Psychology of Social Media

I have always been slightly confused as to what a troll is on the internet. I remember listening to friends in High School talk about "trolling" people and calling others "trolls" but I never explored it further. Now that I know what is it, I still don't understand why it is a thing. It seems like its a tiring process of making people mad or embarrassing them for no reason at all. It seems like a total waste of time, but then again so is about 75% of things I do on the internet on a daily basis. I don't consider myself to have ever taken part in any activities that would resemble that of a troll. I don't enjoy fighting with people on the internet and I definitely don't enjoy having people attack me. That is the fascinating thing about humans, we enjoy humiliating others and watching them be embarrassed. We glorify tearing people about, especially on the internet because people are definitely too afraid to do anything in person. That's the irony o...

I like to consider myself tech savvy to a certain extent. But I cannot lie and say that I know anything about proper security and protection when it comes to my computer and phone. I am probably considered a good target for hackers. I don't understand the "cloud" and how everything tech wise that I own is connected to one another and has everything shared between it. I don't even realize how often my phone is telling others where I am. After discussion in this class, I have recently been more freaked about my web presence and location sharing. Not that I was some avid "checking in" Facebook person, but things like Snapchat has been sharing my location for months and I didn't even realize I was doing so. I have noticed how little I know about what happens when you share things like that. You have to remember how smart others are and how tricky they can be just by using your social media. Especially when it comes to passwords, I am the worst. I keep the 4 ...

Online dating is such a mystery to me. I don't understand the swiping or the matching or really anything that goes into it. I remember a time in my freshman year when all my friends peer pressured (yes, I fell for it) into making a Tinder account. Well, it seemed innocent enough as I swiped through these guys that were less than 30 miles away.  It led to a few matches and it seemed like a great way to get to know these people that went to the same University as me. Well, it wasn't actually fun. People harassed me and sent awful direct messages that I would never like to see again. Even more, random people in my class would say "Oh, I saw your tinder." Which made me feel shame, even though they were on it too. It took until someone else explained it to me what exactly the app is. It appears that it is nothing more than an app that is furthering the "hookup culture" that surrounds us. It is nothing more than a way for people to superficially judged you and the...

Online sharing has reached a new high with everyone and anyone writing about themselves, their children, or their new relationships. The internet has created a new platform for people to talk about themselves and everything about them. It's funny how we never have talked about ourselves in such a way in face to face conversations but manage to online. I think that the internet provides a platform for autonomy and an "everything goes" mentality. We aren't fearful of what we post because the backlash is not directly in our face and we feel a sense of safety behind the screen. We feel invincible when we cant see what is attacking us, although it hurts it is usually nothing we pay attention to. I have never felt like oversharing in terms of pictures or any physical representation of myself, but I do love my twitter account. I mostly share funny things that happen to me or my opinions, but I have never been one to post numerous pictures. Even more, I find mommy blogs as mo...