Background The widespread use of online social networks, particularly among the younger demographic, has catalyzed a growing interest in exploring their influence on users’ psychological well-being. ...Instagram (Meta), a visually oriented platform, has garnered significant attention. Prior research has consistently indicated that Instagram usage correlates with heightened levels of perfectionism, body dissatisfaction, and diminished self-esteem. Perfectionism is closely linked to self-criticism, which entails an intense self-scrutiny and is often associated with various psychopathologies. Conversely, self-compassion has been linked to reduced levels of perfectionism and stress, while fostering greater positive affect and overall life satisfaction. Objective This study investigates the relationship between Instagram usage (time of use and content exposure) and users’ levels of self-compassion, self-criticism, and body dissatisfaction. Methods This study comprised 1051 adult participants aged between 18 and 50 years, either native to Spain or residing in the country for at least a decade. Each participant completed a tailored questionnaire on Instagram usage, along with abbreviated versions of the Self-Compassion Scale, the Body Shape Questionnaire, and the Depressive Experiences Questionnaire, spanning from January 23 to February 25, 2022. Results A positive correlation was observed between daily Instagram usage and self-criticism scores. Participants of all age groups who spent over 3 hours per day on Instagram exhibited higher self-criticism scores than users who spent less than 1 hour or between 1 and 3 hours per day. Contrary to previous findings, no significant relationship was detected between Instagram usage time and levels of self-compassion or body dissatisfaction. Furthermore, content centered around physical appearance exhibited a positive correlation with self-criticism and body dissatisfaction scores. Among younger participants (aged 18-35 years), those who primarily viewed beauty or fashion content reported higher self-criticism scores than those consuming science-related content. However, this association was not significant for participants aged 35-50 years. Conversely, individuals who predominantly engaged with sports or fitness or family or friends content exhibited higher levels of body dissatisfaction than those focusing on science-related content. No significant associations were observed between self-compassion scores and daily Instagram usage or most-viewed content categories. Conclusions The findings of this study underscore the considerable impact of Instagram usage on self-criticism and body dissatisfaction—2 variables known to influence users’ psychological well-being and be associated with various symptoms and psychological disorders.
How online affinity networks expand learning and opportunity for young people
Boyband One Direction fanfiction writers, gamers who solve math problems together, Harry Potter fans who knit for a ...cause. Across subcultures and geographies, young fans have found each other and formed community online, learning from one another along the way. From these and other in-depth case studies of online affinity networks, Affinity Online considers how young people have found new opportunities for expanded learning in the digital age. These cases reveal the shared characteristics and unique cultures and practices of different online affinity networks, and how they support “connected learning”—learning that brings together youth interests, social activity, and accomplishment in civic, academic, and career relevant arenas. Although involvement in online communities is an established fixture of growing up in the networked age, participation in these spaces show how young people are actively taking up new media for their own engaged learning and social development.
While providing a wealth of positive examples for how the online world provides new opportunities for learning, the book also examines the ways in which these communities still reproduce inequalities based on gender, race, and socioeconomic status. The book concludes with a set of concrete suggestions for how the positive learning opportunities offered by online communities could be made available to more young people, at school and at home. Affinity Online explores how online practices and networks bridge the divide between in-school and out-of-school learning, finding that online affinity networks are creating new spaces of opportunity for realizing the ideals of connected learning.
Online Social Networks (OSNs) are becoming a popular method of meeting people and keeping in touch with friends. OSNs resort to trust evaluation models and algorithms to improve service quality and ...enhance user experiences. Much research has been done to evaluate trust and predict the trustworthiness of a target, usually from the view of a source. Graph-based approaches make up a major portion of the existing works, in which the trust value is calculated through a trusted graph (or trusted network, web of trust, or multiple trust chains). In this article, we focus on graph-based trust evaluation models in OSNs, particularly in the computer science literature. We first summarize the features of OSNs and the properties of trust. Then we comparatively review two categories of graph-simplification-based and graph-analogy-based approaches and discuss their individual problems and challenges. We also analyze the common challenges of all graph-based models. To provide an integrated view of trust evaluation, we conduct a brief review of its pre- and postprocesses (i.e., the preparation and validation of trust models, including information collection, performance evaluation, and related applications). Finally, we identify some open challenges that all trust models are facing.
How systematic comparative research can unlock the potential of social media scholarship.Though diverse and fruitful, social media scholarship too often focuses on single platforms in single ...countries, disconnected from other media that people use. Mora Matassi and Pablo J. Boczkowski's alternative approach offers a framework based on the epistemological principle that everything we know emerges from comparing two or more entities. Drawing on a wealth of real-life cases, Matassi and Boczkowski examine key aspects of social media from three comparative dimensions (nations, media, and platforms) and two topics (history and language) to propose a blueprint that encourages researchers and lay readers alike to think about social media from new perspectives.Matassi and Boczkowski illustrate their theoretical points with examples that link multiple media, illuminate an array of platforms, cover different countries and eras, and address various languages and both textual and non-textual signifiers. The result is an original conceptual account that allows for the study of social media in ways that are global, de-westernized, transmedia, and multiplatform. In addition, the authors review the major texts that use a comparative treatment and suggest topics, theories, and methods for engaging in comparative studies in the future.
Over the past few decades, various types of hate material have caused increasing concern. Today, the scope of hate is wider than ever, as easy and often-anonymous access to an enormous amount of ...online content has opened the Internet up to both use and abuse. By providing possibilities for inexpensive and instantaneous access without ties to geographic location or a user identification system, the Internet has permitted hate groups and individuals espousing hate to transmit their ideas to a worldwide audience. Online Hate and Harmful Content focuses on the role of potentially harmful online content, particularly among young people. This focus is explored through two approaches: firstly, the commonality of online hate through cross-national survey statistics. This includes a discussion of the various implications of online hate for young people in terms of, for example, subjective wellbeing, trust, self-image and social relationships. Secondly, the book examines theoretical frameworks from the fields of sociology, social psychology and criminology that are useful for understanding online behaviour and online victimisation. Limitations of past theory are assessed and complemented with a novel theoretical model linking past work to the online environment as it exists today. An important and timely volume in this ever-changing digital age, this book is suitable for graduates and undergraduates interested in the fields of Internet and new media studies, social psychology and criminology. The analyses and findings of the book are also particularly relevant to practitioners and policy-makers working in the areas of Internet regulation, crime prevention, child protection and social work/youth work.
Stories are shared by millions of people online every day. They post and re-post interactions as they re-tell and respond to large-scale mediated events. These stories are important as they can bring ...people together, or polarise them in opposing groups. Narratives Online explores this new genre - the shared story - and uses carefully chosen case-studies to illustrate the complex processes of sharing as they are shaped by four international social media contexts: Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Building on discourse analytic research, Ruth Page develops a new framework - 'Mediated Narrative Analysis' - to address the large scale, multimodal nature of online narratives, helping researchers interpret the micro- and macro-level politics that are played out in computer-mediated communication.
PDF
