Group 1 (week 7)- Media Influence and Social Media

    Social media is a big part of our daily lives, a part of our daily routine. When you're not busy doing work for a school or a job, you always gravitate to at least some of the biggest social media platforms: Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, or Twitter. We spend countless hours scrolling up and down an algorithm filled with posts that were interested in based on what we like or the accounts we follow. Of course, there are some positive and negative effects it has on our mental and physical health. We're able to connect to family and friends across the world, we're updated on their lives/what they're currently doing if they post a lot, and make connections with other people that have the same interest as you. But social media creates this negative effect it has on people, like unlocking new fears they didn't know they had. Some people get post anxiety because they're so self-conscious of what people will think when they post something on Instagram or post/repost something to put on their story. It may result in the user feeling left out, self-harm, or feeling insecure. I honestly think social media brings us together; I just think that we should only use it for a certain amount of time throughout the day or week altogether so we could take time/ give ourselves a break for ourselves to spend time with the people right in front of us and to appreciate what's going on around us.

    Now the movie that we watched during class had a very interesting take on social media. Like yes, it is the main part of her job, but the way she let it take over her life and how it was affecting her relationships was hard to watch. As a result, she was living her life based off of this major lie that's something she shouldn't lie about because a terrorist bombing attack is really traumatic for people to experience. I know that it wasn't her intention to do this and it was really unfortunate timing, but she was on social media so much because there wasn't anything going on in her life, she had no friends, and she didn't have recognition/ wasn't noticed at work. The only good she used her power/influence in social media was by advocating with her friend about gun violence and I guess starting a #imnotok movement, but that was still based off of her lie. 

Social Media's Growing Impact on Our Lives

    As I said before, social media is a big part of our lives and more kids are growing up with technology/media being one of the biggest influences in their lives. In the article, it cites, "a recent study by Jean Twenge, Ph.D., 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." Personally, I would always make this comparison to how teenage life was like in the 80s and the 90s because I find myself wishing that if only I was born during those times, but then again I am grateful to be born around the early 2000s because we're the only generation that got to experience a little bit of what life was like when social media was just starting to become bigger, while also experiencing its rise in our society's culture. Nowadays I just think that if you do spend a lot of time on social media you're either addicted to scrolling through Instagram or TikTok or you might not have many friends to hang out with in person. There are also some cases where a person might have friends only online. But it really just depends on what your social life is like on and off social media or how much your parents are involved in phone usage because it depends on how strict they are with hangouts or dates.

Pros and Cons of Social Media

    After going over the article, it talks about a lot of the points that I briefly went over with. The pros had a commonality of making life easier to communicate and carry out everyday responsibilities. But it did go more in-depth about the cons technology/social media brings. The cons mention how social media could create this facade, which is true because people only post the carefree, easygoing, and only "highlights" of their lives. Under cons, it mentions increased media usage, fear of missing out, self-image issues, and bullying/cyberbullying. The commonality of it all is how it's detrimental to a person's mental health. According to the article, "one out of four (25%) teens are bullied, while up to 43% have been bullied while online. Nine out of ten LGBTQ students experienced harassment at school and online. Biracial and multiracial youth are more likely to be victimized than youth who identify with a single race. Kids who are obese, gay, or have disabilities are more likely to be bullied than other children." Now knowing all these bullying statistics makes me have this fear of when it's my turn to raise a kid during this time in our society where social media is a scary thing to raise your kid with. 

Everyone's an Influencer. Now What?

    This article basically talks about how there are so many active users on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Youtube and their target audiences are mostly younger people so anyone has the potential of becoming an influencer with millions of followers because they have people to look up to because they've already done it. One viral video, post, or TikTok can change a person's life. In the article, they use the example, "Charli D'Amelio, who became the poster child of overnight celebrity when she burst onto the TikTok scene, gained 100 million followers in just over a year." Teens like her who start off as regular people attending high school is also what makes people relate to her in some ways and they want to see if they could be just like her because her life seems easier doing social media for a living and going to events where famous people attend. So in the future, a lot of younger people will try to be influencers as their job for the rest of their lives.