### Reading Responses Set 2

## Nov 6th- Dating ##

Would you swipe right? Online dating has become a prominent form of meeting your match but how do we really know who is behind the screen? Truth is, most people self-misrepresent themselves in order to show the best representation of themselves. Things such as height, salary and older pictures are the most common on these dating sites. "The better the picture, the more likely it is to be out of date."

Personally, I have never used dating sites in order to connect with my male counterparts. This article confirmed and reassured all my doubts that people are not who they say are, even if the misinterpretation is only off by a little. If the end goal on the sites is to eventually meet up with the people that you are connecting with, why not be 100% honest?

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## Nov 20th- Haters ##

So you think you're a tough guy! Anonymity plays a role in how people communicate with each other online. Ghostbusters Star, Leslie Jones was trolled online after Milo Yiannopoulos encouraged his followers to harass her. A trollplex, "an attack by a spectrum of people, from identified to anonymous, exhibiting varied behavior—from jokes to insults to threats—but who share a target, culture, and venue for attack" is how people display their harassment without being pinpointed. Once you have a "toxic subculture" it is extremely hard to get rid of that title. People who use twitter reported that when it comes to non-celebrities that are hacked, there is not much that Twitter does to control these things.

While reading this article, the phrase that I did not quite agree with was, "Once you have toxic subculture as a platform, it can be hard to remove it." I think almost all social media sites do a good job at removing comments and post that do not align with their terms and conditions. Obviously, they cannot spend all day scanning for things that do not fall within their guidelines but when people report trolls, it goes under review and they determine what is suitable and what is not.

## Nov 27th- Shaped ##

Did you even update your twitter? Self-Esteem, the Social Self, and Selfies touches on the popular question on the internet, "Am I ugly?" The responses that are generated can often be offensive, racist, etc. This question forms the notion of self-esteem. Self-esteem is "the self-evaluation of one's worth; this is part of self-concept, the totality of thoughts and feelings about one's self." Alternative Theory talks about Facebook and how viewing your own page can increase your self-esteem simply because you can control what content you want other people to see. On the other hand, Traditional Theory talks about how viewing your own Facebook page can heighten self-awareness and diminish self-esteem.

In the reading, I was really intrigued by the *A Narcissistic Epidemic*. There was a statement in the book that said, "Young people's narcissism to the inattention of parents who are too busy with their own gadgets." I don't think that it is an accurate comparison between narcissism and inattention due to other gadgets. I believe narcissism is a trait that develops over time and the idea of smart phones and social media platforms are fairly new. It would be impossible for young people to develop such a trait in a short period of time.

## Nov 30th- Collapsed Context

Do I have a split personality? All humans present themselves differently when they are put into different environments and on the internet, it is no different. The only main difference is that it is not a face-to-face interaction. When communicating with people online there is what is called an "imagined audience." Imagined audiences are explained as being that, "anyone can potentially read or view a digital artifact, we need a more specific conception of audience than ‘anyone’ to choose the language, cultural referents, style, and so on that comprise online identity presentation. In the absence of certain knowledge about audience, participants take cues from the social media environ- ment to imagine the community (boyd, 2007: 131)." Social media plays a big role in understanding, speaking and engaging with your audience over the internet in order to have a better understanding of them as a whole.

While reading the article, I really enjoyed the *From the Broadcast to the Network* section. It clearly defined the differences between the writers audience, the broadcast audience and the networked audience. I think it would have been a bit more helpful at the end of the article to see how they were all connected. Other than that, the messages were clearly presented.

## Dec 4th- Pushback

Why am I scrolling through Instagram at 3am? As the advancement of smartphones, tablets, laptops and internet continues to expand, more people are getting connected and staying connected. Connections are a good thing, right? Yes, but there is a difference between connections and being constantly connected. The term pushback, "is a relatively recent phenomenon; it has only recently started to appear in academic research sources, although it is more common in personal websites, blogs, magazines and newspapers from the last few of years." The term is defined as being, "a growing phenomenon among frequent technology users seeking to establish boundaries, resist information overload, and establish greater personal life balance."

While reading this article, I had to take a step back and really think about how connected I am with the world at all times. When I'm lying in bed I bounce to and from Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and back to Instagram. There is never a time where I am not completely connected with the world (except for when I am sleeping). That is a thought that I hard to understand but growing technologies have made it so easily accessible that more people don’t even know that they're doing it.