Media Use and Development

Youth Culture in a Digital World

• Culture is defined as a group's distinctive lifestyle, including its beliefs, values, customs, art, and technologies.

Theories on Culture Impact

• Social presence theory suggests people don't perceive facial expressions when calling.
• Social information processing theory explains how people's reactions to short messages can be interpreted differently.
• Channel expansion theory is how emotions in texts develop messages.

Distinction in How You Use Digital Media

• Digital media can be used as a replacement or addition to traditional methods.
• Use can be done passively (scrolling, observing) or actively participating and creating.

Uses & Gratifications Theory

• Explores the purposes or functions that media provides for active receivers.

Reasons for Using Media

• For surveillance of the environment, keeping up with the world around you.
• To satisfy affective needs, like emotional fulfillment.
• For cultural transmission, understanding societal values.
• For entertainment and relaxation.
• Other needs it fulfills include: self-promotion, maintaining relationships, fostering creativity, escapism, and opinion expression.

Media Platforms for Different Needs

• Twitter is suited for information consumption.
• Instagram and Snapchat are used for social connection.
• Instagram and YouTube provide entertainment.
• "All of them" offer convenience.

Developmental Tasks Approach

• Developmental tasks or challenges need to be fulfilled in a hierarchical order.
• Tasks are met through biological or social development, enabling progression to the next stage.
• Erikson posited that each developmental stage involves specific problems or tasks to be explored.
• Media effects are contingent on the user's age.

Key Developmental Tasks of Adolescence

• Forming intimate and committed friendships/relationships.
• Adjusting to pubertal changes.
• Transitioning to secondary schooling.
• Cultivating a strong and coherent personal identity.

Risk and Resilience Approach

• Focuses on differential life experiences among children, emphasizing individual differences.
• The differences in how two boys react to violent video games are explained by analyzing their risk and protective factors.
• Risk and protective factors explain differences between people, following a cumulative risk model framework.
• Applications include snowball effect, turnaround models

Snowball Effect

• The more risk factors present, the bigger the consequences.
• The more protective factors, the less negative effects.
• Violent games can influence behavior, leading to friends distancing themselves.

Bronfenbrenner Ecological Model

• Micro level: How parents monitor and regulate their children's media use
• Exo level: School offerings in online safety and social media policies, such as banning smartphones.
• Macro Level: Societal beliefs and values regarding social media, whether it's seen as entertainment or dangerous.
• All ecological levels interact.

Identity Development

• Identity is an explicit theory of oneself as a person
• Identity dimensions include: Personal, Social (gender, ethnic, national), and Online identity

Self-Perception

• Self-image is how young people perceive themselves.
• Self-esteem is the ability to appreciate this self-image.
• Virtual identity vs. actual identity are constructs during adolescence through exploration both online and offline.

Self-Presentation

• Involves "backstage" and "front stage" behaviors with examples like Instagram uploads/profile information (front) and instant messaging (back).
• Online presence can mirror these dynamics, with WhatsApp as backstage and Instagram as front stage.

Online Identity

• Online environment can be an area where anonymity can be created, where more extreme forms of behaviour emerges.
• Anonymity allows for creativity, exploration, and behavior.

Anonymity

• Anonymity in the online world: different, more extreme forms of behavior, cyberbullying.

Key Concepts Related to Online Interaction

• Creativity: Playing around and discovering how you want to present yourself.
• Asychrony: Communication when convenient, bypassing time/space constraints.
• Controllability: The ability to decide what information to share.

College 2: Media Effects Defined

• Media use is the intended or incidental use of media channels, devices, content and platforms.
• Media effects are deliberate and non-deliberate changes in cognitions, emotions and behavior that result from media use.

Payne Fund Studies

• Concerned what the media effects were on children
• Involved researchers gathering and categorizing 1500 movies.
• Studued the emotional impact for children of these movies
• Studied the behavioral effects

Legacy of Fear

• The media effects were considered powerufl and hard to control

The New York Times

• There were "Radio listener in panic, taking war drama as fact"

Magic Bullet or Hypodermic Needle Perspective

• Idea that people would take whatever media provided
• Conversion suggests that people select arguments that match their beliefs.
• In reality people exposed to media did not change their minds when voting

Reinforcement

• Media taps into people's existing ideas and reinforces them

Two Step Flow of Communication

• Explores how media reaches out to opinion leaders, who in turn inform regular people.

Evergreen Theories

• Resisted the effect of time

Cultivation Theory

• Idea: exposure to media across time impacts perceptions about reality

Mainstreaming

• Heavy TV viewers from disparate groups develop a common outlook on the world through constant exposure to the same images and labels on TV

Resonance

• TV viewing is influenced differently for subgroups based on experience, interests, etc.

Agenda-Setting Theory

• Idea: agenda-setting role of the media = ability to influence the salience of topics on the public agenda
• Media can shape and influence the conversation by what we're talkng about
• How things are talked about and framed
• How media connects what is said to politics and ideology

Spiral of Silence

• Idea: An individual's willingness to express their opinion is a function of how they perceive public opinion

Framing Theory

• Idea: The way information is presented determines the media effect
• The same information can be interpreted differently (91% fat free vs 9% fat)

Social Comparison Theory

• Idea: we determine our self-worth by comparing with others
• Upward social comparison
• Downward social comparison

Social Cognitive/Learning Theory

• Idea: Humans learn to act the way they do
• reality to be from the behaviour of the people around us
• Media effects today include: Fragmented audiences, Echo chambers, Narrow information

College 3: Gaming Intro

• Gaming has become a huge part of adolescents development and part of their lives

Self-Determination Theory:

• Satisfies basic psychological needs

Competence Needs in Gaming

• Increasing skills/ meta achievement (beating an enemy, going to a next world)
• Becoming a famous e-sports player
• Beloning to a team
• Suppressing unpleasant symptoms
• Can be rewarding to those with attention problems and concentration problems-
• Autonomy needs: being in control

Games Help Adolescents

• Have independance they need becoming independent and develop skills, such as building your own game in roblox,.
• Games Provide socialization needs (connecting to others) by Playing games to connect to others
• Strengthen existing realtionships Status increasing via popularity/need to "belong"
• Can also decrease feelings of social competence and satisfaction with life
• Used for identity formation
• Games and communities allow Adolescents to explore who they are, and construct and/or extend identity

Gaming can support in

• Collaboration (mutual goals)
• Social support
• Allows to construct Social identity, through Feelings of acceptance
• Can amplify already existing social problems

Games and Rewards

• Pavlov and skinner: Loot boxes
• You can buy them, and still have a random chance of getting what you want
• Random change can = gambling

Types of Rewards in Games

• Random rewards (finding a valuable sword)
• Contingencies rewards (log-in bonusses)
• Social rewards (teamplay/building guilds)
• Meta-achievements (leaderboard scores)

College 4: Misinformation

Types of Misinformation

• Disinformation: deliberately false or misleading information
• Malinformation: manipulates true information to manipulate or deceive
• Fake news: false / fabricated information that mimics factual news
• Propaganda: efforts to manipulate other people's beliefs, via symbols
• False or misleading information, intent or source

False vs true info

• Intentional and Unintentional, and Malicious vs benign

College 5: Misinformation

• People genuienly believing misinformation: misinformation with good intent to spread still equals misinformation
• Experts concerned about sharing of misinformation for profit, targetting skincare especially
• Age doesnt matter as much: youth are digital natives but lack skills to know, and use digital media a decent amount

Illusory truth effect

• Reperition increases beleif in conspiracies and fake news

Partisan Bias

• Individuals accept compatible information and are more critcal of what diverfes from their identity

Consequences of sharing misinformation

• Polarization, Racism, and bad Health outcomes (regarding vaccine hesitancy)

College 6: Parenting and SM

• can be useful for Identity development, but Social media may have advantages for some, but not for all

What is addiction?

• problematic use if you have 5 or more symptoms:

• loss of Control, preoccupation, conflict, whithdrawal, escapism, tolerance, problms as a result of use, lying, expense

• concepts for studying SM's impact are Active SM, Bridging SC, and cross sectional study

• Parental Phubbing - higher PSMU if parents are always on their device during child activities

• restrictive parenting causes higher PSMU in kids

• active parenting seems to have mixed results on if it works or nor

• well being = happiness and staisfaction

• Bonding SC is for getting help from close friends!* There are small connections between illness + well being at times

• some researchers prefer supportive + tolerant approach for preventing PSMU

College 7: Liking Alcohol

• liking = higher chance of haz alcohol
• it has been noticed that there is more risk of hazardous drinking with insta, FB use but less from twitter + YT"
• Women have more sense of easthetic when liking , alcohol has great influence on this
• If people actively share self images = higher chance to spread alcohol use""
• young adults might be more sensible and have increased acces too alcohol
• "" alchol and risky havits can then become greater "" - like with repciprocity , people like what they are given high risk is female, under 16, insta + sc, high peak drinker high risk havits are correllated with high risk behavior"
• PSMU goes along with social media , PSMU varies with ads and SM so a balcne is NEEDED!"

Explores reasons for media use, risks like cyberbullying, and protective factors. Considers adolescent development through Erikson's stages and digital platform impact. Examines parental monitoring and resilience.