to aid this problem is to take the time off social media and follow and post content that doesn’t have a body to critically analyze. 

I agree that social media leads to a bad body image. There are so many people that have incredibly unattainable bodies on it. They are unattainable because Instagram is their job, so they have lots of time to work out, eat right, learn the right angles, and in some cases edit the shape of their body. I also agree that sometimes, the acquaintances are the ones that you most deeply are effected by. Just because they are close to you, it makes them seem more real and you question why you don’t look like them. Knowing all of this it is important to not follow those people that make you feel bad about yourself, those that edit their photos, and those that you think are “inspiration”. I unfollowed many people over the past summer that made me feel bad about myself.  Surprisingly enough, I have never felt more body positive in my life. It’s these little steps that can make all the difference. These little steps are what show the powerfully good side of social media as well. 

Some accounts that I have found to be amazing are listed below.

@chessiekingg

A British influence who calls her body her “best friend” and thanks it for doing its job and being beautiful. An inspirational human beyond the body positivity and one that has made a huge difference in my body confidence.

@Aerie

 A clothing/ undergarment brand that started #aeriereal many years ago. They have all shapes and sizes for models and have no photo editing. They also include real women and influencers that are inspirational in some way. A brand that has been there since my early teens telling me that I am beautiful no madder what.

@ashleygraham 

A household name for body positivity what has great content that stretches beyond the body.

@Whitneywaythore

An entrepreneur and TV personality that is all about body positivity. She owns NoBS  (no body shame) active and spreads her message through dance, workouts, and motivational speaking, and a TV show. She is also hilarious which I appreciate.

@Sarahhyland

From the outside a slim girl, but one that has endless health complications and autoimmune disorders. Body-positive in a different way that is also important.

@mrkate

A “creative weirdo” that has a youtube design show, but also is a body-positive mom!

@devlytle

A driven 21st-century woman that is a part of the BuzzFeed group called LadyLike that spreads body love.

@hereisgina

An actress is best known for her leading role in Jane the Virgin. Being diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that makes her weight fluctuate has made her love her body at all stages.

Bailey Parnell spoke at TEDxRyersonU in February 2017. She was talking on the subject of “Is Social Media Hurting Your Mental Health?” In short, she says it doesn’t have to be. I couldn’t agree more. She opens with an inner dialogue of scrolling through social media to show the toxic thought process. She gives a personal anecdote of when she woke up to how social media was making her feel. It was a 4 day trip to Jasper with no social media. She reflects on being anxious without it and this created a change for her. Parnell highlights research from The Centre of Collegiate Mental health that connects the usage of social media to an uptick in disorders such as depression and anxiety.

In her master’s research, she studies social media after these experiences. She states that she is young enough to grow up with social media but old enough to critique it, which is exactly what she does. She highlights four main stressors that she found in her research.

1. Highlight reel: She sees social media as only a personal highlight real and warns that you are comparing yourself to a perfect life that isn’t the truth.
2. Social currency: This is defined as how we have attributed value to likes and attention which can be defined as the “economy of attention”. On social media, we are the product that is assigned value.
3. Fear of missing out (FOMO): This phenomenon is what keeps most on social media. The fear of being out of the loop. It keeps you coming back over and over because social media humour and trends are so ingrained in society that without them, you are forced to feel left out.
4. Online harassment:
   1. 40% of online adults experienced online harassment
   2. 73% have witnessed online harassment
   3. Micro-moments that happen over time become a macro moment

Parnell then goes on to say that humans are addicted to social media. The dopamine response that it creates and the withdrawals that we feel when we can’t use it couple to create the perfect storm. She offers steps to help curb this addiction:

1. Recognize the problem
2. Audit your social media diet
   1. Ask yourself if the scroll made you feel better
3. Create a better social media experience
4. Model good behaviour

She closes by saying that social media is not good or bad. It is just “the most recent tool to do what we have always done”. That in fact, social media isn’t bad but that it only brings out “the dark side of people”. 

Overall, I loved the ted talk. I think it is important to take responsibility for your conduct online, as well as, the experience you are creating for yourself.  Social media isn’t the bad guy, but instead, it is a tool that makes people disregard basic kindness, or expectations of life, or even priorities that lie outside of the digital world. Take time to reflect on how you use social media and how those that you follow use it.  

 The video is well worth a watch! 

Pros

1. Spreads information faster than traditional media outlets
2. Law enforcement uses it to catch suspects, solve crimes and act as evidence.
3. Helps students in school by being a research tool.
4. It helps to make friends and maintain friendships through communication.
5. It helps empower businesswomen, as social media is women dominated in users, and therefore allows women entrepreneurs to connect.
6. Connects employers to possible employees through job search apps and websites.
7. Can help lower health risk leading to a better quality of life through the abundant amount of health-related information.
8. It facilitates face to face interaction
9. increases voter participation
10. “facilitates political change”
11. Good for the economy as it increases jobs and consumerism
12. Empowers people to make a change and support causes they care about
13. Helps isolated groups feel connected
14. Quick access to public health information
15. “social media can help disarm social stigmas”
16. Funding to those in need
17. Spreads educational resources
18. Allows teacher-teacher, teach- student, and student-student collaboration.
19. Rapid communication is a crisis event

Cons

1. Allows for the spread of false information
2. Lack of privacy
3. heavy social media use is connected to lower grades
4. usage can lead to stress
5. Waste of time
6. Recruiters for jobs can see social media and not hire you if there is something they don’t like.
7. It can lead to mental disorders such as depression, anxiety, ADHD.
8. Less face-to-face interaction
9. Criminals use it to recruit and promote crime
10. Can put the military in danger
11. Productivity goes down
12. Cyberbullying
13. More prone to social isolation
14. Aids the spread of hate groups
15. Lack of understanding of the public nature of social media can be dangerous.
16. Enables cheating on school assignments
17. Can lead to inappropriate teacher-student relationships
18. “Unauthorized sharing on social media exposes artists to copyright infringement, loss of intellectual property, and loss of income”
19. social media can not be entirely deleted
20. Vulnerable to cybersecurity hacks

Article on Pros and Cons to see each point in more detail

Video on Social media pros and cons

This week I chose to take a step to make my social media a more positive space. I cleared out the people that were negative, or made me feel bad in any way, or that I just didn’t really care to keep up with anymore. By unfollowing these people I am left with only those that I truly care about. With a slimmed-down amount of people I am following, my Instagram feed is shorter and I am spending less time endlessly scrolling. I am left with a feed that actually means something to me because it’s filled with my actual friends and “influencers” that are positive and inspirational.

This process was not only eyeopening because of how I felt using social media after the clear out, but also because of how I felt as I was unfollowing people. I realized how many people I followed that I don’t align morally with, or that are giving me unrealistic body examples, or just people from high school that I am not friends with and really never was. It’s eye-opening to be left with such a smaller number, but a number that I actually care to look at.

Another step in this process is disallowing people to follow me. There are so many people that were fishing for followers that I found as I unfollowed them. I don’t really want a random stranger looking for Instagram fame to be following me so I disallowed them to follow me. In doing so I lost followers, but honestly, I  could care less. I got Instagram so much later than my peer resulting in it to be nearly impossible to have as many followers as them. This is liberating honestly. It’s such a lost cause that I don’t have to or want to pay attention to it. So for those random people I removed from my small collection of followers, I guess I’m doing you a favour of your own social media clear out because I can guarantee you could care less about what I’m up to, and I could care less about how many followers I have.

The crazy part of all of this is that I did this at the beginning of the summer too. I thought I cleared out everybody that I didn’t want, but I was lying to myself. It was a baby step, and there were great changes that I will talk about later when I research body image, but I was still left with some that I thought I still cared about. But here I am, a few months later, doing it all over again, because I realized that social media needs to be a positive space, and I can be the one that makes it that way. It not always up to the influencer to speak to the masses, but instead partly up to the consumer to chose what they want to listen to, and from who they want to hear it.

I would suggest that everyone should do this. Social media doesn’t need to look the same for everyone, and it shouldn’t. Make it a healthy, happy, and inspirational place, where you can connect to people you truly care about.

Link to Clinical Report- The Impact of Social Media on Children, Adolescents, and Families

In my first dive into research for this project I found an article written by the American Academy of Pediatrics that outlined their research on the impacts of social media on youth and adolescence. The article breaks down their observations into categories  of “benefits of children and adolescents using social media” and “risks of youth using social media”

The benefits that the Academy outlined were “socialization and communication”, “enhanced learning opportunities”, and “accessing health information”. Under the first category of socialization, many points were further put into detail. They spoke of community engagement through the use of social media. The growth of creativity through inspiration found online and the ability to share this creativity. Also, the “growth of ideas” through research and independent inquiry. Finally finding a community was emphasized, as many teens feel that they finally find like-minded people on online platforms. Through these benefits, you can find enhanced learning opportunities like independent research along with educational tools like blogs that give the students more opportunity and ease of learning. As far as the third and final point of “access to health information”, the internet and social media are places to self diagnose which is not always a good thing but can be if used correctly. For those dealing with chronic illness, they may be able to find a community within social media that they are lacking in the real world.

The risks of youth using social media, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, is lengthy, but avoidable. They touch on the risks of cyberbullying and online harassment. They state that by having an online presence, you are more open to this sort of behaviour. They list cyberbullying as the top risk for young people on the internet. They continue their argument with sexting as it comes with the risk of child pornography, unwanted sharing, cyberbullying, and a general breach of privacy. This leads to the “digital footprint” that young teens are not always conscious of. The Academy warns teens on what they choose to put online, as it can follow you into your more professional life as they get older. Finally, they argue that advertisements have a way of skewing teens’ expectations and wants.

The article finishes with going over the basics of the “Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) which prohibits web sites from collecting information on children younger than 13”. They state that parents are not always abiding by this law (not allowing their child access to social media before the age of 13), and by doing so are putting their child at risk of the reasons stated above. They offer that pediatricians can be a place of guidance for both children and parents to navigate this time in their lives where social media is an unknown frontier.

Review:

Overall, this article brought up many valid points. The connection social media offers and the endless research it allows are benefits that I can attest to. The risks outlined, especially privacy and cyberbullying are also negatives on social media that I have thought about.  One major point that I found to be missing is how social media and advertisements affect young people’s body image. I think this is one of the biggest dangers of social media facing young people because the images that people see of “the perfect body” are not always real, leaving them with unattainable goals while they are growing into their bodies and trying to find self-confidence. As far as pediatricians acting as a resource, I see their point, but I wouldn’t have been open to their opinion, as it sort of lies outside of their protocol in my mind. In conclusion, this article is a wonderful resource to act as a springboard for this project and I hope to fill in some of the gaps as I go along.

Social media is a hot button topic for many. The strong opinions that people tie themselves to makes for heated arguments that are one sided with no middle ground. Social media’s popularity in today’s culture makes it hard to avoid and impossible to escape. With the ever changing definition of what social media is and what its main purpose is, people are left to drifting with the tides of trend, rip curled into the sea of endless screen time.

Over time, my opinions on social media have fluctuated intensely. As a young teen, when Facebook was first introduced, I remember feeling that it was weird and unnecessary, but as more and more friends joined I wondered what I was missing. I never made an account though. As smart phones entered the scene and Instagram took Facebook place as the top trending social networking site, I again, didn’t understand it and questioned its popularity. Then came snap chat, tinder, tumblr… and the list goes on. I avoided it entirely for most of my life serving under the notion that social media ‘wasn’t for me’ and that it was a ‘waste of time’. I survived with a lack of social media until university. At times I feel like I missed out on the memes that seem to bond my generations, on the plans that seemed to be made on snap, on the memories that are kept on Instagram. But I also feel like I was saved from constant comparison, the feeling of missing out, on the stress of replying to everyone, the pressure of creating a cohesive feed. Overall I don’t regret my decision, but there are times that I wonder where I would be if I had let the world influence me at a time that I didn’t even know myself.

I now have a YouTube account, and Facebook, and Instagram, and Snap Chat. All because I felt like I couldn’t survive the process of making new friends in university without the aid of this coveted tool I had yet to explore. I’m now two years into these accounts and here are where my opinions lie….

• Its a complete waste of time
• it connects you to your friends more
• It can be a very negative place
• i use it to shield myself from social awkwardness when I’m alone in public
• i use it to distract myself from feelings
• it can be a creative place (Inspiration and displaying)
• I’m addicted to it
• I’ve never gone a say without checking any of the above accounts since downloading them as sad as that is to admit

With everything stated above, I want to dive into how social media has affected our society. its youth, its body image, its communication sources, its effect on the climate. EVERYTHING. I want to know what this thing on my phone is really doing to me without my knowledge. Is it really good for me or is society and social pressure telling me that. Writing that list above makes me embarrassed and intrigued to see where this journey takes me. Its going to be a very interesting journey where I need to be honest with myself more than i would like to be, but I’m excited to see where it goes.