“Growing up Digital” Discussion plus a case study from USC

“Growing Up Digital” (GUP) is a wonderful discussion panel that analyzed the positive and negative repercussions of the new generation’s development that has been affected by technology in ways that previous generations have not. One idea that I found interesting is that instagram now has taken social media and quantified the pictures posted based on the number of likes. What does this cause? Does your brain take in and process information differently based on the popularity of a picture? Lauren Sherman found that this number, or “like”, affected the willingness of teens to like the picture (6:04), stating that “They were significantly more likely to click ‘like’… on the picture if they believe that many of their peers have also liked it” (6:12). I found this fascinating, since I was in some of the first groups of teens to use instagram and was easily affected by this very idea of “quantification”. While I think that there is some application of the findings to myself, I found that these “likes” would affect not only if I liked someone’s picture, but whether or not I would post certain pictures of my own based on the popularity I thought it would bring. It is great that there are now conclusions in research that back up these findings I could see in myself as I made conscious decisions about my instagram activity and profile.

Another point I enjoyed in the “Growing Up Digital” panel is how they analyzed the ideas of multitasking in two different lights of study, involving separation and combination. First, the panel defines multitasking as the balance of holding two things in one’s mind that are of the same task, for example social interaction (21:58). But now this is difficult to study because social media involves both social and cognitive domains, so these ideas must be studied in combination instead of in separate, like an action video game for example (21:34). Sherman found research that showed “On the one hand, you get people who are gamers are actually better at one kind of multitasking, on the other hand, people who tend to report that they do a lot of using social media while they are doing homework… they often will show lower performance on certain tasks” (22:20). This is not surprising to me because often when I am using technology and attempting to complete another task, my efficiency decreases significantly. However, I am a bit shocked that shooting games are the most “beneficial” in terms of multitasking! I would have thought the gory nature of them would deter a larger audience from being able to pick up other details since emotional interference could take up more thought.

The last point I would like to unpack in from the GUP panel is the idea of an oral versus written world and how that affects learning and culture. Naomi Baron illustrates how different our current world is from the oral cultures of Greece and Rome, even though there was a lot of writing that came from those ancient times (45:15). She argues that “By writing we were able to sit and reflect on what was written… the benefits of this writing is that you can come back to it. The idea about digital technology is it doesn’t encourage us to come back to it” (46:34). I disagree with this statement as a frequent social media user because I have found that one of the best (for the producer) and worst (for the consumer) qualities of social media is that it is enthralling. The idea of new pictures or videos being posted at any given second has the ability to captivate a large audience and keep them wanting more. It is this “never-ending” idea that is crucial, illustrating that if a person is to miss that photo or video, they will be behind on the content of new things that they would have seen if they had checked their account more. Hence, the spike in usage of popular social media today.

Today I think the cultural relevance of the “selfie” is just that, it proves cultural relevance. If you are knowledgeable of, use, or participate in the world of “selfies” then you show that you are culturally relevant enough for young generations of people to take you seriously. It not only shows your effort, but also reveals more about you in terms of identity and ability to put forth effort in a current and relevant manner. Just as USC’s Alison Trope states, “Selfies are not just about self-portraiture. They are also autobiographies and autoethnographies” (Paragraph 7 of USC’s #SelfieClass). “Selfies” are ways of communicating your story, your stature, and how you carry yourself day to day. This is found in context clues of the “selfie” itself as well as in the mediums you choose to display them on. Personally, I think that I can gain a lot simply based on someone’s “selfies” they choose to post to social media. I can automatically put a label to them, whether accurate or not, about what types of people they probably hang out with, socioeconomic status based on location, personality time, and much more. It’s true about all pictures, but a “selfie” is truly worth more than 1000 words!