Terry Gross. Director Bo Burnham On Growing Up With Anxiety — And An Audience. NPR, July 2018. URL: https://www.npr.org/2018/07/18/630069876/director-bo-burnham-on-growing-up-with-anxiety-and-an-audience (visited on 2023-12-08).
This interview highlights how Bo Burnham connects performance, anxiety, and constant audience awareness in the age of social media. It reinforces the idea that growing up online blurs the line between authentic self-expression and performing for others’ perception.
“If [social media] was just bad, I’d just tell all the kids to throw their phone in the ocean, and it’d be really easy. The problem is it - we are hyper-connected, and we’re lonely. We’re overstimulated, and we’re numb. We’re expressing our self, and we’re objectifying ourselves. So I think it just sort of widens and deepens the experiences of what kids are going through. But in regards to social anxiety, social anxiety - there’s a part of social anxiety I think that feels like you’re a little bit disassociated from yourself. And it’s sort of like you’re in a situation, but you’re also floating above yourself, watching yourself in that situation, judging it. And social media literally is that. You know, it forces kids to not just live their experience but be nostalgic for their experience while they’re living it, watch people watch them, watch people watch them watch them. My sort of impulse is like when the 13 year olds of today grow up to be social scientists, I’ll be very curious to hear what they have to say about it. But until then, it just feels like we just need to gather the data.”
This captures the paradox of social media about how it simultaneously connects and isolates users, amplifying emotional extremes. It’s especially compelling in linking social anxiety to self-surveillance.
Tanya Chen. A 27-Year-Old Composer Has Inspired One Of The Most Epic And Delightful Duet Chains On TikTok. BuzzFeed News, October 2020. URL: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tanyachen/epic-tiktok-chain-musical-fighting-in-a-grocery-store (visited on 2023-12-08).
This article discusses how a 27 year old composer made a viral trend on TikTok. It highlights how individual contributions turned a simple video into a crowd-created performance, which suggest potential for TikTok's potential for creative collaboration.
A meme is a piece of culture that might reproduce in an evolutionary fashion, like a hummable tune that someone hears and starts humming to themselves, perhaps changing it, and then others overhearing next. In this view, any piece of human culture can be considered a meme that is spreading (or failing to spread) according to evolutionary forces. So we can use an evolutionary perspective to consider the spread of:
This part was interesting since it suggested definition of the meme. As a social media user who watches meme every day, I thought meme was a popular image or video that goes viral. This part broaden my aspect of dealing with memes.
Kurt Wagner. Inside Twitter’s ambitious plan to clean up its platform. Vox, March 2019. URL: https://www.vox.com/2019/3/8/18245536/exclusive-twitter-healthy-conversations-dunking-research-product-incentives (visited on 2023-12-07).
This article explains Twitter’s effort to create new metrics for conversational health and redesign its product to encourage more constructive interactions, though the initiative has faced delays and challenges.
https://www.vox.com/2019/3/8/18245536/exclusive-twitter-healthy-conversations-dunking-research-product-incentives
This article discusses how Twitter is trying to promote healthy conversation by changing its platform incentives, since features like likes and retweets often reward negative behaviors like dunking on others.
Some recommendation algorithms can be simple such as reverse chronological order, meaning it shows users the latest posts (like how blogs work, or Twitter’s “See latest tweets” option). They can also be very complicated taking into account many factors, such as: Time since posting (e.g., show newer posts, or remind me of posts that were made 5 years ago today) Whether the post was made or liked by my friends or people I’m following How much this post has been liked, interacted with, or hovered over Which other posts I’ve been liking, interacting with, or hovering over What people connected to me or similar to me have been liking, interacting with, or hovering over What people near you have been liking, interacting with, or hovering over (they can find your approximate location, like your city, from your internet IP address, and they may know even more precisely) This perhaps explains why sometimes when you talk about something out loud it gets recommended to you (because someone around you then searched for it). Or maybe they are actually recording what you are saying and recommending based on that. Phone numbers or email addresses (sometimes collected deceptively [k1]) can be used to suggest friends or contacts. And probably many more factors as well!
It was very interesting to know that there are very many factors that effect recommendation algorithm. I only thought it was based on the post I liked before. This pretty makes sense about how Social Medias creates very addictive set of posts on feed using algorithm
Social model of disability. November 2023. Page Version ID: 1184222120. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Social_model_of_disability&oldid=1184222120#Social_construction_of_disability (visited on 2023-12-07).
This article provides the idea that broader meaning of disability which can also be caused because of social structure. A lot of people can have disabilities not only for mentally or physically but also for limited structures.
If a building only has staircases to get up to the second floor (it was built assuming everyone could walk up stairs), then someone who cannot get up stairs has a disability in that situation. If a physical picture book was made with the assumption that people would be able to see the pictures, then someone who cannot see has a disability in that situation. If tall grocery store shelves were made with the assumption that people would be able to reach them, then people who are short, or who can’t lift their arms up, or who can’t stand up, all would have a disability in that situation. If an airplane seat was designed with little leg room, assuming people’s legs wouldn’t be too long, then someone who is very tall, or who has difficulty bending their legs would have a disability in that situation.
I think this broaden my view of disability. I thought disability was more like a thing that is diagnosed from the hospital, but it is also for the cases when someone gets disadvantage in various situations.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/18/18485599/facebook-instagram-passwords-plain-text-millions-users
I think this is the good example for the case that SNS users should give up some privacy. Even though we didn't post that for public the people in SNS company, who is complete stranger, can have access with that.
When we use social media platforms though, we at least partially give up some of our privacy.
I think this is a dilemma for the SNS users. SNS is used for sharing each user's life. However, they also need private space to keep their privacy since it can be dangerous if everyone can access to see my information
Jordan Pearson. Your Friends’ Online Connections Can Reveal Your Sexual Orientation. Vice, September 2014. URL: https://www.vice.com/en/article/gvydky/your-friends-online-connections-can-reveal-your-sexual-orientation (visited on 2023-12-05). [h9] Catherine Stinson. The Dark Past of Algorithms That Associate Appearance and Criminality. American Scientist, January 2021. URL: https://www.americanscientist.org/article/the-dark-past-of-algorithms-that-associate-appearance-and-criminality (visited on 2023-12-05). [h10] Greg Miller. Researchers are tracking another pandemic, too—of coronavirus misinformation. Science, March 2020. URL: https://www.science.org/content/article/researchers-are-tracking-another-epidemic-too-misinformation (visited on 2023-12-05).
This makes me think a lot about data privacy. Not only for sexual orientation, a lot of people have a lot of private information they use at the internet and SNS. And if it can be exposed to connection through internet it can come up with a lot of moral problems.
Social Media platforms use the data they collect on users and infer about users to increase their power and increase their profits. One of the main goals of social media sites is to increase the time users are spending on their social media sites. The more time users spend, the more money the site can get from ads, and also the more power and influence those social media sites have over those users. So social media sites use the data they collect to try and figure out what keeps people using their site, and what can they do to convince those users they need to open it again later. Social media sites then make their money by selling targeted advertising, meaning selling ads to specific groups of people with specific interests. So, for example, if you are selling spider stuffed animal toys, most people might not be interested, but if you could find the people who want those toys and only show your ads to them, your advertising campaign might be successful, and those users might be happy to find out about your stuffed animal toys. But targeting advertising can be used in less ethical ways, such as targeting gambling ads at children, or at users who are addicted to gambling, or the 2016 Trump campaign ‘target[ing] 3.5m black Americans to deter them from voting’ [h17].
This states the addictiveness that social media has. This kinda forms a feed of a SNS user. It can provide user more relative posts with the user's interest. However, it is purposed to pop up more ads and addictiveness.
Trolling / Troll. April 2009. URL: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/trolling-troll (visited on 2023-12-05).
It was pretty interesting to know the history of the well known meme "troll." As said in the article korean communities use a lot of "nak-shi" which is pretty like a ragebait.
Trolling is when an Internet user posts inauthentically (often false, upsetting, or strange) with the goal of causing disruption or provoking an emotional reaction. When the goal is provoking an emotional reaction, it is often for a negative emotion, such as anger or emotional pain. When the goal is disruption, it might be attempting to derail a conversation (e.g., concern trolling [g4]), or make a space no longer useful for its original purpose (e.g., joke product reviews), or try to get people to take absurd fake stories seriously [g5].
I think it explains what trolling specifically is. Most of people think that trolling with the goal of provoking emotional reaction like ragebait. However I think these days trolling that causes disruption are getting worse.
lonelygirl15. November 2023. Page Version ID: 1186146298. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lonelygirl15&oldid=1186146298 (visited on 2023-11-24).
I think Lonelygirl15 has a story that relies on this topic. Lonelygirl15 shows how authenticity could be made and broke in SNS by showing the fake which really looks like real
How do you think about the authenticity of the Tweets that come from Trump himself? Do you think it matters which human typed the Tweet? Does the emotional expression (e.g., anger) of the Tweet change your view of authenticity? How do you think about the authenticity of the Tweets that come from others in Trump’s campaign?
It was interesting to see the direct tweet of the president in the SNS platform. For me, SNS platforms are like more casual and informal. However it was pretty interesting and good to see the direct thoughts of the president on those platforms.
Mark R. Cheathem. Conspiracy Theories Abounded in 19th-Century American Politics. URL: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/conspiracy-theories-abounded-19th-century-american-politics-180971940/ (visited on 2023-11-24).
This article points that conspiracy theories were very common in 19th century American politics. It was around when modern political parties began to form. It was pretty interesting because this article emphasizes that conspiracy rhetoric intensified political divisions and damaged public trust.
One difference you may notice with different social media sites is in how you form connections with others. Some social media sites don’t have any formal connections. Like two users who happen to be on the same bulletin board. Some social media sites only allow reciprocal connections, like being “friends” on Facebook Some social media sites offer one-way connections, like following someone on Twitter or subscribing to a YouTube channel. There are, of course, many variations and nuances besides what we mentioned above, but we wanted to get you started thinking about some different options.
It was pretty interesting to think about the connection types in social media platforms. I think it mostly decides the characteristic of each SNS platforms. SNS that allows reciprocal connections is considered more private and focused on functions like messenger(like Facebook). However, SNS with one-way connections feels like to be more public just like Youtube.
What data types might be used to represent that data on a computer?
SNS platforms like X have most of the posts in a form of sentences. Therefore, string will be used for represent most of the posts.
Shannon Bond. Elon Musk wants out of the Twitter deal. It could end up costing at least $1 billion. NPR, July 2022. URL: https://www.npr.org/2022/07/08/1110539504/twitter-elon-musk-deal-jeopardy (visited on 2023-11-24).
This article was very interesting because Elon Musk's conflict with Twitter was very viral. Fake accounts are common problems for many SNS platforms and he might be charged for a $1 billion breakup fee was pretty interesting.
Buy TikTok Followers. 2023. URL: https://www.socialwick.com (visited on 2023-12-02).
This website allows users to buy a lot of followers for their SNS accounts which was very interesting. Even though most of the followers the user can buy are bots, the power and influence that SNS account with huge amount of followers is very big. The posts and ideas that those accounts can be shown for more accounts and can be considered more reliable.
Bots might have significant limits on how helpful they are, such as tech support bots you might have had frustrating experiences with on various websites.
I agree with this statement after I have used a lot of applications using chatbot. I think a lot of companies are using chatbots to replace customer support service and I never had a satisfying experience using chatbot since it couldn't understand what my problem was.
What do you think is the responsibility of tech workers to think through the ethical implications of what they are making?
I believe that tech workers should take their responsibility for their technology by adding mechanisms to prevent the use for potential abuse or stating the possible penalties when the abusive use has detected.
Confucianism# Sources [b13] [b14] [b15] [b16] Being and becoming an exemplary person (e.g., benevolent; sincere; honoring and sacrificing to ancestors; respectful to parents, elders and authorities, taking care of children and the young; generous to family and others). These traits are often performed and achieved through ceremonies and rituals (including sacrificing to ancestors, music, and tea drinking), resulting in a harmonious society.
Confucianism emphasizes the importance of individual moral values, and suggests that practicing them can lead to a harmonious society. While it is true that ethics are a pivotal value in forming a harmonious society, Confucianism has limitations in terms of feasibility. Since it is based on faith in people's morality, it lacks effective sanctions when individuals choose not to follow ethical principles. Confucianism considers law-based ethics to be superficial. Regardless of that the law remains one of the most efficient ways to maintain ethical behavior in real society.