Final Remarks

Commonly, people view the internet and social media as platforms that take some amount of our humanity away from us. They give us a reason to not talk face-to-face, they encourage us to judge others harshly on an insubstantial basis of information, and they allow us to hide behind a fabricated image of our own design. Some of the most vile acts of unwarranted contempt and derision can come from otherwise kind people given the anonymity and distance social media provides. Take for example Lindsey West’s story. She is a columnist who wrote an article opposing rape jokes. The internet did not take well to that. While most creeps used their comedic genius to point out something along the lines of, “she’s just mad because she’s too fat to get raped,” one individual took it the next level by making a fake twitter account for her recently deceased father. He then used it to send her horrible messages from her “father” about how ashamed and disgusted he was of her.

Lindsey West

 My blogs specifically discuss the impact of social media on our generation’s quality of civic engagement, so Lindsey West’s experiences might not seem overly pertinent to this discussion. However, if there is one idea I want to convey in this final blog, it is that social media has erased the line separating civic engagement from day-today social interactions. The environment in which we discuss our politics, values, and ideals is now the exact same as the one in which we chat freely, share our opinions, and comment on each others’ lives. For this reason, the atmosphere surrounding our socialization affects our civic dialogues. For Lindsey West, this means that if you want to start a conversation about women’s rights, sexual assault, or gender relations online, you must be prepared for a barrage of intentionally offensive, repugnant remarks simply because those obnoxious individuals can dominate comment sections. This volatile atmosphere additionally applies for discussions about party alignment, economics, race, religion, foreign affairs, and so on. These loud minorities can exert a stranglehold on the throat of a civic dialogue by making the silent observers feel afraid of receiving ridicule or having their opinion drowned out by all the noise.

Courtesy of Humans of New York

For any useful conversation to occur online, a certain environment must exist that allows people to freely and honestly express their opinions. In my search of the entire internet for such a place, I have only found one site that meets those criteria. That place is a Facebook page called “Humans of New York.” The photographer, Brandon Stanton started the page by stopping New Yorkers on the street and taking their picture. He then began including captions about their lives and insights that added tremendous depth to his work. The true power comes from the subjects themselves. With his photographs, drug abuse, poverty, and inequality wear human faces. The issues are no longer meaningless abstractions or statistics. Because of this added human element, the conversations the photographs initiate take on a vastly different tone. Just read some comments from a post dealing with the controversial theme of police brutality, and you will find a much more enlightened discussion taking place there than anywhere else on the internet.

Refaii Hamo and family, courtesy of Humans of New York

One of Brandon’s best series of portraits came out of Syria. He travelled abroad to cover the refugee crisis, another topic of contention in American culture, and uncovered some incredible stories. Refaai Hamo, a Syrian inventor and scientist, lost his wife and daughter after a missile hit his house. He says, “Nobody was around to help, so my son had to carry the pieces of his mother and sister out of the house. He was fourteen at the time. He was so smart. He was the top of his class. He's not the same.” After sharing the story, Mr. Hamo and his family were able to find a home in Michigan, and President Obama invited him to the State of the Union Address. More importantly, the outpouring of love and empathy in the comments of each story spoke louder than any political debate on the subject I have ever heard.

Social media has tremendous potential in its ability to put faces to otherwise impersonal issues. On the internet, you can easily have a conversation with someone you would never otherwise interact with in real life. A connection to the internet is a connection to every single one of the 3.35 billion people on this planet who are also plugged in. News no longer has to come from the mouth of a smartly dressed man or woman on a television screen. Information flows among us as fast as the light that carries it. No borders. No barriers. Just people. We are all humans, and we all have stories to tell. When we listen, read, and observe, we come a little closer to truly understanding each other. Is that not the ultimate goal of our species?         

Virtual Humanity

Tragic acts of terror continue to anger and confuse the world as this spinning ball of love, hate, and 70% water peacefully drifts through space. I’m supposed to somehow transition from that statement into my blog topic with something like, “all this has really got me thinking about social media,” without sounding like an asinine, tactless, first-world asshole, but, as you now know, I couldn’t figure out how. Reading people’s online reactions to such events just always feels a little strange to me. It seems like just saying something has become more important than saying something sincere. While doing a little research before figuring out exactly what to discuss in this blog, I read several articles written by marketing managers describing the best tweets a brand should make following such a tragedy. I’m not accusing certain companies of using these kinds of things to their advantage, but it just unsettles me thinking that an important thought to have after scores of people get slaughtered is, “what should I tweet?” 

We all remember responding to the Paris attacks just a few short months ago, writing lengthy posts about love and compassion, offering our opinions on politics and Islam, and changing our profile pictures to show solidarity with France. I didn’t really take part in any of that, and I’m in no way saying doing one thing or the other is wrong or right, I just always feel too confused and stupefied to share anything at all. It seems like every week dozens of innocent lives end suddenly at the hands of some ideological organization. Iraq. Pakistan. Ivory Coast. California. Brussels. All so recent. I don't know if any of you relate to this statement, but sometimes, I just don’t know how to feel. What should I feel? What should I do? I don’t want to say something just because it will make me feel better and help me get on with my life, but I also don’t want to remain silent and feel powerless as horror engulfs our world. As a result, a kind of paralysis sets in, and I observe stoically as body counts rise, fingers are pointed, condolences are offered, and the world awaits its next massacre. None of it makes the least bit of sense. We all carry this knowledge of the immense suffering and cruelty in society, and I, for one, don’t really know how to handle it.  

Art by Banksy

I apologize if that was bleak; I’ve just never shared my feelings around that subject before, and I’m very interested to hear how you all feel as well. 

Now to change tone a bit with a topic that relates to the general idea of what I wrote above. I will discuss recent findings about social media and empathy. A startling study from the University of Michigan in 2010 found that in the thirty years from 1979 to 2009, empathic characteristics of college-aged students dropped by over 30%. The researchers drew no definitive conclusions about the cause of the decline, but speculated that the rise in personal technology use damages interpersonal dynamics. A 2015 study from California State University specifically analyzed the effects of various types of online behavior on empathy. It concluded that going online had an extremely small negative impact on real-world empathy, and, actually correlated with increased face-to-face interaction. One interesting detail, however, notes that for both males and females, subjects scored higher on real-world empathy tests than virtual empathy tests, meaning people feel less compelled to be compassionate online.

Since social media holds such a crucial rule in our generation’s civic engagement, the mentality of online interactions can deeply affect which causes we fight for and which we ignore. For example, strong online empathy manifests itself in the widespread support behind LGBTQ rights. As people gain more and more friends, especially in the less discriminatory manner social media offers than real life, they gain new perspectives into people’s lives. Individuals who may not interact frequently with members of the LGBTQ community might be exposed to their lives online and acquire a new understanding and a deeper compassion.

To interject my own opinion, I think the internet and social media sites have rapidly increased the global information intake we absorb each day. This incredible awareness can overstimulate us, leading to apathy and disconnectedness, but it can also help bolster change and create new ways of thinking. We are the sole species on Earth with an adroit control of technology. When you think about it, technology is really what makes us human. So let’s do what we do best and use our wonderful technological capabilities to further our own humanity. 

2016 Election: Case Study

This 2016 Presidential Election serves as the most fascinating and salient example of social media’s impact on this country in history. You have surely noticed at this point that Donald Trump receives an ungodly amount of television coverage, but you may not appreciate how far-reaching his twitter account has become. Donald Trump has about 7 million followers on twitter, so he’s about half-way to Beyonce’s level! Hillary’s page will also reach an impressive milestone of 6 million followers in the coming weeks. And I certainly won’t forget Bernie Sanders. My Facebook feed constantly contains passionate posts and links to articles supporting his campaign. In fact, my social media accounts expose me to Sanders more than any other candidate, which is certainly a result of my college-aged friend-list. I have mentioned in previous posts to this blogs that social media can act as a hall of mirrors for people with similar opinions, and this property can certainly explain Bernie’s popularity with young voters who use Facebook and Twitter every day.

But just how heavily do the candidates rely on social media to get them dibs on Obama’s digs? According to a recent report from the Social Times, they collectively have spent more than $1,000,000,000.00 on digital media and social media (the advanced reader will note that I included all those zeros for rhetorical effect, and the highly advanced reader will note that reporting that statistic to such a high degree of accuracy is complete BS, but the non-advanced reader will have skipped over this text in parentheses to save time, leaving him or her hopelessly clueless as per usual). You may also have noticed that social media is also putting a good deal of money into politics. YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook have all sponsored televised debates that integrate questions from their users into the flow of the discussion. Snapchat even covers various debates and important political events in their daily stories. Cleary, the 2016 election has taken advantage of social media more than any other year.

Courtesy of Pew

The candidates focus on social media for obvious reasons. According to a study published last month by the Pew Research Center, social media has become the second most prominent source of election information for all Americans, with only cable TV outperforming it. However, when Pew narrowed the scope to the 18-29 year-old demographic, social media placed at the top of the list, 17% above the next source, online news. Tapping into digital and social media is absolutely crucial to winning the millennial vote; traditional approaches simply cannot compete.

Perhaps watching these candidates’ poor efforts of reaching the millennial heart through Twitter has been the most enjoyable part of this otherwise bleak election. Many seeks to seem “cool” above all else. However, as Erin Lindsay, who worked on Obama’s campaign, says in the Social Times article, “Authenticity is a big thing in social media. I think the candidates that are the most successful are the ones that are clearly the most comfortable.” I argue that the candidate that fits this bill most closely is Donald Trump. Look at one of his tweets where he actually isn’t attacking anyone:

You can just tell by the direct correlation between syntactical carelessness and word-count that Donald Trump’s greasy little thumbs really are the perpetrators of this post; I can imagine them furiously squishing away at an iPhone screen on some private jet headed for the Florida primaries. People respond to this level of honesty. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, doesn’t quite mask the fact that she has a crack team of underpaid interns working for her day and night to craft her perfect tweets. Here is Hillary trying to appeal to young voters:

…and here is Hillary appealing to African Americans with references to Hip-Hop group Run-D.M.C., Rosa Parks (with Mrs. Parks tragically seated at the back of the logo), and Kwanzaa:

All courtesy of the New York Times

…   and here is Hillary appealing to hispanics with an article on her campaign page that consequently sparked many tweets from latinos using #notmyabuela:

Regardless of your opinion of these two candidates, who at this point will very likely face-off in the November election, Trump undoubtedly conveys an astronomically higher degree of authenticity with his social media accounts than Clinton. For years, people have called politics a popularity contest, and when candidates today spend $1 billion of campaign funds to amass likes, favorites, and followers, that statement suddenly becomes prophetic. I hope that our generation chooses to value policy over personality despite the current trend to emphasize the latter. All I can do at this point is cross my fingers and hope President Obama uses executive action to deport Trump to Mexico. Revenge is a dish best served garnished with irony.       

Social Media and Bias: The Tables Have Turned

In last week’s blog, I began discussing social media’s impact on our generation’s civic engagement. Essentially, social media possesses some characteristics, such as accessibility and inclusiveness, that help it reach large audiences and spread important information, but its enormous potential for profit through advertising attracts a ton of garbage. Pop culture nonsense disguised as news can outperform real journalism with click bate and misleading headlines. Today, I will discuss bias as it pertains to social media. Unfortunately, this new medium for information exchange actually feeds off the bias of the users themselves.

We can all quickly call to mind some viral Facebook hoax that fooled way too many of our friends. Personal messages from Mark Zuckerberg asking for $2.99 a month for a Facebook subscription may seem like harmless tom-foolery that tricks only the most gullible of internet newbies, but other lies are not so benign. Last November, following the terrorist attacks in Paris, a Spanish newspaper, La Razón, published the image on the left-side of the photo below on their front page after it went viral on the internet. 

On the left, the allegedly muslim man wearing a vest of explosives holds a copy of the Quran while a strangely shaped shampoo bottle sits inconspicuously on the back right edge of the bathtub behind him (it is a shampoo bottle, right? right?!). On the right, we see the original image of a sikh man taking a bathroom selfie with an iPad. Its terrifying to think that thousands of people really did think that this innocent person committed one of the worst atrocities of the twenty-first century. Apparently, they didn’t even pause for a moment to consider the fact that his Quran would need a built-in camera to take the picture in the first place. When it comes to social media, people are prone to believe anything that reflects their own beliefs. Following the attacks, the global population felt anger toward Muslims and desperately wanted a face at which to direct their anger. Had everyone put in five seconds of rational thought while looking at the photo, this entire situation could have been avoided. Clearly social media users observe, form opinions, and pass judgments in a time span well under five seconds.

It turns out that this propensity to believe a conclusion more readily when it agrees with an individual’s prior base of knowledge (or opinions) is very well understood. It is called confirmation bias. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, a professor of business psychology at University College London, wrote an article in the Guardian focusing on confirmation bias online. He argues that since we cannot ever come close to reading all the information the internet has to offer on a certain subject, we choose to instead prioritize information based on how fully we agree with it. If you already know that you hold a certain opinion about politics, economics, or the environment, you are far more likely to read articles that confirm your current understanding because trying to get through the mountain of information that exists opposing your viewpoint is just too intimidating. 

Interestingly, ego may actually act as the single largest cause of confirmation bias on the internet. Ask yourself honestly, do you hold biased viewpoints? Do you really do all you can to attain a balanced base of information? Here’s a good one: are you more biased than the average person? In a study done by researchers at Carnegie Melon University, test subjects responded to that very question. CMU reports, “The most telling finding was that everyone is affected by blind spot bias - only one adult of 661 said that he/she is more biased than the average person.” The blind spot bias affects the person you see in the mirror. Everyone thinks quite highly of his or her own intellectual neutrality and open-mindedness, but, statistically speaking, half of the people in the world have to be more biased than the average person. 

The danger in the move toward obtaining news information by scrolling through Facebook or Twitter lies not in the bias of the articles themselves but in users’ inherent biases in selecting which links to anoint with a tap of their thumbs. Credible news sources must present information in at least a somewhat objective manner to maintain their reputability. Individuals, however, need not abide by the same standard. They can find and read any information they desire, and, as I have discussed, the information they seek more often echoes their beliefs back to them than stimulates critical thinking. Only a deliberate desire to value diverse viewpoints in today’s internet age will prevent our own egos from limiting our minds.   

A New Civic Platform?

Right now, I want you to think about how you obtain information about the world around you. Do you read a physical newspaper? Do watch CNN, MSCNBC, or FOX News on a television? Do you read journals about current events? Here’s a question: how often do you actively seek information about a particular current event or civic issue?

While our generation may go information hunting the “old-school” way every once and a while for particularly important topics, I think we are all taking part in the gradual overthrow of traditional news sources without even realizing it. Who, you ask, is leading this coup d’état? Facebook. Twitter. Reddit. Snapchat. The list goes on. I think we can all can relate to this experience: you are sitting quietly, maybe in the morning after waking up, in between classes, in the middle of a homework assignment, before bed, staring fixedly at your phone, tablet, or computer screen, scrolling mindlessly through Facebook or Twitter, and you see a news story about a meth lab in Texas or a woman who lived to be 110 or a prodigious boy-genius who can count down from infinity to zero. You get halfway through the article and suddenly you realize you don’t care at all about what you’re reading. You exit out, continue scrolling down the newsfeed, and repeat the process again and again. Perhaps for some of us, myself certainly included, this is how you get up to date on the state of the world.

This raises the question, does our behavior control technology, or does technology control our behavior? A study by the American Press Institute provided an interesting insight into this very question. Most people assume that our generation lacks interest in staying up to date on politics and civic affairs, noting that we spend more time on social networking sights than television news or online newspapers. The American Press Institute’s survey sampled 1,045 adults between the ages of 18 and 34 in 2015. It found that 69% of the subjects get news daily through social media, and 45% regularly follow “hard news” topics. This means that a significant portion of the news has deep civic importance. Perhaps most interestingly, the overwhelming majority of people in the survey said that social media gives them access to a diverse array of opinions, creating a balanced viewpoint. This certainly damages the validity of the notion that social media allows people to filter out the ideas they do not like. Perhaps the internet offers more variety in perspective than watching a single news channel or reading one paper. 

Needless to say, it is wrong to view this small piece of research as the definitive analysis of online behavior. Derek Thompson of the Atlantic wrote an interesting response to these findings. He noted that the most viewed stories on Facebook in January 2015 were, “109-Year-Old Woman Gives A Remarkable Reason For Her Long Life,” and, “The Likely Cause of Addiction Has Been Discovered, and It Is Not What You Think.” These types of stories riddle users’ News Feeds, and they certainly don’t count as heavy-weight journalism. Additionally, less than half of Facebook users say news is their main motivation for checking the website throughout the day. Finally, a study done by university professors for PEW throws some doubt on social media’s claimed diversity of opinion. They found that well-off and well-educated people are far more likely to engage in online activities dealing with politics or current events. This is also true for offline engagement. In other words, social media fails to bring any new players to the table, which seems rather disappointing for its revolutionary potential.

These studies seem to present contradictory findings, but, in my opinion, they really don’t. Based on the facts, social media is a place where people claim to find real news but also spend plenty of time reading garbage. It is a place where affluent people come to find diverse opinions but exclude important demographics. To explain the former paradox, I argue that individuals in our generation spend so much time browsing through social media that they can’t escape learning a thing or two about important events, even if they spend most of their time on other topics. News today has a certain osmotic quality. As far as diversity goes, I think people tend to view their social media feed as the embodiment of the outside world without realizing that it only constitutes a small sliver. It just seems like so much when it really is not. Social media certainly has changed the news landscape forever, but whether or not it can affect the civic outlook of an entire generation is anyone’s guess.