Inequality Among Us

danah raised some very interesting points about inequality on social media, and I found myself agreeing with her for the most part. I have noticed that while my friends may be friends with a variety of races on social media, the majority of their interactions online are with people of the same race. Noticing this, I found the point about how new social media and new technology have reinforced existing divisions rather than dissolved them to be true. People bring what they have learned, their prejudices, their likes and dislikes with them when they go online, it’s not like they disappear and you become a whole new person online, and so how can we expect new technology to link us together? It may offer a window to other cultures and lifestyles, but does that really mean anything especially since it is not even a real world, face-to-face experience?

I could see social media as a possible source of social justice in the world. To me social media should be used as a tool for awareness and fundraising rather than the main tool in our arsenal for positive change. Take for example Kony 2012-everybody knew about it within two weeks of the video dropping on Youtube and the countless other shares and mentions it received on other sites, which helped garner a lot of attention, support, and money for the movement-which was good. However did anything really happen as a result? I and many of my friends I have asked do not even know if Kony was stopped; the closest information I received was that Kony was stopped soon after or even before the movement began and this was just a rumor I heard. Another well known example of social activism via social media would be the ALS ice bucket challenge-it had millions of reshares as well as millions of dollars raised. Based off these two examples I would say that yes social media can be used for social justice, but it should be used as a TOOL to raise awareness and money to support a cause rather than be the main approach to problem.

Twitter, unlike many other social medias, is a better news source than place of discussion although it can be used as one. Twitter only allows for short “180 character” messages, which does not really allow room for more than an opinion and a few general supporting sentences, and there is no comments section for people to have full length discussions on. Twitter instead is better suited for short, accurate, live updates on a situation or for links that have more in depth info on the matter at hand. Sites like Tumblr, Instagram, and Facebook all have areas where people can have full on debates or conversations about something without it getting annoying to others. So Twitter is like the sound byte you see on the news for 20 seconds, and other social medias are the full articles you find online the next day.

Bullying

Yik Yak can be used as a platform for harassment by teenagers. Its anonymous quality gives people boldness to post what they truly think even though it may be vulgar or inappropriate, which makes it perfect to launch attacks on a person or group. Yik Yak is only able to be seen by people in a couple mile radius around you, but this acts as a double edged sword. Being held to a couple mile expanse controls the extent and popularity that harassment can go to, but everyone in that area, literally anyone who has the app-friend or not, can see it which can be just as bad. Yik Yak also presents a different social media platform with its anonymity, feed, and location sensitivity that is entirely unique and something danah has not seen. She mentioned that she had some experience and knowledge about Formspring-a site that allowed people to ask questions anonymously- but the person receiving the questions chose whether the questions were posted to the public or not. So even though people could be harassed online via Formspring it was a rare case that it spread publically, but with Yik Yak the person being harassed does not have a choice whether it is public or not. Yik Yak is an new and unprecedented platform of social media with great potential as the new social media app but also as a way for abuse and public shaming to happen.

Dangers(?) of Social Media

danah argues in chapter four that the hype and attention focused on the dangers of the internet, while very real, were over exaggerated. She says the we experienced a moral panic over the possible dangers of the internet as the resulting social media- much like the parents of kids when comic books came out or when Elvis became popular. The media played on the fears of parents and started publishing the stories of kids being kidnapped or sexually assaulted, and though few in number and relatively rare, they garnered the attention of the whole nation. Social media was focused on next as the new way for kids to be in danger online by the media and stories about it  were blown out of proportion too despite research showing that this was not the case. Ad campaigns took statistics done by respectable research companies out of context to feed the fears of parents over their kids being on the internet. It was proven on two separate occasions years apart by the same researchers that 75% of teens experienced some type of sexually based experience online (which including FLIRTING), but only roughly 10% escalated into an offline encounter and even less resulted in sexual abuse or kidnapping. Based off this I agree with danah’s argument that there are real dangers online, but they have been over exaggerated and  misreported due to fear.
The guide to Snapchat article got everything right in my eyes. The author did not try to say what us teens used it for and openly admitted that there was a generational gap, which earned my respect for him. He covered all the main points of Snapchat, although his coverage of the discover portion was a little too overemphasized to me since many of my friends and myself only use it occasionally now. As for what I use Snapchat for is to record funny or interesting things going on during my day for my snapstory-”I have to put this on my story” is a very common phrase. I also use it to pass the time and snap my friends, and I also use it to keep in contact with my old high school friends by sending them a quick snap to show I haven’t forgotten them or to watch their story to see what they’re up to. Snapchat is a very unique, versatile, and fun social media platform since it incorporates the notion of self destructing pictures ranging from 1 to 10 seconds from person to person and 24 hours for everyone to see, private chats and pictures, live face to face videos, and even money in the form of snapcash, which covers basically everything a teen looks for in a social media platform.

Privacy

To me private messages/DM’s/ and other forms of other personal messages are what I consider private on social media. I can control who sees what and what appears on my profiles via privacy settings, but I do realize that anything I post can get out to other people so I don’t post anything that could harm me in the long run since this information is truly private. In saying this I agree with danah’s statement that us teenagers post with the assumption that it will be public and so we keep private info confined to messages or other forms of communication not related to social media. Privacy does change for me depending on the site I’m using. For example on Twitter and Facebook I watch what I post more carefully since there is a potential for many people to be able to view what I say, but on sites such as Instagram and especially Tumblr I have more control over who sees my posts so I feel as if they are more “private” and I have more freedom to post what I like. Regarding Facebook’s mood manipulation study, I have no qualms with it. It IS their site that we are using and we probably agreed to be subjected to studies somewhere in the terms and agreements that none of us read. The study they conducted seems harmless enough and actually provides some interesting information on the human psyche, and honestly if someone’s mood is actually affected that greatly by seeing some sad advertisements to the point where they become sad or depressed then that is their problem, not Facebook’s. I believe that the study was beneficial and should not be considered an invasion of privacy.

Social Media Addiction

There are several signs that someone is addicted to social media in my opinion. Like danah mentioned in this previous chapter when social media begins to take priority over activities such as homework, learning, and overall health is when is starts to become an addiction. Learning to balance social media is a must. It is ok to have spend a little too much time on social media, like a good number of us teens do, but if it gets to the point where the scale begins to tip dramatically in social media’s direction that is where the problem starts. When someone spends all their free time in between classes or activities mindlessly scrolling through different social media platforms instead of checking them every once in awhile while doing something productive is when I think social media becomes “a lot” of social media.Social media is good for passing the time while riding the bus or chatting up friends at night, but spending all day with your face glued to the screen is a little much. Im sure many of my peers and myself included have had those points where we just keep refreshing our Twitter feed, Snapchat stories, or Yaks endlessly just to keep our mind occupied from real world problems, but when this form of social media-ing becomes a habit is when it becomes an addiction.

We teenagers have short attention spans and love to be entertained. Vine covers that criteria very nicely with its 6 second videos which have to be either outrageous or downright hilarious in order to get views and revines, and trust me there is a lot more you can fit into 6 seconds that thought possible. The shortness of the videos also sucks people into spending hours on Vine. I mean the videos are only 1/10 of a minute long so why not watch another one, and another, and another one until it’s 1am in the morning and you’re wondering what your doing with your life. Vine basically found the secret recipe to suck teenagers in. Youtube is also another site which uses videos as its main form of entertainment, but it has many differences from Vine. The sheer amount of content and the easy use of the search function to find what you want is what I believe gives Youtube its appeal. I can learn calculus from watching a series of videos to spend an ungodly amount of time watching fails all on Youtube. If it makes sense I would say Youtube is like the Google of videos in the sense that you can use google to find information about anything and Youtube can be used to find any video you want about pretty much anything.

For my research project I want to focus on Twitter. Specifically what makes a picture or video go viral. What is the tipping point? To gather data I would monitor what goes viral on twitter, and try to find its origins so as to trace its spread throughout the virtual world. Also as I gather data on more and more virals hopefully I will start to see a correlation between the content and what made it viral material. Is it because it's funny? Cute? Ironic? Maybe it offers a new perspective? I have always wondered why some things went viral while other that had just as much potential did not. By doing this research project I want to be able to answer my own question with facts and details that I uncovered myself and truly learn what makes viral videos and pictures “tick”.

Online Identity

danah boyd’s first few sections of her book were actually quite informative and caused me to do some critical thinking and re examine some of my past experiences on social media. One of the early topics she discussed during her introduction was that after talking to some modern day teens danah realized that nothing much had changed from high school back in her day: the gossip, peer pressure, group interaction, and the myriad of other intricacies associated with 14-18 year olds was all still around. The only difference was that it had simply switched platforms from front porch stoops, drive in theaters, and malls to social media as the place for teens to congregate and express themselves. I had not thought too much about this trend in teenagers; to me it was simply the thing to be doing-social media has always been there and so I don’t know anything different. As I read further into the introduction I began to see where danah boyd was going and began to draw lines between what teenagers did in the past and what we are doing now, and I came upon the same conclusion as danah that I mentioned earlier: teens will always be teens. My peer group and I used social media basically how danah described it in her book; we use it to connect with friends we already know so that we can talk, gossip, and share about things going on in our lives since we have limited time to do so person to person. I also found the point she brought up about how we teens create online identities which are not really “identities” per se but rather extensions of ourselves into the internet to be fascinating and it caused some in depth analyzation of my own social media “identity”. What I found after looking over my different accounts actually supported most of danah’s claims. I did not create an artificial identity on any of my accounts, but I did select what part of myself I wanted to show on each social media platform. On Facebook it was just pictures of me at events such as prom or on vacations along with the occasional couple month status update- nothing too revealing or serious, just general information about me. Instagram was like Facebook except it was more revealing of the activities I did, people I hung out with, and places I went on a more frequent basis. Finally Snapchat was just full on me since I can post anything I want on there without fearing the repercussions too much since I feel as if I have the most control over who sees what I do on it. So I noticed a correlation between the level of freedom and self expression as I moved from social medias that I did not have as much control over to ones that I did have control over, which I believe supports some of what danah was trying to get across.

The topic of collapses also interested me during my readings. I personally have never had to deal with one since I keep most of my social medias separate, and I do not use Facebook that often which seems to be the main culprit behind many of these collapses due to the immense interconnectivity that it provides, but the situations that arose because of identity construction on social medias piqued my interest as it never occurred to me that those situations could arise so easily. Regarding the issues and collapses that could occur as identity construction intersects with Instagram and Pinterest I believe that there really should not be that many problems. For one the article gave me the most info on Pinterest I have received other than knowing it was a site to post stuff you liked and wanted to buy. Judging from my previous information on Pinterest and the info supplied by the article I do not see how identity construction plays a role on this site, although it could be possible I just simply don’t have enough experience on the platform to form a solid opinion. Instagram on the other hand I do see as possibly bringing up some issues with identity construction since it is the most used social media and most of the users are teens, my peers. But just like I stated in this blog post and my previous one it is not that hard to keep your Instagram account from being viewed by anyone that you don’t want to. There is a simple privacy setting, it is easy to untag yourself, and Instagram is usually reserved for more “classy” edited pictures not ones that can jeopardize a future career or school opportunity. In fact many of my friends have two instagram accounts: a “real” one and a “secret” one. The real one is used for public viewing and generally does not contain any scandalous pictures or the like, and the secret one is where they are on private and only friends with people they are close to and so they are able to post more freely. By doing so, even though it requires a little more management, having two accounts allows my peers to enjoy Instagram to its fullest without having to worry about putting the wrong “image” out there.

Introduction and Social Media in the Teen World

         Social media has rapidly become an everyday part of many of my generation's lives, and I have been able to witness its effects on my peers and myself firsthand from a teenager's perspective. My name is Oleg W. Collins, or OC for short, and I have been a Myspacer, Facebooker, Tweeter, Tumbr, Instragrammer, Snapchatter, and a Yaker (plus many more) throughout my pre-teen and teenage years. Now I am a freshman in college- the prime age group from whom many corporations and studies collect their marketing data that represents the entire teen-age group as a whole- and so now I am old and experienced enough social media wise that I can truly study social media's impact on the teen world and compare what I learn with my own experiences.

    In the first article Andrew brought up many points about different social media sites that I agreed with and found similar to my own experiences along with some that I didn't. For example his take on Facebook pretty much "hit the nail on the head" in that most people my age do not really use Facebook that often but cannot just simply delete it. His comparison of Facebook to an awkward family dinner party that we can not leave holds true, but Facebook still has some practical uses- some of which Andrew stated and some that I can add. First off Facebook does keep us connected with the family members that we may not be able to see so often, but it does restrict us to the content we can post and the opinions we can voice without our family chiming in or contributing their own two cents. Facebook makes it easier to find people you met at this party, that event, or during that vacation that you did not get their number on but remembered their name and wanted to stay in touch. Similarly Facebook provides a lifeline of communication between old friends or classmates should you want to check up or get together with them some years in the future since phone numbers and addresses may change but Facebook pages don't. In my own opinion these last two reasons are the main cause that I along with most of my friends continue to use facebook despite its decrease in popularity with teens.

    Regarding Andrew’s other descriptions of the major social networks I agree with them for the most part except for two: Medium and Twitter. Medium because I had no clue what it was before I read this article (blogging is not my favorite type of social media activity so go figure), and Twitter because I just don't find his review on it that accurate. I will admit that Twitter is not as popular as it once was since it is almost a decade old (I know right?), but Andrew’s opinion that twitter is “pointless” or that most people who log on to it only use it to complain/express themselves does not match up with what I and many of my peers use the app for. Mostly I use twitter as a source of comedy and news with no intentions of my future boss or job looking at my tweets. I believe Twitter is meant for funny GIFs, vines, hilarious pictures, twitter beef, and news since it is guaranteed that as soon as any major event occurs I will be informed about what happened instantly via Twitter; Twitter is more for entertainment, a way to pass the time. As for the point of bosses or other professional persons looking at my tweets, my friends and myself included don’t use our real names as our @ names so it would be difficult to find us using Twitter’s search function and even so the option to be a private account is always there, and so I see Andrew’s point to be well pointless. One last comment I have to add about this article is in regards to Andrew’s description of Kik and I might as well include its partner in crime Tinder. We all know what Kik and Tinder are for, and I won’t go into detail about their uses, but trust me. We all know what those apps are used for.

    Just as I did in Andrew’s article I also found several points in Miss Boyd’s article that I agreed with and some that we were way off. Her analysis that Andrew did not mention Twitter as a great source of news and activism matches up with what I said earlier in this post, but her other comments about the social media app threw me off. She commented that she doubted Andrew tried to make an “explicitly racist comment” about Tweeters’ use of the app as a form of complaining/self expression, which in my first and subsequent rereads of Andrew’s article did not seem racist to me at all; in fact that thought never even crossed my mind. Twitter is like a stream of consciousness-I tweet what's on my mind and others do the same, and if I see something I don’t like in my community or in the world you best believe I will send a tweet complaining about it. Most of everyone does the same thing, we are all one big Twitter fam, and the fact that Miss Boyd brought up demographics, which I admit can be useful in analyzing social media use, I just don't see the point she was trying to make. She did however bring up some different perspectives that I personally had not thought of such as the rural use of Facebook and immigrants use of Whatsapp. I have been abroad and found Whatsapp an excellent way to stay in touch while overseas or when back home, but I never thought about a reverse situation where an immigrant teen would use Whatsapp to communicate with family not in America. However thinking this through more I don't see why teenage immigrants would not be able to create a Facebook to communicate with people in foreign countries since if they can communicate via Whatsapp surely they could use Facebook to do the same and have a better experience. Danah Boyd also brought up  that it is dangerous for tech companies to get the majority of their information about my generation from Andrew’s and my peer group, and I could understand that, but also our peer group represents teenagers with the greatest opportunity to use every platform of social media and stay on top of what is “current” and or “hip” with our generation so it makes sense for companies to rely on my peer group for their marketing and product information.