This book studies the rise of social media in the first decade of the twenty-first century, up until 2012. It provides both a historical and a critical analysis of the emergence of networking ...services in the context of a changing ecosystem of connective media. Such history is needed to understand how the intricate constellation of platforms profoundly affects our experience of online sociality. In a short period of time, services like Facebook, YouTube and many others have come to deeply penetrate our daily habits of communication and creative production. While most sites started out as amateur-driven community platforms, half a decade later they have turned into large corporations that do not just facilitate user connectedness, but have become global information and data mining companies extracting and exploiting user connectivity. Offering a dual analytical prism to examine techno-cultural as well as socio-economic aspects of social media, the author dissects five major platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, and Wikipedia. Each of these microsystems occupies a distinct position in the larger ecosystem of connective media, and yet, their underlying mechanisms for coding interfaces, steering users, filtering content, governance and business models rely on shared ideological principles. Reconstructing the premises on which these platforms are built, this study highlights how norms for online interaction and communication gradually changed. “Sharing,” “friending,” “liking,” “following,” “trending,” and “favoriting” have come to denote online practices imbued with specific technological and economic meanings. This process of normalization is part of a larger political and ideological battle over information control in an online world where everything is bound to become “social.”
There is growing awareness about how social media circulate extreme viewpoints and turn up the temperature of public debate. Posts that exhibit agitation garner disproportionate engagement. Within ...this clamour, fringe sources and viewpoints are mainstreaming, and mainstream media are marginalized. This book takes up the mainstreaming of the fringe and the marginalization of the mainstream. In a cross-platform analysis of Google Web Search, Facebook, YouTube, Reddit, Twitter, Instagram, 4chan and TikTok, we found that hyperpartisan web operators, alternative influencers and ambivalent commentators are in ascendency. The book can be read as a form of platform criticism. It puts on display the current state of information online, noting how social media platforms have taken on the mantle of accidental authorities, privileging their own on-platform performers and at the same time adjudicating between claims of what is considered acceptable discourse.
Social media have become increasingly integrated into the daily lives of adolescents. There are concerns about the potential detrimental effects of adolescents' social media use (SMU) on their mental ...health. Using a three-wave longitudinal study among 2109 secondary school adolescents (Mage = 13.1, SDage = 0.8), the present study examined whether high SMU intensity and addiction-like SMU problems were bidirectionally associated with low mental health, and whether these associations were mediated by increased levels of upward social comparisons, cybervictimization, decreased subjective school achievements, and less face-to-face contact with friends. In doing so, mental health was measured by depressive symptoms and life satisfaction. Findings from random intercept cross-lagged panel models showed a direct unidirectional association between SMU problems and mental health: SMU problems were associated with decreased mental health one year later, but not vice versa. SMU problems also predicted increased levels of upward social comparisons and cybervictimization one year later. Yet, these processes did not mediate the observed effect of SMU problems on decreased mental health. Over time, SMU intensity and mental health were not associated in any direction; neither directly, nor indirectly through any of the mediators. Findings of our study suggest that harmful effects of SMU intensity may be limited and highlight the potential risk of SMU problems to adolescent mental health.
•There are concerns about adolescents' social media use (SMU).•Over time, SMU intensity and mental health were not associated in any direction.•SMU problems predicted decreases in mental health one year later.•SMU problems also predicted increases in social comparison and cybervictimization.•Particularly SMU problems may pose a risk to adolescents' mental health.
We estimated ideological preferences of 3.8 million Twitter users and, using a data set of nearly 150 million tweets concerning 12 political and nonpolitical issues, explored whether online ...communication resembles an "echo chamber" (as a result of selective exposure and ideological segregation) or a "national conversation." We observed that information was exchanged primarily among individuals with similar ideological preferences in the case of political issues (e.g., 2012 presidential election, 2013 government shutdown) but not many other current events (e.g., 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, 2014 Super Bowl). Discussion of the Newtown shootings in 2012 reflected a dynamic process, beginning as a national conversation before transforming into a polarized exchange. With respect to both political and nonpolitical issues, liberals were more likely than conservatives to engage in cross-ideological dissemination; this is an important asymmetry with respect to the structure of communication that is consistent with psychological theory and research bearing on ideological differences in epistemic, existential, and relational motivation. Overall, we conclude that previous work may have overestimated the degree of ideological segregation in social-media usage.
Online hate and extremist narratives have been linked to abhorrent real-world events, including a current surge in hate crimes
and an alarming increase in youth suicides that result from social media ...vitriol
; inciting mass shootings such as the 2019 attack in Christchurch, stabbings and bombings
; recruitment of extremists
, including entrapment and sex-trafficking of girls as fighter brides
; threats against public figures, including the 2019 verbal attack against an anti-Brexit politician, and hybrid (racist-anti-women-anti-immigrant) hate threats against a US member of the British royal family
; and renewed anti-western hate in the 2019 post-ISIS landscape associated with support for Osama Bin Laden's son and Al Qaeda. Social media platforms seem to be losing the battle against online hate
and urgently need new insights. Here we show that the key to understanding the resilience of online hate lies in its global network-of-network dynamics. Interconnected hate clusters form global 'hate highways' that-assisted by collective online adaptations-cross social media platforms, sometimes using 'back doors' even after being banned, as well as jumping between countries, continents and languages. Our mathematical model predicts that policing within a single platform (such as Facebook) can make matters worse, and will eventually generate global 'dark pools' in which online hate will flourish. We observe the current hate network rapidly rewiring and self-repairing at the micro level when attacked, in a way that mimics the formation of covalent bonds in chemistry. This understanding enables us to propose a policy matrix that can help to defeat online hate, classified by the preferred (or legally allowed) granularity of the intervention and top-down versus bottom-up nature. We provide quantitative assessments for the effects of each intervention. This policy matrix also offers a tool for tackling a broader class of illicit online behaviours
such as financial fraud.
Social media use is prevalent in today's society and has contributed to problems with social media addiction. The goal of the study was to investigate whether extraversion, neuroticism, attachment ...style, and fear of missing out (FOMO) were predictors of social media use and addiction. Participants in the study (N=207) volunteered to complete a brief survey measuring levels of extraversion, neuroticism, attachment styles, and FOMO. In the final model of a hierarchical regression, younger age, neuroticism, and fear of missing out predicted social media use. Only fear of missing out predicted social media addiction. Attachment anxiety and avoidance predicted social media addiction, but this relationship was no longer significant after the addition of FOMO.
•Fear of missing out predicted social media use and addiction.•Anxious and avoidant attachment predicted social media addiction.•Extraversion and Neuroticism predicted social media use.
Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide. The suggested association between social media use (SMU) and depression may be explained by the emerging maladaptive use pattern known as ...problematic social media use (PSMU), characterized by addictive components.
We aimed to assess the association between PSMU and depressive symptoms—controlling for overall time and frequency of SMU—among a large sample of U.S. young adults.
In October 2014, participants aged 19–32 (N = 1749) were randomly selected from a nationally-representative U.S. probability-based panel and subsequently invited to participate in an online survey. We assessed depressive symptoms using the validated Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) brief depression scale. We measured PSMU using an adapted version of the Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale to encompass broader SMU. Using logistic regression models, we tested the association between PSMU and depressive symptoms, controlling for time and frequency of SMU as well as a comprehensive set of socio-demographic covariates.
In the multivariable model, PSMU was significantly associated with a 9% increase in odds of depressive symptoms (AOR adjusted odds ratio = 1.09; 95% CI confidence interval: 1.05, 1.13; p < 0.001.) Increased frequency of SMU was also significantly associated with increased depressive symptoms, whereas SMU time was not (AOR = 1.01; 95% CI: 1.00, 1.01; p = 0.001 and AOR = 1.00; 95% CI: 0.999–1.001; p = 0.43, respectively).
PSMU was strongly and independently associated with increased depressive symptoms in this nationally-representative sample of young adults. PSMU largely explained the association between SMU and depressive symptom, suggesting that it may be how we use social media, not how much, that poses a risk. Intervention efforts aimed at reducing depressive symptoms, such as screenings for maladaptive SMU, may be most successful if they address addictive components and frequency—rather than time—of SMU.
•44% of this U.S. young adult sample reported problematic social media use (PSMU).•PSMU is strongly and independently associated with depressive symptoms.•Frequency of social media use may be a distinct behavioral component of PSMU.•Future research using longitudinal designs is needed to establish directionality.
This book explores how social media is used in South Africa, through a range of case studies exploring various social networking sites and applications.
This volume explores how, over the past ...decade, social media platforms have deeply penetrated the fabric of everyday life. The author considers South Africans’ use of wearable tech and use of online health and sports tracking systems via mobile phones within the broader context of the digital data economy. The author also focuses on the dating app Tinder, to show how people negotiate and redefine intimacy through the practice of online dating via strategic performances in pursuit of love, sex and intimacy. The book concludes with the use of Facebook and Twitter for social activism (e.g. Fees Must Fall), as well as networked community building as in the case of the #imstaying movement.
This book will be of interest to social media academics and students, as well as anyone interested in social media, politics and cultural life in South Africa.
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has not only caused significant challenges for health systems all over the globe but also fueled the surge of numerous rumors, hoaxes, and ...misinformation, regarding the etiology, outcomes, prevention, and cure of the disease. Such spread of misinformation is masking healthy behaviors and promoting erroneous practices that increase the spread of the virus and ultimately result in poor physical and mental health outcomes among individuals. Myriad incidents of mishaps caused by these rumors have been reported globally. To address this issue, the frontline healthcare providers should be equipped with the most recent research findings and accurate information. The mass media, healthcare organization, community-based organizations, and other important stakeholders should build strategic partnerships and launch common platforms for disseminating authentic public health messages. Also, advanced technologies like natural language processing or data mining approaches should be applied in the detection and removal of online content with no scientific basis from all social media platforms. Furthermore, these practices should be controlled with regulatory and law enforcement measures alongside ensuring telemedicine-based services providing accurate information on COVID-19.
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