Social Media Conformity

The article “Social Influence on Risk Perception during Adolescence” by Lisa j. Knoll, Lucia Magis-Weinberg, Maarten Speekenbrink, and Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, explores the relationship between social influence and risk taking. The authors acknowledge that adolescence is a time in life where risk taking is more likely to occur with peers than alone. However it is not just adolescence that are victims of peer pressure. People of all ages are constantly making decisions about whether they should take such risks. But what makes people take the risk? The article say that “adolescences are unaware of potential risks and feel invulnerable”. However that does not explain why they are more likely to engage

Conformity is a concept that has been heavily researched in the field of social psychology. Conformity is defined as a change in behavior, beliefs, and attitudes due to group pressure perceived as real (encompassing the presence of others) or imagined (encompassing the pressure of social standards) (Myers, 2010, p. 192). The concept of conformity is a powerful influence on the tendency for people to arrange their thoughts, perspectives, and ideas with others, especially when in a group. This takes away from a person’s individuality because they want to feel accepted by others and therefore, a person will accomplish this basic need of approval through conforming.

Conformity wouldn’t be so bad if what there was to conform to was positive. In this great land of the free and home of the Big Mac, forgive me for not putting my admiration or faith into the general public. The society we live in is built on hate and oppression. It dates back all the way to the genocide of the native population by the European invaders----excuse me, “settlers” that allowed this country to be established in the first place, and the slavery that allowed this country’s economy to start up and prosper. Institutionalized racism continues to be prevalent in everyday life; articles on police brutality from twenty years ago might as well have been written last week. Ethnic minorities are targeted and shot down in the streets; young

Personality allows people to express who they are, but the internet enables people choose and pick what others see. Eli Pariser in “The You Loop” shows how people are selective in what they post and put on their social media pages, because they want to sculpt how others see them. I think that this is extremely true, because I know that I do it all the time. I know that I am very selective about what I post on the internet because it can reflect poorly on me in the, and I care about what other’s think about me. I am also limited to what I can post on my social media pages because of my sorority. Alpha Gamma Delta does not allow sisters to swear, or post pictures of us with alcohol in them. This is partly because the chapter does not want us to further the stereotypes about sororities, and prevent us from looking “impure.” I agree that people make conscious decision to what they post, but peers also influence what is posted.

The author of The Cult of the Amateur, Andrew Keen states that; “the Internet is flooded with fake identities” and “the line between fact and fiction becomes blurred” (76, 17). Keen is arguing that social media sites are being misused by the world population and is damaging their judgment and development of character by exploiting untrue stories about themselves. Keen is a popular activist for the critique of the modern day internet and media, whose writings have been used by the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and his column for CNN. Many people agree with Keen that social media is allowing users to create fake personas that can sometimes be undetectable because their judgment of what is acceptable has been impaired. This impairment is caused by the years of influence the internet and social media has over the millions of its users.

Imagine a world that is so consumed with the digital world that the people in it are no longer able to form their own opinions, or even distinguish the truth from fact. Unfortunately, this can just be another way to describe the earth. It is no surprise that as time progressed, the easy access to technology grew to influence larger aspects of life. With this privilege came both negative and positive effects, however, there were more unfavorable changes in society. Ever since forms of communication existed, it has become a “social norm” to naturally accept the views of the media, no matter how drastic they may seem. This allows organizations to manipulate and provide false information to an extremely large number of people. Many people

Throughout my life, many people have impacted me. Whether it be a teacher, a fellow classmate, a parent, or even a celebrity, someone has influenced me in some way. I have found that the older I get, the more I really think about life and what really matters in this world. Some people would say that materialistic items are the key to happiness, while others will disagree by saying that possessions cannot fill the void in your life forever. There will always be something that you will want so that you can maintain the happiness that is put into possessions. Others will say that conformity is a popular thing in society and the only way to be happy is to conform to the way society says you should. Many people will completely agree with that because they are afraid to stand out in a world that tells them it is not okay to be different or to be an individual. If you want to be truly happy, one must break away from the chains of conformity. To live in a world that tells us who we should be is the greatest waste that anyone could fall susceptible to.

Everyone is guilty of trying to be something they are not at one point or another, but it is when individuals break conformity that they show the world who they really are. In today’s day and age, people are influenced by what they see and read on social media. They want to feel like they are included so they adopt the ideas of others around them without taking into consideration their own opinions. An example would be when a girl posts a picture of her outfit choices. Other girls want so desperately to be viewed as gorgeous or beautiful and when people comment on that one girl’s photo, they try to replicate that look on their own. In addition to social media, people conform to religion. Adopting the religious views, you were born into is the

The written word,now a weapon, is now digitized and feed through media. “A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon.” (Bradbury 58). Not only have books become a media revolution so has social interaction. Social media allows for connections formerly unheard. “The problem, they say, is that we spend so much time maintaining superficial connections online that we aren’t dedicating enough time or effort to cultivating deeper real-life relationships.”(WSJ). This avenue of socialization allows for discretion of the true life and person of the poster. “And even worse, the human condition is beginning to devolve. We have become addicted to the vanity of social media unable to expose our lives to the world.”(Green). This media based socialization can overtake the lives of many. “When you add it all up, the average American spends more than 10 hours a day plugged into some form of media.”(Synder). Making the human race even more technology

Online social networks have become increasingly populated arenas for much of today’s population, especially with regards to high school and college students. Networks such as Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, Vine, Twitter, etc., enable users to create an identity and present it to others by allowing them to share various aspects of their lives. Because individuals select their own content, the resulting representation can be either a true or imaginative reflection of the user. The attitudes, perspectives, behaviours and actions each individual chooses to present, shape their identity within the social media universe. Like most other web-based content, the pursuit of authenticity is assumed to be at the heart of these social media networks, playing an important role in our online interactions and our decisions about what web content we believe to be reliable. But, what about when the network structure allows users to create, post, and interact with anonymous identities? Anonymity eliminates the need decipher authenticity, however, it creates an issue by protecting the negative actions of empowered users.

While defenders of this current generation may point to the development of powerful technologies and machines used in science and medicine, they ignore the many possible negative effects of mass culture. In one preliminary analysis of the effects of Facebook usage on academic performance in the 2011 Electronic Journal of Research in Educational Psychology, Sana Rouis and colleagues demonstrated the negative effect of networking platforms on academic achievement. In a similar study in the March 2015 issue of Body Image, Jasmine Fardouly and colleagues found that for women, Facebook usage resulted in a more negative mood and a negative body image. I think that by being exposed to a virtual reality, where every photo is altered and every setting pixelated, we begin to identify how we do not fit into that reality and begin to associate our differences as imperfections. For example, one thought could be that because I do not look like models altered by Photoshop, then my differences must be ugly or

One of the wonder of the Internet today is the invention of social media. It allows people from all around the world to come together and share their experiences, their artwork, their lives, their struggles and their triumphs. But is that all we see? Of course not. Not all people share all the details of their lives on social media like Facebook. But what I mean is, is that the real person behind that key board or just persona they have created? Because of the anonymity the internet can provide, it can be difficult to know who you really talking to. It’s hard if you know someone in the real world, but they behave so differently online, making you wonder if you really know that person. Some people who possibly have a number of different personas to fit in to different groups may have an issue finding out who they really are, not sure of their own identity. With all the time some people put into this kind of life style, they can become withdrawn into this world they’ve created for themselves and their communication and interpersonal skills can suffer as well.

Aldous Huxley’s novel, Brave New World, is a dark vision of a “utopian” future that people still use today as a warning of an overpowering government. World State, the utopian society that Brave New World describes has a simple motto: Community, Identity, Stability. In this society, the people serve a ruling order that controls their likes and dislikes, population growth, drug intake, and romance; phenomenons that Huxley strives to warn us about for our own society. Eighty-five years later, the United States is similar to the World State in more ways than citizens would like to admit being conformity, surveillance, love, drugs and in vitro fertilization.

More recently than in years past, digital technology and social media have grown to become a part of our everyday lives. The recent rise in those who own smartphones allows this everyday use of digital technology and social networking to be easier than ever before. At any time and any place, we have the ability to “socialize” with nearly anyone—even celebrities who have no idea most of us even exist. The continuous consumption of digital media has altered once personal face-to-face communication to just that, digital. More and more people seem to be living in what Sonia Maasik and Jack Solomon call “The Cloud”. “The Cloud” is a seemingly alternate universe of which communication is altered from personal to digital. This universe has led to debates over whether or not these online communities are real or whether social media is actually social. Various digital media sources also encourage users to create individual identities, of which may or may not actually be real. It seems as though our reliance on digital technology and social media have allowed the determination of certain aspects of our lives. Although social media allows us to connect with nearly anyone at any time, Americans have taken advantage of its use, and their attention has been drawn away from real life interactions to digital ones. The ramifications of such influences reflect the hidden insecurities of Americans and, ironically, emphasize our inclination to boast about ourselves by allowing others to see the

As the world continues to become more interconnected through a single platform, it presents opportunities to express personality more effectively. According to ProCon Organization, an educational non-profit institution with a professional research team states that “social media can help disarm social stigmas”. Famous internet sites, such as Twitter and Instagram, are used for presenting avant-garde styles with peculiar outfit choices challenging stereotypes embedded in cultures over thousands of years. Emerson passionately preached about going against tradition during his time and it has evidently survived to this day. People explore and dabble with individuality through technology nonstop. Proving that self-dependence is a key component to being true to oneself. Furthermore, as the renowned newspaper, the HuffPost states in an article, “[the internet helps] to share...ideas that typically involve some sort of creative expression”. In order to achieve this, the average person needs to have a state of mind that is unique and build upon it through these outlets. Many people use inspiration gained from others to help open and listen to their minds consequently following what they believe is the right way to dress and act according to themselves. Inspiration being the key word because the point is not to mimic or imitate others, but to gain