Social Media Mind Trap

Do you ever sit back and wonder how social media platforms became a place of hostility and negativity at times? I ask this because I feel this way. Like Wang has stated in her article “Former Facebook VP Says Social Media is Destroying Society with Dopamine-Driven Feedback Loops” that “it literally is a point now where I think we have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works…[and] the feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society works; no civil discourse, no cooperation, misinformation, mistruth” (Wang). There are some posts that I see on my Facebook timeline that are the cutest and funniest things but what ruins my experience is the negativity of some who are scolding or criticizing the video and or person in it. I’ve always wondered if Facebook and other sites would just post comments from people that incite positivity and not negativity through a structured algorithm. It is crazy to think that people who have once worked for companies like Facebook are realizing and feeling guilty about the way social networking has greatly expanded over the years. Though these people like the former Facebook VP, Palihapitiya, felt this way, they didn’t know that it would cause a negative impact on the way people are communicating with each other. Palihapitiya does encourage students like myself and younger ones to take a break from social media. But, I do not think he realizes how hard his suggestion really is for young people growing up with technology.

“Social media is more of a concern for females than males.”

Referring back to my blog on letting go of the Instagram app it was such a hard task for me to do. Social media means so much to some people and they just cannot simply let go of it. To some young people telling them to try and take a break from social media is like talking through one ear and out the other. From my research on social media that I am writing for my thesis class, there are studies that show female middle school girls are more on social media than their male peers (Martin, et al 2018). Social media is more of a concern for females than males. Females are scrolling through their feeds and highly becoming affected by societies pressure on being perfect for social media. The feeling of getting likes and comments on social media posts are so rewarding and when we don’t get the amount of attention and likes we want it automatically disappoints some people.

There was another article that I highly recommend you read called “Social Media is Keeping Us Stuck in the Moment” by Clive Thompson. This piece of writing made me think about a time where there were no refresh buttons on phones and all we had was a newspaper and orange juice in the morning while the news on the TV played in the background. Thompson briefly talked about how information like news spread starting with the Roman culture and the papyrus, moving down to the printing press that Gutenberg created, to finally the daily news. It feels as though throughout the centuries people have been wanting stories that were frequently new in which now with fast-speed technology it is obtained as soon as you refresh the social media page. Thompson calls this the “reverse chronology”. When you see a post on one of your social media feeds that are from up to a second it is “truly a mind trap…sucking us into the day-to-day drama of whatever’s blowing up online right now” (Thompson). This article talks about the problem of having new posts and or news that scrolls across our screen but ten minutes later you see something else and totally forget about what you have just read. You cannot really remember the history of posts you once shared with the world. Thompson brings up a good idea on how there should be a social media that shouldn’t just bring up the instant on the timeline. A few posts from a while back ago will most definitely send me down memory lane, not the present.

Here is my advice to you if you are young like me and stay on social media every day. Ask yourself why you are on the platform you are on. Does this app or platform make you happy when you post or scroll for an extended amount of time? Also, think about how the social media platform you are on whether it be Instagram, Facebook, etc. keeps you drawn in while scrolling through your phone. Did you ever notice if you existed a social media app for just a quick minute and when you click back on it, it refreshed itself? Yeah, I get annoyed too. But, that’s one smart social media company to keep you scrolling!

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References:

Martin, Florence, Chuang Wang, Teresa Petty, Weichao Wang and Patti Wilkins. 2018. “Middle School Students’ Social Media Use.” Journal of Educational Technology & Society, 21:213-224

Thompson, C. (2017, November 15). Social media is keeping us stuck in the moment. This Magazine.

Wang, A. B. (2017, December 12). Former facebook VP says social media is destroying society with ‘dopamine-driven feedback loops’. Washington Post.

https://naturallybrianna3.wordpress.com/2018/10/07/my-dreaded-social-media-detox-week/

 

Deep Work, Sociology & Media

Do you ever text or call someone and they decide not to reach you back for a few hours? It is very annoying at times especially when it is important and you want to talk. If you are busy I’d want you to tell me you are and will get back to me when finished with a task. That’s the least you can do and it causes me to respect you even more, at least what Newport explains in his chapter of Work Deeply. Newport mentions a philosophy of deep work that he called bimodal philosophy. It may sound like a complicated philosophy but it is pretty simple to understand. Newport states that bimodal philosophy is when “you divide your time, dedicating some clearly defined stretches to deep pursuits and leaving the rest open to everything else” (Newport 108). During this time, you are concentrating on what needs to get done and nothing else. Along with this philosophy, you can let people know you are going to be busy by sending out an email, text and or telling others you will not be available during a specific amount of time. This seems so simple to do but for myself, I would have to practice a lot and also leave my phone in another location and concentrate on the task at hand.

My younger, juvenile self used to think that a teacher telling me to study for a test every day was absurd and low-key a waste of my time. As I got older I understood the value of studying every day. Newport would call this the rhythmic philosophy. Doing something in a regular habit can help me with deep work which I try to keep doing. Being consistent is what I need to start doing more often because I realize I fail in that department at times. As much as I check my phone every morning I could at least study routinely every day on a subject matter.

“It feels like I may have missed something important in the world.”

If you didn’t know already my major in undergrad is Sociology with a minor in media studies. Interesting how I want to further my education in Media and not master in Sociology which I just got awarded Sociology Honors. Media has always been an interest of mine and the help of a sociological background makes it much interesting to integrate that knowledge into the media field. The definition of Sociology from my point of view is the understanding of how humans interact together, how they behave, the social structure of society, and overall social issues and problems. I was reading an article called “A Sociology of the Smartphone” by Adam Greenfield that talked about smartphones and how they are affecting our everyday lives and social dynamics around the smartphone. This article starts out by stating the obvious in terms of “they [smartphones] are the last thing we look at before sleep each night, and the first thing we reach for upon waking” (Greenfield 2). Sometimes I imagine myself placed in my younger self when I didn’t have to wake up to my phone every morning. I emphasize “have” because I simply do not have to wake up to my phone but it is a behavior and habit that I simply do not have much self-control over. The temptation of wanting to pull the “slot machine” and seeing what’s new is always lurking in the back of my mind especially when I first get up. It feels like I may have missed something important in the world.

I wonder if anyone else is anxious, nervous or scared of what the future of technology holds. Greenfield writes about how the watch, clock, calendars, and other materialistic items are going extinct as well as “tickets, farecards, boarding passes…as are keys and badges…to gain entry to restricted spaces” (Greenfield 5). These materials that used to be materialistic are moving to one device. How much trust can one hold with all of this information? What if you lose your phone, get hacked, delete something that you didn’t mean to delete? These questions pose a social problem or issues for the future in my opinion. There was a time I was going home for a week vacation from Connecticut to Boston, MA in which I had to purchase a ticket for the train back in sophomore year of college. To my surprise, they just introduced something called the E-ticket that stood for “electronic ticket”. This lets you get on the train without worrying about losing a paper copy. Because I am always cautious I printed out a paper copy just in case. As you can probably tell, I never truly 100% trust technology. I could have downloaded a copy of Newport’s book on Kindle or iBook, but I’ll stick with the physical copy instead. What truly freaks me out is how data and location services track me everywhere I go, especially Wendy’s. How do I know this? Well, because when I finish ordering and scroll through my social media while waiting for my food I see the ad for Wendy’s. I just have to remind myself to be aware of keeping location services on but then again, I use it so if God forbid something were to happen to me my family would know my last location.

Smartphone technology can be beneficial in many ways and also have its downsides to it. It is up to yourself to control how much you are using it and when the right time to use it.

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References:

Greenfield, A. (2017, June 13). Longreads. A sociology of the smartphone. WordPress

Lewis, P. (2017, October 6). ‘Our minds can be hijacked’: The tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia. The Guardian

Newport, C. (2016). Work deeply. Deep work: Rules for focused success in a distracted world (pp. 95-154). New York: Grand Central.

 

 

Getting Organized

Taken from Brianna’s Trello Account

So, you are telling me that all of my college life I could have used a project management app to organize my life, projects, homework and more? Most of the applications and tools I use for my introductory graduate course are very helpful to me in organizing and so much more. The application I am referring to this time is a tool called Trello. Trello is a very helpful tool that helps me organize my homework for my graduate course and I am happy that my professor introduced me to the tool.

Throughout my college career, I never had anything to help me organize what I had to do whether it includes homework or projects. It was always my Stickies app on my Mac computer that came up every time I had to do an assignment. That was my organizational tool. My Stickies app allowed me to write my homework down when I was in a rush so I could remember what to do for assignments when I got home. At times I wouldn’t remember what to do because I wouldn’t write my homework down prompting me to go to my Blackboard syllabus to download the unnecessary file yet again. Though I can see what I had to do on my Stickies app it didn’t allow me to mark off assignments and tasks that I had done already, plan for next assignments and etc. The Trello tool helped me do this.

I obviously had no boundaries of my priorities when it came to getting work done.

There was a YouTube video that my professor let us view on her course section about Project Management on “How to Work Smarter Not Harder”. It was interesting to see the woman in the video describe how to work smarter which she included a list on how to do this that dwindled down to abilities, boundaries, calendar, and etc. To be honest, sometimes I take on tasks that people ask of me and it is sometimes impossible to get some work done that I had initially. For example, this past weekend I had two of my friends come to me and ask me to do a photo shoot session with them on both Saturday and Sunday. Mind you, I had so much work to do including my thesis homework that is taking the life out of me some days. My eager, don’t know how to say “no” self took on the task of doing two photo shoots this weekend knowing I had lots of homework to complete. I obviously had no boundaries of my priorities when it came to getting work done. But, my friend told me the best thing to do was take his photo shoots on campus instead of New Haven which lifted a small burden off myself. I really need to work smarter and not harder in some aspects of working and completing important tasks. Working with the tool Trello is taking me steps closer to reaching my goals in becoming organized with my tasks and plans.

As I explained Trello above on what it is I thought it was a cool and productive Project Management tool overall. This tool will also give me notifications when I have a project that is due. While putting in my tasks for the week coming up I felt like I was doing something right, finally. What I mean by as in something right is that I felt like I could really be using this tool to help me track and keep up with my tasks for the week and cross off what I had done already which I never did before. I can also use this tool for my other classes as well. The tool was very easy for me to use and I can go back and edit something if need be. Putting in everything for my tasks for the upcoming module is like a stress reliever for me as well. Do you ever have a big task and or project and think about all of the things you have to do within that one project? Yea, Trello definitely relieves some of the stress of thinking about how much I have to get done and what I have to get done.

For this Project Management tool, I decided to make different boards for the tasks I had to do because it was easier to look at one board and see what I was doing. Some people may do 1 board and have their different tasks set up but clutter doesn’t really work for me on a single webpage setup. As you can tell, I really like this project Management tool and may decide to use it for more personal reasons as well. The absolutely great thing I just found out was Trello has an app on the App Store! Organizing on this app will make my life so much easier. Thank goodness this tool was introduced to me! If you were ever thinking of finding a tool to help you organize your plans and projects I would consider Trello.

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References:

projectmanagervideos. “How to Work Smarter Not Harder.” YouTube, YouTube, 29 July 2013

My Dreaded Social Media Detox Week

Wow. I knew that social media can be an addiction to a lot of people but I must say, after “trying” to detox from just Instagram I found that I am one of those addicted social media people. What I found interesting in the reading “Have Smartphones Destroyed A Generation?” Twenge talks about the iGen generation who were “born between 1995 and 2012…[who are] growing up with smartphones, have an Instagram account before they start high school, and do not remember a time before the internet” (Twenge). Though I was born in 1997 I do remember the time before the internet and it was great. The times spent outside were the best part of growing up and I couldn’t wait to play outside with the neighborhood kids around the corner and up the street. Twenge states that “the arrival of the smartphone has radically changed every aspect of teenagers’ lives, from the nature of their social interactions to their mental health” (Twenge) whereas this data does not discriminate across racial/ethnic and economic background. I believe this information needs to be looked at more. Many young kids and young adults have issues interacting and communicating with others face-to-face and self-esteem issues are at an all-time high. I can say for myself that I did deal with some self-esteem issues when I was younger and active on social media. I didn’t have the average smile like others did where I wish I had braces to close my missing teeth and big gap but I always stayed positive and began to embrace my differences as I got older. Depression and suicide have risen a lot since 2011 and phones are one of the reasons why. Sometimes I wish we, avid social media users, didn’t really get drawn into our phones the way we do and how much power it holds. Trying to collect my data for my Instagram detox, I am literally addicted to my social media device where I will get to later on in my blog.

I noticed that sometimes I cannot study correctly and efficiently when my phone is around me at times.

I’ve always wanted to raise a lot of kids, my own plus adopted. Twenge touched on how “parenting styles continue to change, as do school curricula and culture” (Twenge) and deep down inside I do not want it to change but I see it changing now in society beginning with millennials and how they are raising up their own children. My cousin will just give an iPad to her daughter and she will be buried in the device for god knows how long. Usually, when I babysit I take her out to the park, swimming, and other outdoor fun activities so she can get to touch the soil and connect to nature a bit more. I do not want my own children to be sunk into a device that will ultimately disrupt their learning abilities and self-esteem but the way technology is fast-paced and has its never-ending ideas I know it will cause some sort of damage. While reading this particular article I wrote in the margins that I will not be that addicted to my Instagram page but I failed the possible task of staying off of the site for five days.

My Instagram Detox

 During my Instagram detox phase, I experienced something LaMotte called Nomophobia where he wrote the article “Smartphone Addiction Could Be Changing Your Brain“. Nomophobia is “a 21st-century term for the fear of not being able to use your cell phone or other smart device” (LaMotte). While taking the test that LaMotte suggested I scored a whopping 124 points! This means that I get severe anxiety when I am not around my phone. I noticed that sometimes I cannot study correctly and efficiently when my phone is around me at times. I should really try to listen to Cal Newport and maybe ditch the phone to the side when I am trying to study and do my work.

Over the period of 5 days, I decided to let go of the infamous app, Instagram. I decided to give this one up because I look at it way too often and it is coming to a point where it’s interfering with my completion of some of my homework. Sunday was the initial start of my social media detox but I gave in and kept scrolling through my Instagram feed so I decided to start on Monday instead. During Sunday night I got a bit upset that I couldn’t be on my favorite social media site for five days but I sucked it up and put the phone down at midnight.

Made on Canva.com

In the infographic, you can see in the section called “Wow” that I spent a lot of hours on my phone during the day which is usually how much time I spend on my phone on a non-detox week. But, looking at that graph I can tell that I do waste a lot of time on my phone when I could be doing something more productive. Onto the dreaded section and embarrassing section of them all, “Oh No”, I cracked and looked at my Instagram numerous times almost every day of my detox week. This was hard for me to stay off of Instagram because I am a Vice-President of an organization on this campus and I am connected to the Instagram social media page. When I get a notification I instantly look at it and see who is commenting on the post and or messaging the organization. Another reason is that I posted a story the night before and I wanted to see who was watching it. Both Wednesday and Thursday I felt really good that I only checked the social media platform once and twice. To be honest I really didn’t care for the app that much and it lifted my shoulders a bit that I didn’t have to think about checking it. And then came Friday. That’s the day I really didn’t care, and I should have. On Friday’s I am usually checking my social media pages and checking up on what people are doing and it’s a bad habit. It is the end of the week and I have nothing better to do and on top of that, I have no classes on Fridays. Not checking Instagram drained my social life. The last section of this infographic depicts what I call my withdrawal periods. There were times that I picked up my phone a lot because I thought of going onto the Instagram app and at some points I did. I usually went on some apps like Facebook, Snapchat or dating apps to fill the void of not being able to click the Instagram app. Don’t get me wrong, even though the highest number of clicks on this detox was 7 on Friday this number is usually doubled or tripled on a non-detox week. I think I did pretty well for the detox but I could have done better. I failed the detox and this shows that I am really addicted to Instagram. I need to learn how to control this habit and distance myself at times from the app and take a hike. It is taking over my life at times.

This image shows a little diary I kept while trying to do the detox. I used the Notes app on Mac.

The recent chapter by Cal Newport “Deep Work is Meaningful” he talks about going into depth with your work more than being shallow which will benefit you in the end. This chapter for me reminded me that choosing what to focus on and or choosing what to ignore does play in how we define the quality of our lives. We cannot let simple things like Instagram and other social media platforms control our lives, we have to control the social media we intake for ourselves and well-being. I think I need to really ditch my phone when completing important work because like Newport said, our minds like going deep and I want to be more successful in my personal life and professional life.

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References:

LaMotte, S. (2017, December 1). Smartphone addiction could be changing your brain. CNN.

Newport, C. (2016). Deep work is meaningful. Deep work: Rules for focused success in a distracted world (pp. 72-92). New York: Grand Central.

Twenge, J. M. (2017, September). Have smartphones destroyed a generation?