Tim Tamarama

Did you know they don’t have Facebook in China?!?! Or Twitter? Or YouTube?! Now, I’ve known about Facebook for a while but since I’ve never actually BEEN to China it’s never really been a problem... But, now that I think about it it actually floors me! Whenever I’m out and about and I meet someone new, my first instinct (and usually theirs) is to find them on Facebook, I take for granted that I can Google quick, self-help videos on YouTube when I have to fix something around the house and reading people’s stupid Twitter posts always helps me have a giggle! It never actually occurred to me that people wouldn’t have access to these; how do they cope without them?!

MemeGenerator, n.d, You Don’t have Facebook Despite not having some of the most well-known social media websites in the world, China has the most active social media users with individuals spending up to 40% of their day online (Chiu, Ip and Silverman, 2012)! The social media platforms in China are more fragmented with more targeted areas of focus and demographics. Take Facebook, for example. There are around four different platforms in China that cater for individuals who would potentially use Facebook (Crampton, 2011). There’s Douban for the arty, Kaixin001 for the ‘mature’ audiences, QZone for the youngin’s under 25 and RenRen for uni students. It absolutely FASCINATES me that instead of being cast in a great, wide world of social media sharing individuals in China can find something that caters to their needs and for me, opens up a whole new targeted way of making friends and ‘finding your place’ online. Perhaps if the world at large had a more targeted approach like China there’d be less bullying, trolling and general ‘meanness’ that accompanies most online forums? A great infographic on some of the different sites available on china is below!

Pinterest In addition to having different spaces for different groups, Social Media in China also plays a huge part in marketing, advertising and the consumer purchase decision making process online. According to an infographic by Jessica Draws Media, 95% of Chinese Online Shoppers said that brands who had a social media presence (or ‘microblog’) were more trustworthy than those that did not with 61% of shoppers admitting to making purchases due to this concept of a digital marketing strategy (2013). This preference can be seen when Dove launched a social media campaign and saw increases in their body wash sales by 21% and overall awareness by 44% (Chiu, Ip and Silverman, 2012). Chiu, Ip and Silverman also identified that 66% of shoppers were also more likely to trust recommendations from friends and family compared to 38% in the US. I imagine business could exploit this the way they do with things like Instagram where they get celebrities and influencers to share pictures in order to boost sales! Some more fun facts can be found in the below video (that you won’t be able to view if you live in China; just saying)!

This weeks topic was and is absolutely fascinating to me. China will probably be one of my travel destinations in the not-too-distant future and the idea that I won’t be able to use my favourite social media platforms both terrifies and excites me. All term we’ve talked about what social media does, our dependancies and some of the risks associated with our online presence and taking into consideration all the bad, it’d be interesting to see if China has less of this with their targeted, diverse approach to social media platforms and content sharing.

I feel like I’m cheating a little bit here since my group has already extensively researched online gaming but let’s give it a go anyway. The topic is pretty close to home for me as I’d consider myself a reformed online gaming addict. See the video below? That was me... Well, maybe not the whole gross pooping into a bedpan thing but the hiding in the dark with my friends, neglecting my health and spending WAY too much time playing World of Warcraft. Like any former addict, it’s easy for me to find and get invested in a game; particularly those that require some kind of social interaction.

Etienne, Southpark World of Warcraft

Why was I so into (and why am I so susceptible to) online gaming you might ask? When researching the motivators for online gaming, there were a whole host of motivators but I ended up finding quite an interesting set of motivators. Within the list of motivators, I fit into all categories and several sub categories underneath them. See the list below:

Yee, N 2006 The ones that stand out the most to me are the concept of competition and advancement; escapism and discovery and socialising with my friends (namely, my brother and my ex-boyfriend). When looking at my motivators, most of them are actually linked with the three common traits that studies have associated with addictive behaviour (Ng and Wiemer-Hastings, 2005)! Not only that, when looking at these studies on online gaming addiction; I definitely fell into the major trap of forgoing seeing my ‘real’ friends and family to play video games.

MemeCentre, World Of Warcraft Addict 2014 I can actually pinpoint the moment when I decided to quit... My flatmate and best friend was trying to convince to me go out with her... I needed to achieve a limited time only title in game and tried to protest... Her vacant, judgemental stare was all I needed to rethink my actions and it actually made me question everything. I quit my subscription and I think I’ve only ever paid for another month of in-game play since. 

Pinterest

Online Gaming is super fun and super enthralling. It allows the user to enter a different world, achieve things not possible in the ‘real world’, make new ‘friends’ in the online world and in the case of some games allows the user to choose exactly who they want to be - just like social media platforms. Do I regret my time playing online games? No... I don’t. It taught me about some of the risks associated with something as harmless as playing video games and caused me to re-think my adult priorities. Would I do it again? No. Because despite it’s appeal, it’s still not real and even though I can have a lot of fun all my adult responsibilities would just be waiting for me when I stop.

References

In my very first blog post, I asked about your online activities, what they say about you and explored the fact that we can alter our online ego to be anyone we really want to be by carefully selecting our posts... Well... This week, I’d like to introduce you to my friend Snapchat A social media tool that almost CRUSHES all those rules (at least in my world).  I’m sure you’ve heard of Instagram. With it’s beautiful filters and ability to seamlessly alter a photo so it looks almost nothing like the original, it’s the photo/video sharing social media platform you use when you want to look glam! Snapchat is another photo/video sharing app however it’s messages are fleeting; you can only view them once for up to 10 seconds (unless you’re an absolute jerk and you screenshot them; an act of ultimate betrayal). 

FunnyMemes, I Trusted You

The fleeting nature of Snapchat makes for interesting communication amongst friends and a study on it’s use has indicated that it’s done mainly for bonding and not social status (Piwek and Joinson, 2016). As vain as it is, I give you exhibit A. below; a perfect illustration of the difference between Snapchat and Instagram. And yes, that’s me; aren’t I beautiful?!?! I DEFINITELY use Snapchat to bond with my close friends and the array of horrendously ugly selfies exchanged between us is pretty intense... And HILARIOUS! Snapchat is just another way for me to share my slightly geeky, slightly embarrassing self and funny moments with my good friends as they happen rather than updating it to everyone on my Facebook.

A photo posted by Tamara (@comebakqueen) on Mar 26, 2016 at 1:06am PDT

Comebakqueen, Instagram

Now... I’m not someone who massively cares about what people tag me in on Facebook unless it’s something I’m vehemently against and I don’t want to be associated with it... I’ve got plenty of ugly photos, embarrassing stories and awkward realisations that I’ve been happy to shame MYSELF with let alone other people; the photo above is one of my absolute favourites! But not everyone is like me; I’ve got plenty of friends who don’t like to have their information shared online. Additionally, I’ve got plenty of friends who get upset if they AREN’T tagged in something or find it awkward to tag certain people. When did something that’s supposed to be fun and social become so political? 

The Roundabout Crew, Tagging Your Friends Girlfriend

I found a great article by Pamela Wisniewski et al (2016) that explored the implications involved with tagging friends online. Whilst studies have shown that it can lead to higher levels of social bonding it can also lead to a sense of helplessness (p. 1884). Whilst most users choose to ignore this and post photographs anyway, some prefer the choice and have their Facebook set up so they have the option to reject Facebook tags in order to preserve their online image and keep that control.  I don’t often untag myself but I know I’m always cautious about tagging other people in my photo updates. Posting monstrously ugly photo’s of myself is one thing, but I still prefer to be in control and can fully appreciate that others feel the same. My advice to you, always try and be mindful of how other people feel about sharing information online and try to take that into consideration when sharing your own information; you never know who might get insulted or hurt if you share something unwanted. 

ImgFlip, Tagging

References

In Louisiana, when floods crippled the state, American’s donated over $9.5 million  (Breslin, 2016). For the earthquake disaster that occurred in Nepal, GoFundMe donations topped $7.4 million globally, GlobalGiving donors contributed over $5 million and through PayPal, individuals contributed a whopping $19 million ( Milliken 2015). What do you think prompted citizens of the globe to be so generous with their hard earned dollars? How do you think the citizens of the globe even knew about the scale of these disasters?

Milliken 2015, Relief Effort: Nepal Earthquake As technology grows and the availability of information increases, breaking news is almost instantaneously available to the world at large and the ability of the average human being to provide assistance in the event of crisis has increased and thus, the concept of crowdsourcing is becoming more and more prevalent (Goodchild and Glennon, 2010). The Ushahidi platform was one of the first, developed crowdsourcing platforms created after a Kenyan blogger put out a plea for individuals to share updates about the human rights abuses occurring in the country after there was a local media ban following their presidential election (Ford, 2012). Almost 10 years later, the platform has grown to be used in over 150 countries (Leson, 2013) with over 90 thousand deployments, 6.5 million testimonies and a reach of 20 million (Ushahidi, 2017) and has probably saved countless lives. Since it’s creation, Ushahidi has grown to include social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and updates can be sent in via SMS, email and has mobile integration; the more that gets shared on social media the more concise the map becomes.  When you look at the map below, you can really start to grasp how prevalent the concept of crowdsourcing has become!

Leson, 2013, Ushahidi: Where in the World Ushahi is certainly not the only way we can share information online with social media becoming a widely used tool to not only share status updates and photographs. With the launch of Facebook Live in April 2016 and Twitter in December 2016, everyone became news broadcasters with the ability to share breaking news from the scene as it happened on Facebook (Simo, 2016)(Newton 2016). I don’t know about you, but I watched in absolute shock and horror as citizens of Aleppo in Syria took to LiveStreaming to say their final goodbyes as they weren’t sure if they would survive the bombings occurring in their region. The terror these people felt, knowing that it was happening at that precise moment stirred emotions in me that your average news broadcast could never do; that’s the power crowdsourcing can bring. If you want to see what’s currently going down around the globe, click here to go to the Facebook Live Map.

US Exclusive News: Syrians post 'goodbye' messages from eastern Aleppo It’s not always sunshine and rainbows. You can share  your happy moments and your worst moments online with every individual who owns a camera, smartphone or even laptop having the ability to contribute and report their own news online. Crowdsourcing is growing to become a hugely valuable and popular tool in the world we know today and despite being heartbreaking at times, the awareness it spreads is absolutely priceless.

No, it’s not Jingle Bells, it’s the dulcet laughter that lingers in the air after someone has deliberately provoked, insulted or made a fool of someone else online. It’s called “Trolling” and the individual conducting the trolling, aka the “Troll” has a primary objective; to illicit an emotional response from its target, primarily that of anger (Thacker and Griffiths, 2012 p. 18).

Want some pointers? Have a look at this (click to view)!

Did you click it expecting to see an animation? Did you? Did You?! DID YOU?! Well, Congratulations!! You have just been trolled. How does it feel? Do you feel just a little stupid? Have I annoyed you? Are you mad? Admittedly, it’s not my best work but I’m no stranger to the world of trolling and I’m not going to lie; sometimes I have a little bit more fun than I should really admit... But at what cost?  Trolling can mean different things to different people however research indicates that it typically comes about due to three main reasons; attention seeking, boredom and revenge (Thacker and Griffiths, 2012). Thinking back to some of my own, more successful trolling endeavours, boredom is definitely a key contributor to my online behaviour. Revenge is also quite prevalent as I recall a time I read several dereogatory comments posted about “two girls taking selfies” before a concert had even began. My best friend and I weren’t particularly upset but we decided to troll him as he had been ‘whining’ in several forums and groups were both members in. After our deliberate and very public social media shaming, the result was an unhappy individual who removed his commentary and vanished from Facebook in general. 

(Image: Futurama Fry, knowyourmeme 2012) After ‘winning’ the battle with this individual, we felt empowered, content and powerful but at what cost? Trolling and online bullying often go hand-in-hand with scholars identifying the main difference as being intent; trolls aim to disrupt and annoy whereas cyber-bulliying is a deliberate attempt to cause harm and distress (Nichol, 2012). What do you think my friend and I were doing? Whilst our intent was not to cause harm and distress, does that mean we didn’t? We can’t all “Go all Vulcan” and shut off our emotions and cyber-bullying has been shown to increase emotional distress of the victim and can ultimately lead to depression and other mental health issues (Schenk and Fremouw, 2012). 

(Image: Captain Spock Meme, Erin Ray 2017) Taking this into consideration, the Australian government has set up websites for a myriad of different individuals to try and combat the growing trend of cyber-bullying and internet trolling but is it effective? Following the suicide of celebrity Charlotte Dawson there has been an outcry for tougher legislation on cyber-bullying after she openly shared her depression and was still the victim of derogatory attacks with a petition to protect individuals on all levels even surfacing on change.org; have a read and if you are passionate about protecting individuals from the online scourge that is cyber-bullying. As the internet grows, changes and becomes more prevalent in today’s society I think it’s important to have tougher penalties and greater protection for those who need it. Does this mean I’m going to stop trolling altogether, probably not. I like to think, and history has showed me that, I only tend to troll the trollers so essentially, I’m the “Batman” of the online community protecting the innocent and making the guilty suffer. Either way, I will definitely be more aware of how my actions might affect someone not quite as emotionally sound as myself. If you still don’t ‘get’ trolling have a watch of the below; definitely a fun and interesting way of learning about it!

(Video: The Psychology of Trolling, SciShow 2016) 

Erin Ray 2017, Captain Spock Meme, accessed 12th January 2017 via https://au.pinterest.com/pin/69735494204743549/ fungusamongus 2010, How To Troll Image, accessed 12th January 2017 via http://www.funnyjunk.com/funny_gifs/1327835/How/ knowyourmeme 2012, Futurama Fry, accessed 12th January 2017 via http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/futurama-fry-not-sure-if Nichol, S 2012, Special Feature: Cyber Bullying and Trolling, Youth Studies Australia, vol. 31, no. 4, pp.3-4 Schenk, AM & Fremouw, WJ 2012, ‘Prevalence, Psychological Impact, and Coping of Cyberbully Victims Among College Students’, Journal Of School Violence, vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 21-37 SciShow 2016, The Physichology of Trolling Video, accessed 12th January 2017 via https://youtu.be/5gqHTlBp6iY 

#kony2012, #BringBackOurGirls, #BlackLivesMatter, #RefugeesWelcome. Do any of these phrases sound familiar to you? Do you know why? Online Social Activism, or “Hashtag Activism” was first recognised in an online piece published in 2011 by The Guardian about how social media impacted the Occupy Wall Protests (Yaverbaum, E 2015). During these protests, social media was used to coordinate protests, but how has the concept evolved in the last five years?  In addition to raising awareness and the coordination of protest activity, the concept of hashtag activism has evolved to connect digital and real life communities and enable people to share their stories i.e. giving a voice to those who previously felt alone or were silenced. But, does this really help the community or is it just a way that we can all feed our egos and make ourselves feel better about addressing the tough issues circling the globe?  I consider myself somewhat of an activist. I’ve gone to protests, I make stands, I obnoxiously lecture unsuspecting victims about world issues... But if I share or sign that online petition to stop whaling, am I really doing anything? 

(Image: Slacktivism, knowyourmeme, 2013),  One of the biggest websites for online petitions is change.org and it is apparently, “giving the powerless and downtrodden in society a powerful voice” (Change.Org 2016). I know I’ve signed several of these petitions wondering if there was any point and even though, like me, you might think that click does nothing, according to their website they have had 20,230 victories in 196 countries with a petition achieving victory every hour (statistics captured at 7pm on 26th December 2016)! The online world is changing and the way we connect and form communities is changing, why shouldn’t the way we protest change and evolve with the times just like everything else? Whether you do or don’t believe that online social activism makes a huge difference to what’s going on in the world, I’ll leave you with a quote from Mother Theresa, “I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples”. Sharing a link, signing a petition or posting a comment online about a global issue online probably won’t change the world but it’ll create ripples and with the online world constantly growing, you never know where that ripple will end. 

Well, well well. What a year it’s been politics! Close to home, we saw one of the most interesting election results in history with around 30% of Australian voters choosing neither of the two preferred parties (AEC, 2016). Across the water in the motherland, we saw “Brexit” plaguing our social media feeds as a surprising 51.9% of the British population voted to leave the European Union (BBC 2016). If this wasn’t enough, just last month we saw celebrity businessman, Donald Trump, elected as the most powerful man in the world despite having an interesting approach to his political campaign. Looking back at last week’s blog, it’s relatively easy to see the appeal of using social media in politics. By editing and altering your content, you can cater to the public eye by posting exactly what they want to see seemingly creating the perfect political campaign. But does this necessarily have a positive effect on the polls or does the changing nature of social media use and it’s implications cause the social media savvy population to question and doubt the information they are receiving from their politicians?  

(Image: #ThisHappened, CNBC) Just yesterday, Twitter released their top 10 trending topics of 2016 globally and, not surprisingly, politics and political issues represented almost half (Kharpal 2016). Considering, on average, around 58 million Tweets are created per day from almost 350 million active users (StatisticsBrain 2016), that’s a lot of public interest in politics and a lot of potential to share and influence the world with your own special brand of politics. Studies have shown four key gratifications that users seek from political content online (Hoffman, Suphan & Meckel 2016):

Guidance in their decision making process

Information seeking and clarity

Entertainment (we all love a good meme)

Interaction with others

With these four factors in mind, how do you think a politician can use their online presence to their advantage? Not only that, how do you think that other users can potentially cause a disadvantage to a political campaign online? John Kerrison from CNN likens a Tweet to placing a giant billboard on the Sydney Harbour Bridge (Jericho, G 2012) and the same could be said for any social media platform; once the content is out there, the world will scrutinise it in a very large capacity. When Peter Dutton made an ‘accidental’ remark mocking climate change in 2015 when he failed to notice a microphone, social media went into a frenzy not only targeting Peter Dutton at an individual, but at the political issues he was choosing to mock/ignore (news.com 2015). 

(Image: James Raynes, news.com)

Social Media is changing how we see the world today. It’s used to share who we are (or who we WANT to be), it’s used to gather information and it’s used to persuade. From elections, to referendums, to issues of concern, the increasing role that social media plays in politics today can not be ignored. Whether through mocking, through support or through general engagement, our politicians today have the platform available to reach a whole new demographic of individual seeking to learn and understand which can only benefit society by enabling individuals to become more educated and informed on political campaigns that affect them on a global level. 

Facebook? Instagram? Snapchat? Tinder? Are you on any of these platforms? What do they say about you? Are you glamorous? Are you cat obsessed (guilty!)? Do you like nature or, are you an amateur chef? It is said that we can learn a lot about people from their social media accounts but, is this a true reflection of an individual or a carefully constructed online ego created to appear fun, fabulous and carefree?   Wilken & McCosker suggest that we are constantly managing what kinds of photos, videos, statuses and, ultimately, aspects of ourselves we allow to be visible to the public eye through our various social media platforms (2014 Pg. 292). Just this week, a popular Australian Youth Radio program, Hack on Triple J, explored and exposed techniques and tricks to enable users on the social media platform, Tinder, to be more successful in their online dating endeavours (2016). But, is this fair to the unsuspecting victims who fall for the tips and tricks suggested to enable your online success? Comments such as “Don’t post fishing photos, ok we get it you can catch a fish!” or “Stupid face photos, don't you know how to smile or is there something wrong with your teeth!?” are harsh and suggest that you should hide that element of your personality from the online world but, is that really benefitting you in the end?

(Photo: John Atkinson, Wrong Hands) Siapera builds on this theory of ‘customising’ who you are online as well as identifying that as a society, portability has enabled us to always be online and that as this changes we are losing human contact (2012 Pp. 193-199). In a TEDtalk, Sherry Tuckle states that "We are designing technologies that will give us the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship" and makes a point that our social media platforms, whilst never really allowing us to be alone, often lead to loneliness (2013) but what does that mean to us? Have you ever felt the crippling blow when that witty status update or carefully filtered and edited photo doesn’t get as many likes as you had hoped? Does that mean people don’t like you? In a study by The University of Pittsburgh it was discovered that little activity on an individuals social media platform can make them feel like they are wasting time in addition to feeling inadequate compared to their peers who are perceived to have happy, more successful lives (2016). This builds on other studies which have linked heavy social media usage with depression and has further supported the coined term “social comparison” which has become a psychological phenomenon. Forums on one of Australia’s leading mental health websites, BeyondBlue, have users condemning social media as aiding and abetting their mental health issues with several users noting that it greatly affects them. If our online presence is affecting our physical presence, then why are we still so focused on remaining online?

While social media platforms are great to catch up with long lost friends, share anecdotal tales of the day that’s been had, or enable you to communicate with loved ones half a world away, the underlying concerns of isolation, depression and the inability to fully accept and express ones self raises the question about whether or not our society is evolving or devolving with its introduction. As a social media user myself, I know the perils of editing out that controversial statement, or untagging that ghastly photograph someone uploaded from the weekend; what does that say about me and my online presence? I guess that’s up to you to decide. NOTE: If you are feeling depressed or anxious about your online presence, please contact BeyondBlue by clicking here or calling them on 1300 224 636. ______________________________________________________________________ BeyondBlue 2016, https://www.beyondblue.org.au/, viewed 3rd December 2016