Social Problems From Social Media
Tue, Mar 03
The purpose of today's class is to examine how social media has impacted mental health and contemporary culture. As we have discussed previously in this class, there is a link between behavior and culture, and negativity put downward pressure on both in a feedback loop of sorts. In this lecture we'll examine how this is playing out.
We have three main in-class learning goals. By the end of lecture today you will:
- Understand how our behaviors have changed due to social media.
- Examine how culture has changed due to social media.
- Ask how we can avoid obvious pitfalls in thinking that are sculpted by social media.
The slides for today's lecture.
Read This:
Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues that the The Teen Mental Illness Epidemic Began Around 2012, right around the time the smartphone became a fixture
Internet maven Katherine Dee breaks down three online behavioral archetypes in her piece Internet Overexposure Syndrome for Comment Magazine
Do This:
This Week's Dialogue Group Meeting
Find at least one hour to meet with your group to discuss the prompt of the week: Identify three virtues that are important for social media. Refer to the CST handout and this set of Virtues in Engineering for possible virtues.
Once you have completed the readings, fill out the following quiz. If you can't see the form below, try this direct link.