What are the 8 affordances of social media?
Affordances of social media, what social media allows us to do.
- Identifiability → gives us choice in how anonymous we want to be. How easily identifiable we are.
- Cues management: Social media allows us control in how we present ourselves. We can select what pictures to show, what to say.
- Permanence: information can be stored and found later
- Publicness: information is easily shareable, we can choose how easy it is for our content to be shared
- Availability: How easy it is to find information and people
- Asynchronicity: engage when it suits you, as active as we want
- Quantifiability: numerical metrics to track characteristics of your pages and others content
- Interactivity: social media allows us to interact with others, can vary per platform.
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Why do we research affordances instead of just one social media platform at a time?
Different social media has different affordances, by researching affordances instead of specific social media, we can preserve the relevance of social media research, since the affordances remain constant variables throughout different social media platforms.
Social media sites come and go, making some data irrelevant.
What is stage 5 of psychosocial development theory? Who is it by?
Identity stability vs identity confusion. A stage by Erik Erikson outlining a great challenge to identity development.
A 2x2 grid by James Marcia shows the different outcomes of this stage based on factors of exploration and commitment. If both those factors are high, identity achievement is attained.
What are the outcomes of James Marcia’s Identity statuses?
Diffusion: No exploration, no commitment.
Foreclosure: Commitment made without exploration (adopting others’ beliefs).
Moratorium: High exploration, low commitment.
Achievement: High exploration, high commitment (a chosen identity).
What are 2 affordances that offer the opportunity to construct and display our own identities online?
Cue management and asynchronicity: chose what to present.
Usernames, avatars, choosing what to post etc We can use social media to show off our identity
How does social media help us develop identity? What are online identity experiments?
Online contexts allow us to commit to an identity by sharing and exploring our identity by searching.
Online identity experiments: tendency to pretend to be someone else online
What is the main question, methodology, results and limitations of the Qiu et al article: “What does your selfie say about you? “
Question: Are cues to our personality present in our selfies? Can other people detect these differences in personality?
Methodology: Measured the big 5 traits though self report. And content analysis of selfies submitted. Then asked outside observers to rate selfie on big 5 traits.
Results: Observers were only able to judge openness trait, all other traits were not guessed well. People are not very good at judging personality traits from selfies, only ok at openness. However some of the cues from the selfies could judge traits decently. Selfies are not enough for us to judge personality from. TikTok study has same results.
In essence: The study shows selfies do contain personality-related cues, but observers are only reliably accurate at judging openness.
Limits: Impression management and cultural context limit the accuracy of personality judgments from selfies. Only 8 observers all women. Only Chinese participants.
What is self concept clarity?
The degree to which thoughts about ourselves and beliefs about identity are consistent and stable. Do we have a clear story of who we are, the same person across situations, and consistency in how we see ourselves.
It is generally a positive factor leading to better mental health. (Less relation between SCC and mental health in collectivistic cultures.)
What affordances may affect self concept clarity?
All of them surely can in some way.
What is the fragmentation hypothesis?
A hypothesis for how social media use impacts self concept clarity.
All these aspects of social media, would be bad for self concept clarity, further fragmenting, being different people makes it hard to have stability. Many identities leads to confusion.
What is the unity hypothesis?
A hypothesis for how social media use impacts self concept clarity.
Argues social media should be beneficial for SCC, having exposure to different selves helps us bring together different parts of ourselves. Many identities displayed together can help corroborate identity, like a sound board.
Does research typically support the fragmentation hypothesis or the unity hypothesis?
Studies generally find that fragmentation is more common, more time spent on social media, more of a lost sense of self clarity, more variability makes it hard to establish who we are when we are spread out all over social media.
What does research on social media and self esteem find? Positive. negative, both?
Research in media use and self esteem is incredibly mixed. Some finds positive, some finds negative and the results likely depend on many factors like:
reactions/ feedback from others,
how your using social media (ex: addiction vs education),
individual traits and
dispositions,
upward vs downward social comparisons,
perceived body image,
control and autonomy online.
These are all important for determining if social media has a positive or negative impact on self esteem.
What is the main question, methodology, results and limitations of the Valkenberg et al article: “How adolescents use social media and how it affects them: In their own words”
Question: is there a link to the timing of how often and what time of day we are on social media and when we are asked about self esteem? Its common for self esteem to go up and down within a day and social media use, is there a relationship?
Methodology: Use an experience sampling method, would ask the participants 3 times a day how they feel about themselves, then asked how much social media they used in the last hour and if they liked the experience.
Findings: 55% of experience was positive (pos exp linked to increased SE), 18% was negative (negative experience linked to decreased SE).
Individuals with low average SE: More benefit from social media overall
Individuals with High self esteem instability: Benefit from pos exp on social media, content mattered a lot for this group.
Type of use mattered too, addictive use had negative SE outcomes. Others feedback and reactions mattered a lot too in results on SE.
What is the difference between Grandiose narcissism and Vulnerable narcissism?
Grandiose narcissism: More extraverted, callous form. Talking about how good you are, showing it with appearance
Vulnerable narcissism: Introverted and neurotic, not braggers but people who feel their sense of worth to be elevated and worried about others not noticing it, worried about not living up to elevated sense of self worth.
Is social media correlated to grandiose or vulnerable narcissism? What does research say?
Research does show a small correlation between social media use and grandiose narcissism. Shown through more posts, more selfies, more followers etc.
This correlation does not show for vulnerable narcissism however!
Overall not a ton of research saying social media increases narcissism.
What are the 3 theories as to why social media use might be linked to grandiose narcissism?
Identity shift theory: Social media use –> narcissism, seeing ourselves in more idealized posts leads to narcissism.
Self regulation model: narcissists are drawn to social media as a tool for self promotion.
Trait model: Other 3rd variables connected to narcissism (like extraversion) could be the reason for the connection instead.
What affordances are particularity helpful for developing sexual identity?
Identifiability
cues management
availability
asynchronicity
interactivity
What are some risks that queer youth face with social media? What affordances are harmful or helpful?
More likely to be targets of cyberbullying than regular people. Also queer people bully others slightly more.
They feel the need to identity manage more, block people, filters, multiple accounts etc.
Permanence of social media doesn’t align with changing identity. Could harm
Availability of information extremely helpful for queer youth development and education online. Interactivity with others and online communities as a life line too.
What is the main research question, methodology, findings and limitations of the Craig study on sexual identity development and online fandoms?
Question: How might involvement in online fandom communities impact sexual identity
development in queer youth?
Methods: quantitative surveys and qualitative questions.
Results: Fandom participants reached sexual identity development stages slightly earlier than those who did not participate in fandoms. Fandom participants reported that fandoms did help develop their sexual identity, quickened the process of sexual identity development. Questioning, awareness and disclosure. It also helped them find more complex labels and identity language to help describe experiences.
What is the cues-filtered-out theory?
A theory of how online interaction impacts intimacy. This theory proposes that without face to face cues, it is harder to have intimate relationships. With no in person cues, negative impact on intimacy.
What is the hyper personal model? Give an example
A theory about how online interaction impacts intimacy in relationships. This theory suggests that there is more intimacy online. Filtering out cues can help maybe create a safer and less analytical space, no one paying attention to things like body language, easier to share things.
Online interactions allow us to idealize interactions and present ourselves in a planned way since there is more time to prepare the interaction. So it may feel more intimate.
Great example: is romantic relationships appearing much better online than when meeting in person
Which theory of online interactions effect on intimacy does research support more?
Research says that more people report having more intimacy online.
What is the reduction hypothesis?
A hypothesis about the effects of social media on our social relationships. The idea is that social media would reduce our relationships, decrease quality. If you have social media, that might displace the time that would have been used to get closer to someone. Social media takes away from face-to-face interaction.
Older research did support this idea, people with online media were more lonely.
However this is supported by research made in the early 2000s, social media is very different today
