Social Media and Adolescent Health (2024) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
2 How Social Media Work
2 How Social Media Work
Pages 31-70
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From page 31... ...
The creation and consumption of information, including the creation of a personal profile and the ability to comment and react to others' comments and to share and associate online, are important features of social media and ones that can be meaningful to adolescents and differently meaningful at different developmental stages. Social media platforms vary widely in their target audience, design, and purposes, making the broad discussion of social media complicated.
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From page 32... ...
Some social media platforms allow users to create and share content that can be stored and accessed at any time, meaning that information shared on social media can have lasting repercussions. An affordance approach also recognizes that while the goals and motivations of adolescents may not change over the years, the features of social media technology do, as do the economic and regulatory environments in which social media companies operate.
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From page 33... ...
Common ways to share content include posting to a profile on Instagram or Facebook, broadcasting to a group on Twitter, and uploading a fanfiction story to a website, just to cite a few examples. Some spaces allow users to view media without the need to add content; in others, such as BeReal, creating content is mandatory.
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Nevertheless, because of screen capture, sharing, and reposting, most content is at least theoretically recordable. All social media platforms enable some way to tailor a profile to a user's personal requirements.
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Today, algorithms are being used to manage, curate, and moderate content that people see online. This section describes how these algorithms work and power the affordances and features described in the previous sections.
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Platforms' efforts to curate the content users see are advanced by four main types of tools: algorithms for making recommendations, algorithms for ranking, algorithms for targeting advertising, and algorithms that moderate what content a user sees in their feed. Recommendation Algorithms Social media platforms collect a vast amount of data on their users, including their browsing history, search queries, interests, and social connections.
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Ranking algorithms may prioritize content based on relevance; relevance can in turn be inferred from user activities. Social connections influence estimates of relevance.
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Content Moderation Algorithms Most social media platforms have content moderation policies that aim to protect their users from harmful or offensive content. Determining what constitutes harmful content depends on the company's policies, outlined in its terms of service.
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. Platforms generally use a combination of artificial intelligence and human staff to enforce content moderation policies.
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Twitter may be moving to a pro cess where major decisions such as account closures are approved by a council of human moderators. YouTube uses machine learning and teams of human moderators who review flagged content and remove videos that violate its community guidelines.
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. GIFCT working groups have explored strategies for optimal content moderation, advocating the use of artificial intelligence and algorithms that use machine learning to identify and remove terrorist content before it is widely viewed (GIFCT, 2021b)
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The use of black box algorithms by social media platforms to define and influence the user experience has been criticized for its biases and lack of transparency (Waddell, 2021)
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Research indicates that many users do not realize how social media platforms are designed to show them content that is most likely to engage them and keep them on the platform, rather than providing a comprehensive view of the content their friends and family members are posting (Eslami et al., 2015)
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. Further, content moderation practices themselves have been met with skepticism among some scholars and internet activists.
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. In such circles, the content moderation algorithm can inadvertently perpetuate disordered norms and beliefs about diet.
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. Additionally, personalization can lead to privacy concerns, as social media platforms may collect and use personal data to create targeted content (Eg et al., 2023)
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ADOLESCENTS AND SOCIAL MEDIA Teenagers are often early adapters to social media platforms; spikes and drops in platform popularity among young people are crucially important to social media companies (Frenkel et al., 2021)
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48 FIGURE 2-1 Percentage of U.S. teens who say they "ever use this app or site" or "almost constantly use this app or site." SOURCE: Vogels et al., 2022.
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. The Adolescent Experience Interacts with Platform Affordances Adolescence is a time of tremendous cognitive, social, emotional and physical change.
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. Three key features of adolescent brain development are especially relevant to a discussion of social media affordances.
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Changes in the prefrontal cortex during adolescence into young adulthood involve reduced gray matter volume caused by the pruning of unused connections. Pruning improves the transmission of neural signals, and myelination increases white matter volume to improve transmission of neural signals and strengthen connections between brain regions (Giedd et al., 2015; Mills et al., 2016)
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From page 52... ...
. This internalized, relational thinking can interact with social media affordances such as affiliation, content creation, and recordability, and might increase teenagers' vulnerability to violate platforms' terms of service or circumvent moderation policies (e.g., to maintain a clandestine identity)
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. Social media features provide a myriad of ways to display oneself publicly and receive feedback on those displays, including a variety of configurations of social connections.
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Sponsored content refers to material developed by social media users or influencers under contract with a company, such as unboxing videos or product testimonials, for example (Radesky et al., 2020)
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. The same pattern was observed across social media platforms (Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, Twitter, WhatsApp, YouTube)
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. Social media companies in particular have access to wellsprings of personal data about their users, information that they could use to discriminate against customers or manipulate them in sophisticated ways (Acemoglu, 2021)
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For this reason, the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act requires companies that provide online services for, or advertisements targeted to, anyone under 2 Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule, 15 U.S.C.
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. But for social media companies, which operate in different states and countries, complying with disparate laws presents logistical challenges.
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https://www.npr.org/2022/ 10/27/1132042031/meta-announces-another-drop-in-revenue (accessed September 21, 2023)
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https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/echo-chambers-filter bubbles-and-polarisation-literature-review (accessed September 21, 2023)
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https://perma.cc/NC9B-HYKX (accessed September 21, 2023)
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https://www.brookings.edu/research/dual-use-regulation-managing hate-and-terrorism-online-before-and-after-section-230-reform (accessed September 21, 2023)
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https:// www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/03/ftc-issues-orders-social media-video-streaming-platforms-regarding-efforts-address-surge-advertising (accessed September 21, 2023)
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state children's data privacy legislation. https://www.huschblackwell.com/2023-state-childrens-privacy law-tracker (accessed September 21, 2023)
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org/2014/05/making-freemium-work (accessed September 21, 2023)
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Harvard Business Re view, https://hbr.org/2022/02/the-new-rules-of-data-privacy (accessed September 21, 2023)
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reuters.com/investigates/special-report/myanmar-facebook-hate (accessed September 21, 2023)
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CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/11/opinions/congress-algorithms-filter-bubble transparency-act-thune/index.html (accessed September 21, 2023)
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Consumer Reports. https://www.consumerreports.org/consumer-protection/tech companies-too-secretive-about-algorithms-that-curate-feeds-a8134259964 (accessed September 21, 2023)
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