Social Media: Its Effects on the Sense of Self

  I chose to do my paper on the analysis of social media and its effects on the sense of self. There are many ways in which social media has intertwined itself to be core to how we view ourselves and I would like to research the ways it has had a positive and a negative impact on our self-perception. I plan to touch upon confidence, and how constantly viewing influencers can create new unattainable beauty standards. Social media also allows users to compare their lives more easily with others, and there is a sense of not feeling as happy or successful as the images of people we see online. I would also like to show the flip side of that, and how having more people access online can make someone feel less lonely and more accepted if they find images they can relate to. 


Comments

  1. TheaSeptember 22, 2020 at 12:14 PM

    I really like this topic and its very prevalent in today's climate. Studies show that for young girls social media makes them more depressed because the amount of comparisons between themselves and Instagram models. You can also talk about algorithms and 'for you' pages that continuously put these images on timelines, and the power of these influencers in regards to what they post which increases self esteem issues. Also, the forceful push of products to help on social media for those who feel insecure physically.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Next New

  I believe with the way our world has changed due to COVID-19, a new type of media would be the digitization of our social spaces. This would mean an increase and widespread use of virtual reality for each person. With online classes or workplace meetings, despite having the ability to talk to each other it falls flat and feels less personable. The missing link is the 3D aspect and less structured aspect of social interaction. For universities offering online classes, there are no "club hours" and coworkers lose their valued chats over the watercooler. With virtual reality, the users can feel more immersed in their interactions with each other, and using these virtual realities to recreate social areas can provide more natural socialization without any possible health risks. It allows users to essentially just "hang out" like they used to without leaving the comfort of their homes. 
Read more

Privacy

       With all of the wealth of knowledge and communication opportunities that new media provides, there is also the endless risk of a lack of privacy and information mining. New media thrives on the production of “everyday” people, and users can be producers even without knowing it.       If you use Facebook or Youtube but never make a post or upload a video, you’re still producing something valuable: data. What you like, what posts you interact with, which videos grab your attention, all of this usage is how you produce valuable information for the developers of new media and the advertising executives who are purchasers of this data. You can make as many attempts to live a private life by not willingly posting about yourself but still have information about yourself not be as confidential as you expected. It has been seen time and time again of the numerous data breaches ranging from social media logins to valuable bank information.  ...
Read more

Advice

     If I were hired by Baruch College, there are several areas in which I would recommend the school to implement new media for improvement. Primarily, there would be a greater push for access to online reading materials. While textbooks are important and have their place in academia, for a vast majority of students the expense of old school textbooks can be a roadblock to success. Baruch is primarily home to students of lower socioeconomic status than other universities and asking students to spend hundreds of dollars on books they won't read again after the completion of one course is tone-deaf. Many students complain about the books they are forced to buy simply for access codes to certain platforms, with the actual learning material coming from other more accessible resources.      I would suggest these courses reevaluate their methods and chose teaching material that is free or affordable and more accessible than expensive textbooks. In certain course...
Read more