Technological Determinism
In the film eighth grade that we have watched in class, the character Kayla uses social media to portray herself as someone who is very outgoing while this is not actually the case. She uses multiple social media platforms like instagram and YouTube to post videos expressing herself. Kayla also uses social media to post about how she hopes or wanted her life to actually go, when she went to the pool party she posted about how fun it was while in reality she wanted to leave. In Kaylas case, she hopes that what she posts on social media is true just like how technological determinism is about how what is posted on social media directly affects peoples lives.
Growing up with the internet and social media becoming very popular there has been a lot of downsides to using it as a child. Social media makes people judge each other wether you want to or not, as a kid it can take a toll on ones self esteem comparing yourself to instagram models and etc. They are also open to a lot of hate on the internet through fake accounts that just want to bully you.
At such a young age the impacts of social media can be a lot of children especially because they absorb everything. Do you think that children should not be on social media at Kaylas age? or do you think that the internet and social media has become a necessity in everyday life?
- Abbey Smallwood
Hello! I don't think social media is really something that can be controlled in such a way. Since young people have access to any form of the internet, social media is a constant that will just keep making its way into their lives one way or another. The only way that social media can be 'controlled' for young teens like Kayla, would be for the media platforms themselves to initiate some kind of restriction. But again, there are ways that these posts and other media like it will make their way towards this age group. One of the major points I noticed in the pool scene of the Eighth Grade movie was when Kayla stood up for Karaoke, her voiceover Youtube video was explaining how to be confident at a party. During that scene she kind of used her own words as encouragement in the moment which was a big feat considering her typically introverted personality. Overall, yes there are areas of social media on the internet that can negatively impact young teens, as we have noticed with Facebook statistics from The Guardian article, however it will be very interesting to see how young teens use the medium to grow themselves. Therefore, although there are negatives involved, it would not be very effective for adults to try and control what their children are seeing online. I think having that resource, that second wave of people for some kids to potentially connect with on such an international platform, can be used beneficially in some cases.
ReplyDeleteHey,
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I believe that children should be allowed use social media at such a young age. However, I feel that these social media platforms should implement a time limit for how much you use them per day. Even for me personally, I feel that I mindlessly scroll through Instagram or Youtube just as a way to procrastinate or pass time when I can be doing other things. In regards to your second question, I also would agree that social media has become a necessity to everyday life. It allows our world to connect on a level we never could've imagined and has created endless possibilities for our society to grow as one establishing a wider, broader sense of societal norms and understandings.
Hi, great post this week! I completely agree with you when you say that growing up with social media can be difficult. As you said, children absorb everything and they can be extremely sensitive to certain things (i.e. cyber bullying) because they haven’t completely matured yet.
ReplyDeleteAs an individual that was Kayla’s age only when social media platforms like Instagram and Snapchat were just starting out, I can attest that it definitely was a culture shock and I had to learn quickly how to interpret certain things that were said on those platforms. However, back then, I believe it was easier to separate what happened in real life, versus what happened online. Nowadays, social media has been completely integrated into our social and professional lives and it can definitely be difficult to discern what is real and what is not. It is for that reason that I believe social media sites should be limited to older individuals and children should not be allowed to have them until they have matured enough to know how to interpret what is said online properly.
Hi Abbey!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your post. To answer your questions, I don't know whether children Kayla's age should be on social media or not due to how immersed our world is with social media. There are so many negative impacts that social media can have at that age especially while they are still growing, and figuring our who they are. So from that perspective it is really damaging and we've seen just how bad social media can be for the mental health of that age group from media reports of suicides and such. But, it is so engrained that taking them off the internet now would be very difficult. I think their collective mental health would improve but I don't see how that could happen at this point.
Great post!
- Amelia