Week 3

Question 1

Defining social media

Answer 1

1. deinstitutionalized online platforms: reliance on decentralized sharing structures of the internet
2. dependent on user-generated content: individuals create and disseminate content
3. dynamic: enable a two-way interaction with an audience

Question 2

Affordances that differentiate social media

Answer 2

1. persistence
2. replicability
3. searchability
4. scalability
5. visibility
6. editability
7. association

Question 3

Contrasting views on what social media are

Answer 3

1. social isolation vs social expansion
2. superficiality/objectification (replaces the time spend on FtF communication) vs. depth/sunjectification
3. dislocation (there is no sense of place) vs inclusion (we can include many other people in our lives)

Question 4

Social capital through social media

Answer 4

1. bridging social capital
2. bonding social capital

Question 5

Bridging social capital

Answer 5

1. important: network members that connect different clusters, extending the network
2. access to new information, new perspectives, broader community

Question 6

Bonding social capital

Answer 6

1. comes from inner circle of connections, more quality within already existing networks –> the depth of the relationship
2. includes far-reaching support

Question 7

Social media and social capital

Answer 7

1. technical structure of social media facilitates the building up of bridging social capital –> expansion of networks
2. medium for requesting and providing social and emotional support (bonding social capital)
3. important: interaction patterns and network composition

Question 8

Self-presentation and social capital

Answer 8

1. profile: important, but now changing collection of content rather than static portrait
2. public articulation of the network
   a. displays identity
   b. increases trust
   c. links to content by others
3. constant streams of user-generated content
   a. scalability, to decide to whom you want to distribute
   b. danger of context collapse: the wrong people get access to you information –> challenge to self-presentation

Question 9

Sociability

Answer 9

1. empathy: mentalizing, experience-sharing, prosocial concern
2. emotional intelligence = the general capacity to understand other’s emotions to assimilate one’s emotions into thought and to express and regulate one’s own emotions
3. perspective talking = the capacity to read and infer others’ mental states –> mentalizaing
4. emotion recognition = the accurate identification of other’s emotions from facial expressions

Question 10

Empathy - sociability

Answer 10

a. mentalizing = considering other’s mental states
b. experience-sharing = vicariously sharing one’s mental states
c. prosocial concern = expressing motivation to improve other’s mental experiences

Question 11

Social media and sociability

Answer 11

1. prosociality = online activism, social support
2. antisociality = cyberbullying
3. deepening pre-existing offline relationships = technology as a supplement
4. superficial online relationships = technology as a replacement
5. social compensation: especially for the socially challenged

Question 12

Important factors social media and sociability

Answer 12

1. development status
2. generation
3. socioeconomic status

Question 13

Paradoxes social media and sociability

Answer 13

1. self-presentation-deception paradox
2. openness-manipulation paradox

Question 14

Self-presentation-deception paradox

Answer 14

opportunity to consider new perspectives, but perspectives offered may not reflect people’s true beliefs

Question 15

Openness-manipulation paradox

Answer 15

opportunity for open and democrats citizenship while also helping authoritarian governments

Question 16

Social media and body image

Answer 16

1. association with body image concerns among women and men
2. association may strengthen over time
3. short-time exposure to social media has no effects
4. important mechanism: social comparison

Question 17

Limitations of social media and body image studies

Answer 17

1. much correlation research
2. Facebook bias
3. focus on female samples

Question 18

Results Apple et al.

Answer 18

1. Weak relation between SNS use and well being
   a. moderate relation between SNS use and bridging and bonding social capital
   b. weak relation between SNS use and internalization of thin-body ideal
2. No to weak relation between SNS use and bad school performance
3. Weak to moderate relation between SNS use and narcissism, larger in Non-Western than Western countries

Question 19

Problems of current social media research

Answer 19

1. dominance of studies on Facebook
2. risk of stereotyping all users as Caucasian, educated, rather young and democratic
3. privacy issues limited to Facebook studies
4. hardly research from non-democratic countries
5. western bias
6. social capital bias

Question 20

Mobile communication and others

Answer 20

1. ubiquitous reachability –> FOMO
2. gaining a sense of control over our social reality
3. emotional attachment to device
4. arranging logistics of daily life, increased efficiency

Question 21

Mobile communication and social interaction

Answer 21

1. online and offline merge –> augmented reality
2. mobile symbiosis: interaction with remote others
3. quality of interaction with close ties is at risk

Question 22

Mobile communication and social cohesion

Answer 22

1. replacement of meaningful relationships with superficial relationships
2. enhanced field of social interaction, connected presence, new ways of bonding
3. connection rather than autonomy, outward rather than inward

Question 23

Mobile communication can lead to

Answer 23

1. split attention: multitasking (usually comes at significant costs)
2. risk of compulsive/problematic use:

Question 24

Mobile communication and problematic use

Answer 24

a. constant checking of mobile phone
b. over-reliance on device
c. expectation of others to be available all the time