Blog Post #2: Facebook Article and Technological Determinism, Kaitlyn Chambers

As many of my peers have pointed out, technological determinism seems to be one of the most central concepts within the Eighth Grade film and the article from the Guardian on Facebook and its awareness of social media's negative impact on teens. In regards to anxiety, it is common for individuals to believe that these anxieties come from these technologies (or social media apps) themselves; this is technological determinism (Baym, 2015). That is, the belief or idea that these technologies change us in specific ways (Baym, 2015). As she discusses in the reading, these changes could make us more stupid as we become reliant on searching for answers or by creating more profound feelings of anxiety (Baym, 2015). The Guardian article on Facebook discusses some of these changes, specifically towards teenage girls. As discussed in the article, many teenage girls report having worsened body image issues, depression and anxiety due to Instagram (Gayle, 2021).

Moreover, as the article claims, "'Being surrounded by constant images of the 'perfect' life and seemingly perfect bodies can also have a big impact on how you feel about your own life and appearance,..." (Gayle, 2021). In this case, we can see how social media apps like Instagram negatively change how we feel about ourselves. I think most of the feelings discussed in the article relate to or are a form of anxiety. Whether that be the anxiety these teenage girls feel when they compare themselves and their lives to others on Instagram or the anxiety they feel to present themselves in a certain way on these social media apps. The anxieties that this article discusses in teenage girls and how it relates to technological determinism are all things that surround a concept that social media and advertising have created in us. And that is the idea that we are imperfect. We think that part of life is striving to become perfect. I'm sure many of us feel as though once we do this one thing or once we make these changes in our lives, or once I buy all of these things and have all of this stuff just like those girls on Instagram, everything will be perfect. Ultimately, apps like Instagram have created a new and specific kind of anxiety that I think exists only on these apps. A type of anxiety that has completely changed our views of self-worth. This new kind of anxiety makes us feel emotionally attached to these apps, despite their damage to us.

Further, this anxiety is one where we believe we need to change ourselves to look more like the people on these apps, where they convince us that we are not perfect, that there is something wrong with our lives, our body images, and how we look when this is not the case at all. 


Do you think if social media did not create this idea that we are imperfect, our views about ourselves would change? Or do you think this imperfection idea is merely enhanced by social media apps like Instagram, but not necessarily created by them?


References

Baym, N. K. (2015). Personal connections in the digital age(Second ed.). Cambridge, UK: Polity.


Gayle, D. (2021, September 14). Facebook aware of Instagram's harmful effect on teenage girls, leak 

    reveals. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/sep/14/facebook-aware-

    instagram-harmful-effect-teenage-girls-leak-reveals

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