Social Media Norm Breaching Experiments
Experiment: Always Mix Media
Method: I choose three people whom I usually text within a specific social media platform. During this experiment, I always respond to communication using a different medium of communication than the one that was used to contact you. For example, when he/she texts me on Line, I choose to reply to them on Facebook Messenger. Or if he/she sends me a message on Instagram, I reply to them with voice-message through text.
Results: When I switched to another social media platform, people tended to follow me and replied to me through the medium I choose to respond to them without questioning me. Maybe they think it was an accident so they didn’t really care and kept communicating with me on the same topic despite the different media platforms. While I switched the media for the second time, all of them began to ask me why I kept doing this. They said it was annoying to them. Although I stuck in the same quality of communication, they said this kind of behavior made them have less desire to keep communicating with me. When I switched to another media for the second time, one even stuck in the same media she used to text me and asked me not to play the trick with her. After I explained to them the purpose of this experiment, one stated that replying to someone through the original social media platform he/she used and stuck in the same responding form is the fundamental respect to the person and the communication between two people. The other person explained when I replied to her in another media, she couldn’t remember what exactly she said to me in the other media and needed to open it first to remind herself of the contents of our last communication. One mentioned that he potentially expects one person should stick with one medium no matter which it is to contact him rather than change into different ones frequently.
Discussion: According to the reading material, the social world was filled with hidden rules for behavior that were so taken for granted it could be very difficult to notice them even if you tried to. Using social media platforms also has plenty of potential social rules in it. Although every user has slightly differences viewpoint of social rules in their media using, there are still some potential rules that are recognized by most social media users. These concepts, therefore, can be seen as general communication norms in social media. For example, through the result of my experiment, I can obviously consider staying with the same communication platform and form to contact with others are regarded as one common social media norm. When it comes to my personal idea of particular social media norm, I think when someone tags my name in the Instagram story, I tend to at least reply to a heart as the symbol of seen by me. Therefore, if there is no reply from the person I tagged, I would feel a little bit uncomfortable. I define this kind of behavior and feeling as the social media norm personally though I am not sure if this idea is accepted generally or not.
