The Happiness Effect

by Donna Freitas

  3.In “My Selfie, Myself,” New York Times, October 20, 2013, 1–9, Jenna Wortham discusses the social and psychological aspects of self-portrait photographs, or selfies. Wortham points out that the popularity of selfies raises questions about vanity, narcissism, and our obsession with beauty and body image, but she also notes that self-portrait photographs can often be more effective than text at conveying a feeling or reaction, and that receiving a photo of the face of someone we are talking to brings back the human element of the interaction—something critics often say is missing in electronic communications. See also John Suler’s article “From Self-Portraits to Selfies,” International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies 12 (June 2015): 175–180, where he looks at the evolution of the self-portrait and its democratization with digital technology.

  4.In a study conducted by the Pew Research Center, survey research gathered in September 2009 showed that almost twice as many high school–aged girls use Twitter as their male counterparts (13 percent versus 7 percent, respectively). See Amanda Lenhart et al., “Social Media and Mobile Internet Use among Teens and Young Adults,” Pew Internet & American Life Project (Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 2010). In a more recent Pew Research Center study, conducted in 2012, survey research showed that of all Internet users, 71 percent of women use social networking sites, compared with only 62 percent of men. Overall, young adult women, aged eighteen to twenty-nine, were the most likely demographic group to frequent a social networking sites. Women were also more likely to use Facebook (72 percent versus 62 percent of men), Instagram (16 percent versus 10 percent of men), and Pinterest (25 percent versus only 5 percent of men), whereas men were slightly more likely to use Twitter (17 percent versus 15 percent of women). See Maeve Duggan and Joanna Brenner, “The Demographics of Social Media Users—2012,” Pew Internet & American Life Project (Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 2013). Then, on a more popular level, in “The Social Media Gender Gap,” Bloomberg Business, May 19, 2008, http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/stories/2008-05-19/the-social-media-gender-gapbusinessweek-business-news-stock-market-and-financial-advice, Auren Hoffman notes that while male and female young adults are just as likely to be members of social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace, and Flixster, young women are much more active on these sites than young men. For those over age thirty, the gender disparity widens, as men are found to barely be joining social networks, with the exception of LinkedIn. Adult women, however, are joining social networks in droves, with married women aged thirty-five to fifty being the fastest-growing segment. A suggested reason for this gender disparity are that men view their Internet usage in a more transactional way than women, while women’s Internet usage is more relationship-driven. In her article “Older Adolescents’ Motivations for Social Network Site Use: The Influence of Gender, Group Identity, and Collective Self-Esteem,” CyberPsychology & Behavior 12, no. 2 (2009): 209–213, Valerie Barker found that females were more likely than males to report high positive collective self-esteem, greater overall social network site usage, and higher use of social networking sites to communicate with peers. Conversely, males were more likely than their female counterparts to use social networking sites for social compensation and social identity gratifications.

  5.For anyone interested in gender norms and stereotypes around girls during adolescence, Meeting at the Crossroads: Women’s Psychology and Girls’ Development by Lyn Mikel Brown and Carol Gilligan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992) is a must—as is all the research and groundbreaking work on adolescent girls that follow it, especially Mikel Brown’s more recent books on this subject, including Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters from Marketers’ Schemes, co-authored with Sharon Lamb (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2006), as well as her companion analysis about adolescent boys, also co-authored with Sharon Lamb: Packaging Boyhood: Saving Our Sons from Superheroes, Slackers, and Other Media Stereotypes (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2009).

  6.In their article “Face It: The Impact of Gender on Social Media Images,” Communication Quarterly 60, no. 5 (2012): 588–607, Jessica Rose and her colleagues look at how gender is performed in the self-created digital images users upload to social networking sites like Facebook. Their results show that traditional gender stereotypes are upheld in these user-created images, with prominent male traits conforming to professional media depictions of men as active, dominant, and independent, while common female traits portrayed women as attractive and dependent. Also, in “Designing Gender in Social Media: Unpacking Interaction Design as a Carrier of Social Norms,” International Journal of Gender, Science and Technology 6, no. 2 (2014): 223–241, Sofia Lundmark and Maria Normark focus on gender norms in relation to the design of interactive and digital products, services, and environments. In three separate case studies of different types of social media design and usage, the authors find that gender norms influence the design of these interactive environments, and that the interface design in turn reinforces gender norms.

  7.Please see, once again: Amanda Lenhart, et. al, “Teens, Social Media and Technology Overview” (Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 2015).

  8.There is a wide array of literature on how social media is affecting the body image of women and girls. For more on this subject, see Richard M. Perloff’s article, “Social Media Effects on Young Women’s Body Image Concerns: Theoretical Perspectives and an Agenda for Research,” in Sex Roles 71, no. 11–12 (2014): 363–377. See also Renee Engeln-Maddox’s article, “Cognitive Responses to Idealized Media Images of Women: The Relationship of Social Comparison and Critical Processing to Body Image Disturbance in College Women,” from Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 24, no. 8 (2005): 1114–1138. And also, Jasmine Fardouly, Phillippa C. Diedrichs, Lenny R. Vartanian, and Emma Halliwell’s “Social Comparisons on Social Media: The Impact of Facebook on Young Women's Body Image Concerns and Mood,” from Body Image 13 (2015): 38–45.

  Chapter 5

  1.This, despite the fact that so many studies about college students/young adults and faith (including my own) find that incredibly high percentages of young adults—to the tune of around 80 percent—identify as spiritual and/or religious to at least some degree. For my work on this (that is unrelated to social media), see Donna Freitas, Sex and the Soul: Juggling Sexuality, Spirituality, Romance and Religion on America’s College Campuses (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). One of the best longitudinal studies around on young adults and spirituality/religion in general is Christian Smith’s NSYR (National Study of Youth and Religion), with his publication Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005) a must read for anyone interested in young adult religiosity. There are many additional significant publications by Christian Smith that have emerged from NSYR, Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), Lost in Transition: The Dark Side of Emerging Adulthood (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), and Young Catholic America: Emerging Adults In, Out of, and Gone from the Church (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), among them. I also recommend Kenda Creasy Dean’s important reading on this subject: Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers is Telling the American Church (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).

  2.A total of 731 students chose to answer this question.

  Also, with respect to young adult religious self-disclosure online specifically, Piotr S. Bobkowski and Lisa D. Pearce measured this in public Myspace profiles for a subsample of NSYR wave 3 respondents. The authors’ findings show that 62 percent of profile owners identified their religious affiliations online, although only 30 percent said anything about religion outside of the religion-designated field (which is only slightly more than the 25 percent in my survey). Most reports of affiliation (the 80 percent mentioned above) were consistent with the profile owner’s reported affiliation on the survey. See Piotr S. Bobkowski and Lisa D. Pearce, “Baring Their Souls in Online Profiles or
Not? Religious Self-Disclosure in Social Media,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 50, no. 4 (2011): 744–762. Then, according to a report by the Pew Research Center, in an average week, 20 percent of Americans (overall) share their religious faith on social networking websites or apps, while 46 percent of US adults see someone else share their religious faith online. The Pew survey also showed that young adults aged eighteen to twenty-nine are about twice as likely as Americans aged fifty and older to see people sharing their faith online—though the students I interviewed certainly do not seem to support this finding. In the Pew study, evangelicals and black Protestants were far more likely than other major religious groups to say they shared their faith online. Finally, Americans who say they attend religious services frequently are more likely to say they engage in electronic forms of religious activity than those who attend services less often. See Pew Research Center, “Religion and Electronic Media” (Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 2014). Also, the essays in Social Media and Religious Change (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013), a collected volume edited by Marie Gillespie, David Herbert, and Anita Greenhill, address the interaction between social and mass media in the construction of contemporary religion and spirituality more generally. Topics discussed include the implications of social media for religious authority, the implications of mediatization for community relations, and the challenges of social media for traditionally bounded religious communities. And finally, see Digital Religion, Social Media and Culture: Perspectives, Practices and Futures (New York: Peter Lang, 2012) in its entirety, where Pauline Hope Cheong and colleagues collect and discuss current research on the complex interactions between religion and computer-mediated communication. Contributions center around the question of how core religious understandings of identity, community, and authority will be shaped and reshaped by the communicative possibilities of Web 2.0 (e.g., social networking sites, blogs, wikis, mobile apps).

  3.In her article “Religion on the Go: Believers Embrace Social Media,” Sentinel, July 2014, B1, Nicole Williams discusses how churches and churchgoers are using social media to connect with others and spread the good word. She describes the Bible app “YouVersion,” which has more than 146 million downloads, provides users with 924 versions of the Bible in 628 different languages, and gives users the ability to share Bible verses with their social networks. Williams also gives examples of modern churches that have fully embraced social media, one of which has its own app and encourages worshipers to follow along with the service using their mobile app.

  Chapter 6

  1.Once again, see the following books in their entirety for an extensive treatment of these issues, and the ways we are learning to “edit” ourselves: Howard Gardner and Katie Davis, The App Generation: How Today’s Youth Navigate Identity, Intimacy, and Imagination in a Digital World; Sherry Turkle, Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age.

  2.In “This Text Will Self-Destruct; Snapchat Sweeps Campus,” New York Magazine, October 22, 2012, http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/snapchat-2012-10/, Robert Moor talks with students at a Connecticut high school about their use of Snapchat. While parents assume that the app’s main use will be for sexting, students claim it is actually used as a way to take and share funny, ugly, or weird selfies (what the students from my study absolutely confirm).

  3.In “Social Networking App Yik Yak Is ‘Outrageously Popular on College Campuses,’ ” USA Today, September 30, 2014, Dan Reimold looks at several college newspapers to examine how Yik Yak is being used and reacted to on college campuses, with concerns raised about how the ability to post anonymously often results in mean-spirited, derogatory comments toward others, but also an acknowledgment that this anonymity can empower those individuals who might otherwise remain silent to feel comfortable sharing their thoughts, feelings, and concerns. See also Jonathan Mahler, “Who Spewed That Abuse? Yik Yak Isn’t Telling,” New York Times, March 9, 2015, A1–B4, and Evelyn M. Rusli and Jeff Elder, “Behind App’s Rise, Dark Side Looms,” Wall Street Journal, November 26, 2014, B1. These articles look at how social media applications like Yik Yak are being used for cyberbullying by both teenagers and college-age students, including how the apps have been used to send threats of mass violence or sexual assault at several US.college campuses. Then, in “Campus Uproar over Yik Yak App after Sex Harassment, Murder.” CNN, May 7, 2015, http://money.cnn.com/2015/05/07/technology/yik-yak-university-of-mary-washington/index.html, David Goldman examines the growing controversy over anonymous social networking apps in the wake of the April 2015 murder of a college student in Virginia who was harassed and threatened on Yik Yak. Goldman discusses the lack of accountability when it comes to responding to threats made on the app, as both the university and Yik Yak made little effort to address concerns voiced by a feminist group on campus about the sexist and threatening messages being posted about the group and its members prior to the murder. For more on the anonymity (or lack thereof) of such apps as Yik Yak, see also Geoffrey A. Fowler, “Past, Secrets You Share Online Aren’t Always Safe,” Wall Street Journal, Eastern Edition, February 26, 2014, D1–D3. Then, in “The Epidemic of Facelessness,” New York Times, February 15, 2015, 1–7, Stephen Marche argues that anonymous and faceless online comments make the world more unethical. And on the subject of ethics, particularly (though not Yik Yak, since it did not yet exist), see Carrie James’s Disconnected: Youth, New Media, and the Ethics Gap (Boston: MIT Press, 2014) for an extensive look and analysis of how social media and new technologies are affecting moral and ethical decision-making in young adults.

  4.To read about what happened at the University of Missouri and discussions of other Yik Yak–related campus threats, see Caitlin Dewey, “What Is Yik Yak, the App That Fielded Racist Threats at University of Missouri?” Washington Post, November 11, 2015.

  5.For more on how and why college students are driving the trend of using anonymous social media apps, see Ellen Brait, “No Names Attached: College Students Drive Anonymous Apps Trend,” Guardian, September 6, 2015. Brait notes that Yik Yak is currently used at more than two thousand colleges and universities worldwide. She argues that anonymous social media apps like Yik Yak and Whatsgoodly allow college students to talk about the drama in their lives and freely express their thoughts and opinions without the fear of having an ill-humored or insensitive comment traced back to them, thus allowing students to maintaining a positive digital footprint as they prepare to move into the professional world.

  Chapter 7

  1.Jenna Wortham looks at harassment on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter in “Trying to Swim in a Sea of Web Invective,” New York Times, Sunday Business Section, December 14, 2014, B4. Wortham looks at recent court cases involving social media, harassment, and free speech and discusses the steps these social media sites are taking to curb cyberbullying. In his article “The Shamers and the Shamed,” New York Times, April 30, 2015, D2, Nick Bilton discusses cyberbullying in relation to online shaming and the idea of the online mob mentality. The article also touches on notions of gender, pointing out that women are likely to be ridiculed on social media in ways that men do not often experience. Then, in Daniel B. Wood’s article, “Cyberbullying: Should Schools Police Students’ Social Media Accounts?,” Christian Science Monitor, September 17, 2013, http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2013/0917/Cyberbullying-Should-schools-police-students-social-media-accounts-video, Wood discusses both support for and opposition to the Glendale (CA) Unified School District’s hiring of a private firm to monitor the social media accounts of its fourteen thousand students in the wake of two teen suicides in 2012. In Stephanie Rosenbloom’s “Dealing with Digital Cruelty,” New York Times, August 24, 2014, 1–7, she looks at how the anonymity of Internet comments encourages more uninhibited behavior by commenters and considers the psychological aspects of dwelling on negative feedback. For a comprehensive summary of the unique concerns and challenges that cyberbullying raises for children, parents, and educators, including the newest
digital venues where cyberbullying is appearing and a look at occurrences of cyberbullying among adults and among children, see also Robin M. Kowalski, Susan P. Limber, and Patricia W. Agatston, Cyberbullying: Bullying in the Digital Age, 2nd ed. (Malden, MA: Wiley, 2012). Shaheen Shariff also provides an in-depth look at cyberbullying and suggests practical educational responses in Cyber-bullying: Issues and Solutions for the School, the Classroom, and the Home (New York: Routledge, 2008). For more on the issue of freedom of speech on US college campuses amid the growing use of social media to bully students and professors, see Morton Schapiro, “The New Face of Campus Unrest,” Wall Street Journal, Eastern Edition, March 19, 2015, A15.

  2.For more on the It Gets Better project, check out the website: http://www.itgetsbetter.org. See also Lizette Alvarez, Lance Speere, and Alan Binder, “Girl’s Suicide Points to Rise in Apps Used by Cyberbullies,” New York Times, September 14, 2013, A1–A3, for their discussion of the link between cyberbullying and suicide. The authors write of the suicide of twelve-year-old middle school student Rebecca Ann Sedwick due to cyberbulling through the alleged use of online social media applications such as ask.fm, Kik Messenger, and Voxer. See also Sameer Hinduja and Justin W. Patchin, “Bullying, Cyberbullying, and Suicide,” Archives of Suicide Research 14, no. 3 (2010): 201–221. Then, in their survey of 1,963 middle school children in one of the largest school districts in the United States, Hinduja and Patchin show that youths who experienced traditional bullying or cyberbullying, as either an offender or a victim, had more suicidal thoughts and were more likely to attempt suicide than those who had not experienced such forms of peer aggression. Victimization was also more strongly related to suicidal thoughts and behaviors than was offending.