Digital Media and Mental Health Study Guide

City that classified social networking sites as a public health threat.

New York City.

Social media "currency" and the economy they are used in.

Likes, shares, retweets, and comments used within the Attention Economy.

Relationship between cognitive capacity and multitasking.

As multitasking increases, effective cognitive capacity decreases due to performance bottlenecks and processing overloads.

Relationship between multitasking and attention shifting.

Multitasking is not simultaneous processing; it is rapid attention shifting, which increases cognitive fatigue and lowers accuracy.

How digital media help older adults.

Reduces social isolation, maintains family connections, and provides cognitive stimulation or easy access to health information.

Statistical analysis that can explain predictions.

Regression analysis.

Overall point of the children's target analogy (correlation vs. regression).

Correlation shows if two things move together, while regression draws the line to make specific predictions (hitting the target center based on inputs).

Brain rot.

Cognitive decline, shortened attention span, or mental fog caused by overconsuming fragmented, low-value digital content.

Upward Social Comparison.

Comparing yourself to someone perceived as better off, often resulting in feelings of inadequacy or low self-esteem.

Downward Social Comparison.

Comparing yourself to someone perceived as worse off, typically used to boost self-esteem or feel better about your own status.

Displacement Hypothesis.

Time on digital media replaces vital offline activities (like sleep, exercise, or real-life socializing), leading to lower overall well-being.

Main assumption of the Stimulation Hypothesis.

Online communication encourages and enhances offline interactions, thereby strengthening existing real-world friendships.

Shared concepts/criteria needed to form a "community".

Shared space/boundaries, common ties/bonds, and social interaction (p. 98/106).

Reasons people have for joining communities.

Mutual support, information sharing, a sense of belonging, and collective identity exploration (p. 99/107).

Definition and examples of "third places".

Social environments separate from home (1st) and work (2nd). Examples: Coffee shops, bars, community centers, or barbershops.

The key to understanding the societal effect of digital media.

Looking at the interplay between social networks and technical infrastructures (p. 102/111).

Online vs. Offline Community comparisons.

Online offers convenience and global reach but may lack the deep, multi-sensory accountability and local support of offline communities.

Does today's society fit more of a community or a network perspective?

A network perspective (p. 104/112).

If media are environments, what are networks?

Networks are the underlying pathways or structures within those environments (p. 104/113).

The "social network revolution" is and is not a result of what?

It IS a result of structural shifts in human relationships over decades; it is NOT simply caused by the invention of the internet alone (p. 106/115).

Simmel's main theoretical contribution to network sociology.

Formal sociology; analyzing how the geometry and size of social groups (like dyads and triads) fundamentally dictate human interaction.

Three forces or changes that resulted in the network society.

1. The Information Technology Revolution 2. Economic Restructuring (global capitalism) 3. Social Movements of the 1960s/70s favoring individual freedom (p. 107/116).

Informationalism.

A technological paradigm where generating, processing, and transmitting information are the primary sources of productivity and power.

"Network" vs. "Networking" (and which is required first).

A Network is the structural system of nodes and ties. Networking is the active behavior of building those ties. A network must exist first for networking to happen.

Relationship between social networking site intensity and offline connections.

Moderate to high intensity users often experience stronger, more active offline social connections (bridging social capital), rather than becoming isolated (p. 110/118).

Networked Individualism.

A social structure where the individual sits at the center of their own customized network, managing loose ties across multiple circles rather than being locked into one local community.

New skills needed in a networked operating system.

Relationship management, personal branding, technical literacy, and the ability to navigate fragmented information streams (p. 111/120).

How "egocentric" and "egoistic" relate to networked individualism.

Networked individualism is egocentric (structured around the individual node) but not necessarily egoistic (selfish), as network nodes still cooperate and support others.

Characteristics of the interaction society.

High interactivity, decentralized communication, flattened hierarchies, and blurred lines between producers and consumers (Slide 2).

Meaning of anonymity in the 1990s.

A tool for total liberation from the physical body, allowing users to reinvent identities completely detached from real life (Slide 3).

Meaning of the dog cartoon in 1993 ("On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog").

Highlights how early internet infrastructure completely masked physical traits like age, race, gender, or species (Slide 3).

Purpose of emojis.

To provide visual/emotional shorthand and replace nonverbal cues (tone, expression) missing in text-based communication (Slide 3).

5 advantages of asynchronous communication.

1. Time to edit responses 2. Convenience/flexibility 3. Reduced immediate social pressure 4. Permanent records 5. Cross-time zone coordination (Slide 4).

Deindividuation.

The loss of self-awareness and personal responsibility that happens when an individual feels submerged inside a group or hidden by technology (Slide 5).

Why we feel "safe" online.

Due to physical distance, invisibility, and control over when/how we respond, which lowers immediate real-world threats or social penalties (Slide 5).

Behavior in the hyperpersonal model.

Users engage in selective self-presentation (idealizing themselves), while receivers over-interpret those cues, creating an intensified, highly intimate feedback loop (Slide 6).

Hyperpersonal communication.

Online communication that is more intimate, friendly, or accelerated than face-to-face interaction due to optimized control over message creation (Slide 6).

3 current trends with regard to anonymity.

1. Real-name policies (loss of true anonymity) 2. Pseudononymity 3. Traceability/surveillance by platforms and advertisers (Slide 7).

Value of targeted advertising.

High financial value because it matches ads directly to quantified consumer behavioral data, interests, and demographics (Slide 7).

What Facebook required in the early days that it no longer requires now.

A valid university/college email address (.edu) to sign up (Slide 7).

Major landscape shift in the early 2000s (attributed to boyd, 2014).

The online landscape shifted from being topically organized (chat rooms, forums) to being organized around social connections between people.

Interactivity dynamics on platforms like TikTok.

Interactivity depends on both the user's active or passive choices and the specific structural features built into the platform.

What is so tricky about one's own "taken-for-granted's"?

They are invisible cultural assumptions we don't question, making it difficult to objectively see how deeply media shapes our view of reality.

Causes or reasons leading to postmodernity.

The rise of mass media, consumer capitalism, globalization, and the erosion of absolute trust in scientific or institutional authorities.

Approximate date of the first self-photograph.

1839 (Robert Cornelius).

3 social purposes of selfies.

Identity performance, social connection/communication, and archiving memories.

3 reasons that contributed to the popularity of selfies.

1. Front-facing smartphone cameras 2. The rise of visual social networks (Instagram/Snapchat) 3. Instant digital validation (likes/comments).

When does media panic happen?

Whenever a new technology or media format emerges and threatens to disrupt established social norms or traditional authority figures.

The core aspect shared by positive and negative examples of performing identity.

The visible body / physical presentation (how our physical form is modified, curated, or scrutinized online).

Selfie death.

A tragic accidental death occurring while attempting to take a photograph in a dangerous, high-risk location.

What does it mean to say that social media are ecosystems?

They are dynamic environments where users, technologies, platforms, and cultural norms constantly interact and adapt to one another.

Old-fashioned examples comparable to videos of affinity.

Home movies, keeping a physical diary/journal, or writing long personal letters to friends.

Are videos of affinity restricted to being on social media?

No, they can appear in video art installation spaces, legacy television broadcasts, or independent cinematic forms.

Role the physical body plays in videos of affinity.

The body acts as the primary tool for creating intimacy, using eye contact, close-ups, and natural expressions to establish proximity.

In what way are emojis a universal language, but still don't always have universal meaning?

They are globally recognized visual symbols, yet their precise meanings alter completely based on cultural contexts, age groups, and personal inside jokes.

Blended writing.

A style of digital communication that fuses traditional text words with visual symbols (emojis, punctuation art, GIFs) to replicate spoken inflection.