Social Media

Social media addicts are a depressed lot, finds study

March 24, 2016 by Nasheman

New York: Are you the one who is always clicking new selfies to be posted on Instagram or who updates the tiniest details of life on Facebook? Chances are that you are probably depressed!

According to a new study, the more time young adults spend on social media, the more likely they are to be depressed.

Spending more time on social media may increase the risk of exposure to cyber-bullying or other similar negative interactions, which can cause feelings of depression.

Also, unlimited use of social media could fuel “Internet addiction,” a proposed psychiatric condition closely associated with depression.

The results of the study showed that on an average the participants used social media a total of 61 minutes per day and visited various social media accounts 30 times per week.

Compared with those who checked social media least frequently, participants who reported most frequent checking throughout the week had 2.7 times the likelihood of depression.

Similarly,participants who spent the most total time on social media throughout the day had 1.7 times the risk of depression, when compared to peers who spent less time on social media.

The research is published online in the journal Depression and Anxiety.

However, exposure to social media also may cause depression, which could then in turn fuel more use of social media, the researchers pointed out.

“It may be that people who already are depressed are turning to social media to fill a void,” said lead author Lui yi Lin from the University of Pittsburgh in the US.

The findings revealed that the exposure to highly idealised representations of peers on social media elicits feelings of envy and the distorted belief that others lead happier, more successful lives.

Engaging in activities of little meaning on social media may give a feeling of “time wasted” that negatively influences mood.

In 2014, the team sampled 1,787 US adults’ aged 19 through 32, using questionnaires to determine social media use and an established depression assessment tool.

The questionnaires asked about the 11 most popular social media platforms at the time: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google Plus, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit, Tumblr, Pinterest, Vine and LinkedIn.

The researchers controlled for other factors that may contribute to depression, including age, sex, race, ethnicity, relationship status, living situation, household income and education level.

More than a quarter of the participants were classified as having “high” indicators of depression.

“Because social media has become such an integrated component of human interaction, it is important for clinicians interacting with young adults to recognise the balance to be struck in encouraging potential positive use, while redirecting from problematic use,” said one of the authors Brian A. Primack, director at the Pittsburgh University.

In addition, the findings can also be used as a basis for public health interventions leveraging social media.

(IANS)

#SelfieWithDaughter: Shruti Seth Pens Moving Open Letter to Modi

July 4, 2015 by Nasheman

by Shruti Seth

A little note to India,

I write this to an entire nation because no one individual can be held responsible for bringing about change in the mindset of a billion odd people. Change can only happen if there is awareness at an individual level.

On the morning of June 28, I made the grave mistake of expressing my views on an initiative called #SelfieWithDaughter which had been blessed by our PM. Most people found it to be a sweet gesture and a means to create awareness about female infanticide. I, sadly, didn’t find the idea very palatable. Keep in mind that I have an 11-month daughter of my own. But I expect more from the man who’s supposed to usher in a new era of change, not just tenuous surface-level initiatives.

I then made a graver mistake of posting this opinion on Twitter. So not only did I dare to think, I also dared to place my thoughts in the public domain.

And then, at the risk of sounding overly-Shakespearean, the floodgates of hell opened. I was subjected to a tsunami of hate tweets. 48 hours of non stop trolling. The tweets were targeted at me, my family, my ‘Muslim’ husband, my eleven-month-old daughter and, of course, my non-existent, dwindling, no-good career as an actor.

I had made an unsavoury comment about our Prime Minister by calling him – *gasp* – #SelfieObsessed and asking him to choose reform over gimmickry. Was I wrong? Was I too harsh? Apparently, for those who support him and the ruling government, unquestioningly so. I, as a member of the tax-paying electorate of India, did not have the right to comment on his policy. I had dared to challenge his authority. I had abused the highest office of the country (which is the President, by the way).

And so I deserved to be punished. And punished In a manner commensurate with the vitriol that the anonymity & access of Twitter so easily provide.

Men and women alike said the most vile things about me, stripping me of all my dignity as someone’s daughter, wife and mother and most importantly a woman. Men who were busy hash-tagging their selfies with their daughters one minute called me slanderous names the next. Asked me if I knew who my real father was. Questioned if I had been sexually abused as a child and hence was opposed to the idea of a selfie with my father. And these are the relatively polite ones. Well done, gentlemen. Your daughters must be so proud.

Women, who are meant to empower each other, asked me if I was a prostitute and if I was planning on doing the same with my daughter. Whether I was trying to gain some fame and resurrect my failed career by using the prime minister’s name. I shudder to think of the deep respect your sons will have for the opposite sex.

So here’s the thing. What is the point of taking selfies with your girls when you’re also responsible for creating the most toxic environment for them to grow up in? How will taking a photograph nullify the misogyny and patriarchy that is so deeply entrenched in our society? Why bother to increase the number of girls being born when you choose to treat them with such indignity and disrespect?

All those who trolled me incessantly for forty eight hours, did you for once stop and think that I, too, am someone’s daughter? Did you ever ask yourselves how you’d feel if it were your daughter at the receiving end of all that hate? I’m guessing the answer is a big, resounding “No”. Because, you know, you were too busy pouting for the camera and getting ‘likes’ and ‘RT’s to your #SelfieWithDaughter. As for our esteemed PM, I have this to say to him:

Dear Sir,

If you truly wish to empower women, I urge you to condemn this kind of hatred being spread in your name.

Regretfully, I deleted my initial tweet because of the backlash. But I stand by what I said and I’ll reiterate it here: “Selfies don’t bring about change, reform does. So please try and be bigger than a photograph. Come on!”

And as for my initial reservation about the initiative being nothing more than eyewash, I am deeply saddened to see that, in the end, I was proved right.

(The article first appeared here.)

Singer Nofel Izz to sue Facebook for $15 Million

April 8, 2015 by Shaheen Raaj

Facebook has disabled the personal account of well-known musician & entrepreneur Nofel Izz, who founded JobsinDubai.com, and as a result, Nofel Izz no longer has administrative access to manage his official Facebook page where he stays connected with fans & friends of his music, nor to the Jobs in Dubai Facebook page. In fact Nofel Izz is unable to communicate with the nearly 700,000 fans of his music page, or assist with the management of the Jobs in Dubai page, which has over 2.2 million fans.

The worst part is Nofel Izz claims to have no idea why this is happening. In a personal statement, Izz writes “To the very best of my knowledge, I didn’t violate any of Facebook’s terms of service. I did not post anything scandalous or engage in some kind of nefarious activity. One morning, I attempted to log into my account as usual, and I was greeted with an error message saying ‘We’ve determined that you are ineligible to use Facebook’. That’s it. No further explanation has been provided to me. I’ve filed a claim and taken all the steps I can to re – enable my account, but I am, sadly, doubtful of getting any response to my many inquiries.”

NofelIzz is not the first person this has happened to, Facebook account disabled with no warning & no explanation. There are multiple accounts of this happening to other people. From the many reports to be found online, when something like this happens, Facebook offers no response or resolution for its seemingly arbitrary actions. This doesn’t seem like a good business practice, especially in cases where the Facebook user runs a business page, as well, alienating one’s advertisers is unwise for a company that relies heavily on advertising income, reportedly earning over $1 billion per year in advertising revenue. NofelIzz claims to have paid “a fortune in advertising” on Facebook.

This also isn’t the only way that Facebook is interfering with and upsetting its users. Facebook has been on the watch with EU for privacy violations. In 2014, the company faced a US class action lawsuit for mining & sharing data from its users’ private messages. In the EU, there are current allegations that Facebook is tracking web users’ activity, even if they don’t have a Facebook account. Use of tracking cookies in this manner is a violation of European privacy laws.

Facebook is a service which billions of people rely on to stay connected, in both their personal & their business lives. When a person is locked out of his account, he is unable to recover the thousands of memories & experiences shared with friends & family. When a business owner & page administrator gets locked out of his personal Facebook account, he also no longer has administrative access to his Facebook business pages. According to Nofel Izz, the effect can be devastating and can cost millions, as he plans to sue: “This has an immediate & potentially irreparable impact on my career and the career potential of hundreds of thousands of Jobs in Dubai Facebook page fans. I am disappointed, confused, hurt & dumbfounded by Facebook’s actions, which are, in my mind, unprovoked & cruel.”

Mangaluru: Blasphemous content about Islam, Prophet on Facebook – Complaint filed

March 7, 2015 by Nasheman

Mangaluru: A complaint has been filed in Pandeshwar police station here on behalf of Popular Front of India, alleging that a person had posted objectional comments about Islam and Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) that are blasphemous in nature.

Mr. Safwan, city unit secretary of Popular Front of India, has said in his complaint that a person named Nityananda Naik from Kundapur had uploaded certain contents in Facebook which deride Islam, Muslims, Quran, and Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

The complainant has mentioned that the above contents have the potential of creating tensions between Hindus and Muslims on religious grounds. He has therefore, requested the police to take immediate action against the culprit. The police have begun investigation.

New art exhibition explores what happens when everyone can be a journalist

January 28, 2015 by Nasheman

The power and potential of social media dominates Jesse Hlebo’s show.

Jesse Hlebo, In Pieces (for Sebastian), 2015. 15 minute video loop on 55″ LCD TV, embedded in burnt plasterboard. panels, gasoline, found palettes. Edel Assanti

by Mel Bunce, The Conversation

Jesse Hlebo is troubled. The New York-based artist’s latest exhibition, In Pieces explores information overload and authenticity in the internet era – and it’s a challenging place to spend some time.

Walking into the gallery space in Fitzrovia is like opening a laptop to find three YouTube clips blaring at full volume and 16 tabs open on the browser.

In the middle of the room, a large screen projects an endless loop of amateur videos from crises around the world: conflict in the Ukraine, fighting in Gaza, the aftermath of the Boston bombing and the devastation left by Hurricane Sandy. The events flow seamlessly together, and the crises become increasingly difficult to distinguish. There’s no context or information; the audience is taken on a GoPro tour through a post-apocalyptic world, with no guide.

The loop captures some of Hlebo’s concerns about the internet’s vast media ecosystem: “In the amalgamation, there’s just so much,” he says. “There’s constant documenting, constant streaming … People don’t question its validity or where it comes from.”

Jesse Hlebo, In Pieces. Edel Assanti

Everyone’s a journalist

Hlebo is far from alone in his sense of unease. Over the past two decades, technology has radically altered media content, and raised a host of questions around authenticity, representation and power.

In the early 2000s, digital cameras and mobile internet access transformed everyday citizens into amateur journalists and the line between media producer and consumer started to blur.

As researcher and journalist Glenda Cooper notes, the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004 was a touchstone event in the rise of citizen-generated news content. There were almost no foreign correspondents in South-East Asia when the disaster hit – and the raw and powerful images captured by citizens and tourists came to dominate international news coverage.

For a few very short years, citizen-generated content was mediated by traditional news gatekeepers. Citizens would send their pictures and footage to a mainstream outlet: a wire service, the BBC, a newspaper. At these outlets, journalists could (potentially, but not always) contextualise and explain the content to their audiences.

And then came Twitter

The development and mass uptake of social media disrupted these processes once again. With Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, citizens become the distribution channels for media content.

When an aircraft miraculously landed on the Hudson River in January 2009, Jānis Krūms was on a nearby ferry. Instead of sending his now famous image to a news outlet, he uploaded it to Twitter where the picture went viral – 15 minutes before the “old media” had the story.

http://twitpic.com/135xa – There’s a plane in the Hudson. I’m on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy.

— Jānis Krūms (@jkrums) January 15, 2009

The event became known as Twitter’s “defining moment“, and media outlets realised they had, to a large extent, lost control of the message. Images and information could be uploaded, disseminated, replicated, decontextualised and re-purposed ad infinitum.

In 2012, Hurricane Sandy became the archetypal example of our new media ecology. Millions of photos were uploaded and endlessly circulated online. Some were authentic. Others were of historical weather events, cut-and-paste from fictional movies or dramatically edited on photoshop. And inevitably (this is the internet) there were cats.

New Gang moves into New York and takes over the subway… #Sandy #NewYork #NewJersey #shark #sharks pic.twitter.com/EYGqg2rv

— Zulf (@Zulf_RadioDude) October 30, 2012

The high circulation of de-contextualised and unverified images remains problematic. On January 12, photos purporting to depict a Boko Haram attack in Northern Nigeria last summer were revealed to be re-circulated images showing the aftermath of a fuel tanker explosion in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The organisation stopfake.org has identified a number of false images in high circulation about Ukraine. One particularly dark image, claiming to show a morgue in Ukraine, was taken five years ago in Mexico. In their redistribution, these photos are infused with new meaning, and can become significant political tools. And such issues have been widely noted in content about Syria, calling into question the credibility of both traditional and social media depictions of the crisis. The promise of new voices Of course, it’s not all bad. The liberation of images from traditional storytellers has also opened up huge opportunity. Social media played a pivotal role in the Arab Spring, which academics are still working to understand. And it allows audiences to challenge dominant representations in the mainstream media. In Kenya, for example, the hashtag #SomeonetellCNN was used to effectively critique and parody a problematic CNN report, leading to an apology and eventual retraction.

We are having offending video pulled. Again, apologies for the mistake. It was changed on air, but not online. Now it is.

— David McKenzie (@McKenzieCNN) March 11, 2012

The power and potential of social media is explored in the second screen that dominates Hlebo’s exhibition. The amateur film – also very difficult to watch – shows Michael Brown’s mother receiving the news that the police officer who killed her son would not be indicted.

The mother’s raw anger tells a different side of the Ferguson story. For Hlebo, it reflects the potential of narrative unleashed from the traditional channels:

To see a mother receive that information in front of the world, without mediation, the power of that. We’re seeing it. It may have taken 270 years. But we’re seeing it.

Around the walls of the gallery hang pieces of Hlebo’s art that were damaged by a demolition team knocking down his Brooklyn flat. The pieces are black and burned, with only a passing resemblance to their original form. Their significance? Entirely up to the viewer.

Freedom of speech: Long-time presenter Jim Clancy leaves CNN after ‘anti-Israel’ Twitter rant

January 19, 2015 by Nasheman

by RT

Veteran US TV journalist Jim Clancy has abruptly left the international news broadcaster after 34 years, following a seemingly tangential Twitter argument over Charlie Hebdo that escalated to a verbal war between Clancy and pro-Israel social media users.

“Jim Clancy is no longer with CNN. We thank him for more than three decades of distinguished service, and wish him nothing but the best,” said a terse statement from the Atlanta-headquartered network, which had sent Clancy as a reporter to Beirut, London, and Berlin before making him a senior anchor and contributor.

Although neither Clancy nor CNN revealed the reasons for the departure, almost all media outlets connected it with a somewhat incoherent Twitter spat that began in the wake of the fatal attacks on Charlie Hebdo, the satirical French magazine.

“The cartoons NEVER mocked the Prophet. They mocked how the COWARDS tried to distort his word. Pay attention,” tweeted Clancy on January 7 – from an account that has since been deleted – referring to the magazine’s editorial output.

.@clancycnn You might want to actually look at the cartoons before tweeting about them. I have a collection: http://t.co/QSvVFHKqwM

— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) January 8, 2015

The ironically-named anonymous pro-Israeli blogger Elder of Ziyon, and Oren Kessler, a Jewish-American Middle East analyst, both piped in with comments contradicting Clancy, saying that there had been explicitly anti-religious cartoons, and reminding the journalist that the magazine had been previously targeted by Islamists.

The debate then took an odd turn, with Clancy tweeting “Hasbara” – the name for Israel’s policy of spreading its message through mass media.

“This is great, a pro-Israel voice try [sic] to convince us that cartoonists were really anti-Muslim, and that’s why they were attacked. FALSE. These accounts are part of a campaign to do PR for Israel(including “Jews Making News”) but not HR (Human Rights.),” read one tweet.

Despite being met with incomprehension, Clancy then mysteriously tweeted “It’s called satire” before launching into a series of general anti-Israeli comments.

Several included mentions of Israeli officials being tried at the International Criminal Court, as well as Israeli settlements – a subject Clancy has covered extensively.

Perhaps the most offensive and telling tweet read “It’s my Friday night” – this was actually a Wednesday – and said “the Hasbara team need to pick on some cripple on the edge of the herd.”

The seemingly unprovoked outpouring sparked the ire of the Ruderman Family Foundation, a Jewish disabled people’s foundation.

Its head, Jay Ruderman, wrote an open letter to CNN, calling Clancy’s remarks “appalling” and asking why “in this day and age a senior anchor at CNN, a world leader in the media, would use a word such as ‘cripple,’ which is a derogatory term for people with disabilities.”

The moral of the Jim Clancy resignation has nothing to do with Jews, contra @ggreenwald, but is as follows: Don't drink and tweet.

— Zach Novetsky (@ZNovetsky) January 16, 2015

More and more media outlets picked up on the story, and Clancy first deleted several of the more inflammatory posts, and then eventually his account. However, screenshots of the tweets had been saved by Gawker and several other outlets.

By Friday, Clancy’s biography had been taken off the CNN website, and the journalist wrote a goodbye letter, saying “CNN has been a family to my own family,” and thanking it for providing “great adventures and achievements.”

Your life is Facebook’s business model – like it or not

January 7, 2015 by Nasheman

Facebook can remember it for you wholesale – whether you like it or not. Anikei/Shutterstock

by Paul Levy, The Conversation

Facebook’s recent apology for its Year in Review feature, which had displayed to a grieving father images of his dead daughter, highlights again the tricky relationship between the social media behemoth and its users’ data.

The free service Facebook offers to its 1.2 billion users is free because of the advertising revenue the site generates from the time that users spend on the site. This model drives a need to keep users on the site as much as possible.

“Sticky” qualities that keep users coming back include the essentially addictive nature of social media sites – one that’s been compared to gambling and alcohol addictions. Another is to provide interesting new features that present Facebook’s vast pool of historical data in new ways – the Year in Review is such a feature, which automatically pulls together a collection of photos from significant moments through the year.

In your face(book)

But innovations pose creative challenges, such as how to develop an algorithm that selects content for the Year in Review that you’d want to see and share. In most cases this works perfectly well, offering up memories from your historical Facebook timeline to bring a smile to your face. But in other cases there is the phenomenon described by writer Eric Meyer as “inadvertent algorithmic cruelty”: his Year in Review arrived with a picture of his recently deceased daughter, six-year-old Rebecca, as the headline image.

Meyer’s blog was widely reported and prompted an apology from Facebook.

But what Facebook didn’t apologise for was offering a new feature that thrust content directly into the user’s face. Yes, the algorithm was clumsy, but the notion of forcing content, un-asked for, upon the user is almost taken for granted. In business terms, this is sometimes called “supplier push”. It becomes part of a business philosophy that sees users as crowds, and innovation as a process of “mass customisation”. The danger of appealing to the crowd en masse, is that a significant minority will always fall between the gaps.

So, a minority get to see their dead relatives, dead dogs, their exes, and even their past bad behaviour they’d rather forget in their Year in Review. To be clear here, Facebook doesn’t publish the Year in Review directly, but offers a sample for further customisation and publication if the user chooses. Regardless it’s still thrust in your face, whether or not you wish it; Eric Meyer got an image of his dead daughter whether he wanted to or not.

So my (beloved!) ex-boyfriend’s apartment caught fire this year, which was very sad, but Facebook made it worth it. pic.twitter.com/AvU8ifazXa

— Julieanne Smolinski (@BoobsRadley) December 29, 2014

Remembering for you, like it or not

And this is where the relationship dynamics that sit at the heart of Facebook’s “free” social media model come in. By preventing us from deleting our own content, Facebook becomes the equivalent of an ever-growing attic of memories – many of which we, if we could choose, would choose to forget. This content is harvested for information with which to further refine advertising offers.

The existence of this problem has been recognised elsewhere: the Mailing Preference Service provides an opt out register for direct mail advertising for baby-related products to prevent unwanted reminders, for example in the event of a baby’s death. Online services have yet to incorporate these measures. And generally speaking, aren’t there often things from our past that wewouldn’t respond well to when re-presented to us?

As social media grows in sophistication, algorithms attempt to target you with content that will keep you interested and so more connected and engaged. Software can currently recognise smiling faces, but not that the smile on one face is of someone no longer with us. Why? Because the user didn’t tag “dead” on the photo.

Tagging is another example of “in your face” social media, in that it also prompts you to look at a image to approve someone else’s tag on your image, or that you have been tagged in someone else’s image. Of course, it might not be an image you wanted ever to see again. There will be more of this in the future: if you can’t delete photos of your past without leaving Facebook altogether, do you lose the right to privacy at the moment you feel you need it? If your Year in Review shows you engaged mostly in dangerous sports, will that affect your next insurance quote?

If you thought you were going to start your new year with a clean sheet, then, as a social media user, think again. Facebook’s new and revised terms and conditions will see it observe your behaviour, location and the sites you visit in even more detail. In order, no doubt, to create further features to keep you engaged. Inevitably, these will also throw up further issues of badly targeted content and intrusion into our personal lives – a double-edged sword that can bring pleasure, or pain.

Paul Levy is a Senior Researcher in Innovation Management at University of Brighton.

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