Always Connected generation
Sociologist, Donna Freitas after interviewing 200 students from 13 US colleges about their social media addictions, writes in her latest book, “Students express near universal adoration of Snapchat. They can say dumb things, and take goofy, ugly photographs and parade them to other people, and can be sad, mean and negative.”
Social media has become a dominant force in young people’s life including Cyberbullying, Narcissism and Sexting and everyday there are shocking stories of private pictures getting into the wrong hands.
Despite loss-making, Snap was valued at $28bn when it went public last week and the shares leapt 44 per cent on the first day of trading, as it is the latest mobile internet pastime for students the timed disappearing photographs.
This is the interactive generation described by Donna Frietas The Happiness Effect. Who discover their identities online and shift between Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr and Snapchat in search of love and admiration.
Digital social interaction is a vital part of most people’s lives that they thrive to be connected and better informed and able to achieve things which were impossible in the not so distant past, but this has not made them happy. Freita’sApp addicted students are restless, insecure and fretful, plagued by their fears of missing out and longing to be “loved and liked.”
Some social media platforms are Panopticon, which in the past had photos of wild behaviour is cleaned up so that nothing could come back to haunt them. “What you see is a carefully crafted showcase of a person’s best, happiest and prettiest moments” that makes everyone else feel ugly.
According to one young woman interviewed by Freitas “ Over the summer, everyone was in bathing suits all the time, posting fun pictures, and I said, you know, Wow I want that and would like to look like that”.
Snapchat offers parole from the Panopticon since it involves small social media group and is less risky as their images disappear by default after being viewed as Snapchat offers its users a way to connect without being judged a possibility college students often feel they are constantly being evaluated and watched.”
Yik Yak, another app that allows users to post anonymous messages about others, is popular in the campuses for messing around, free of Facebook’s artifice, which can equally be abused to pick on others and bully them.
Snaps current revenue is limited but investors believe advertisers will need to spend money to reach its precious audience.
The Happiness Effect: How Social Media is Driving a Generation to disappear Perfect at Any Cost by Donna Freitas, Oxford University Press £20/ $29.95, 368 pages.