This article focuses on trends throughout media growth in the past several decades. Each of the ten statistics in the article are centred around how social media has grown, spread, and evolved into what it is today. The article goes into further detail to focus on how social media is used today by many different types of people for many uses, such as for communicating and connecting with friends, family, coworkers, etc., maintaining a personal blog (such as this one) about things that inspire or interest you, and for businesses to connect with their audiences and consumers.

      Building on the last example, each statistic in the article briefly relates to how businesses being aware of that statistic is crucial for the survival of their brand. For example, one of the statistics discussed in the article focuses on social media use by generation. Breaking it down by generation is helpful for businesses so they can cater to their target demographics appropriately.

      Additionally, another statistic that I think is worth mentioning while on the topic of businesses using social media is the percentage of online shoppers whose shopping behaviours are largely affected by the presence of Influencers influencing certain products. The article discussed that, overall, if an Influencer such as a social media start or a celebrity advertises a product for a certain business, then consumers are more likely to shop from that business and buy that product.

      Overall, I learned how crucial it is for business to be aware of the online habits of their consumers. (255)

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      This article discussed findings from a study that Cigna, a "global health service company" (Polack 2018), did on American adults. The purpose of the study was to measure the percentage of lonely people in the United States.

      One finding from the study that I believe directly correlates with the topics of this course and from this weeks lecture is that 18- to 22-year-old’s, categorized as “Generation Z” or “Gen Z”, are statistically the “loneliest generation” (Polack 2019). I think that one major reason for this is because Gen Z's grew up using their cellphones, the Internet and social media. Social media can often create a false sense of happiness, inclusivity, acceptance, etc. Therefore, it's no wonder that adolescents in that generation are feeling lonely and depressed.

      Overall, the statistics in the Cigna article were interesting, but not unexpected.

I think often times we dismiss anxiety, depression and loneliness caused by social media because it is so common today, but seeing the statistics really makes you realize the negative consequences that can occur from social media use. (176)

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      In the Van Dijck and Poell reading, I learned how social media was designed to attract and maintain users. One quote that stuck out to me from this reading was: “[...] media have a distinct interest in constantly renewing themes so people keep coming back to their outlets” (Van Dijck and Poell 4). This quote interested me because it pointed out exactly what social media platforms do to keep users engaged on their sites. Social media platforms know what their users want, and they provide that to us so that we keep coming back to new and exciting updates, content, and more.

      Additionally, the article discusses the notion of programmability. “On sites like Twitter or Reddit, users can post content and steer information streams, while the sites' owners may tweak their platforms' algorithms and interfaces to influence data traffic” (5). Essentially, social media platform programmers manipulate users' data and information to provide them with better online experiences so that they keep coming back to that platform. This is the process of creating algorithms that suggest information that it knows the user wants to see. This is just one of the many ways that social media controls our lives without us even knowing it.

      Overall, this article provided lots of intriguing insight as to how social media platforms work in devious ways to secretly use our own social media usage to provide us with better online information. (236)

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      In this week's lecture, I learned many new things pertaining to the role that social media plays in today’s world. One new thing that I learned was the notion of “(new) social media logic”, which is a term that describes how social media is understood today in terms of different factors such as: connectivity, popularity, programmability, and datafication.

      It was interesting to hear the example that Professor Dugan used in terms of media dialectics. The example was regarding Facebook users signing and spreading petitions for the platform's  employees to program in a dislike button.

It is eye-opening when you realize that sometimes there is a specific reason behind why a platform has or doesn’t have a certain feature. In the case of Facebook and the lack of a dislike button, the platform's programmers decided that giving users too much control could prove to be detrimental to their company as a whole. For example, if given a dislike button, users would have the ability to dislike a certain page or the posts of a company who were investors of Facebook. Overall It was interesting to hear more about the corporation's agenda rather than only being made aware of the demands of the users. 

      Overall, I found this lecture to bring up some very interesting theories about how social media has affected us as users, how we affected social media to become what it currently is, and how we are going to further continue to alter social media for the foreseeable future. (250)

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References

Mohsin, M. (2020, August 7). 10 Social Media Statistics You Need to Know in 2020 [Infographic]. Retrieved September 27, 2020, from https://www.oberlo.ca/blog/social-media-marketing-statistics

 

Polack, E. (2018, May 01). New Cigna Study Reveals Loneliness at Epidemic Levels in America. Retrieved from https://www.cigna.com/newsroom/news-releases/2018/new-cigna-study-reveals-loneliness-at-epidemic-levels-in-america

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Van Dijck, J., & Poell, T. (2013). Understanding Social Media Logic. Media and Communication, 1(1), 2-14.