Thursday, April 3

SOCIAL MEDIA

The Death Of Print Newspapers
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SOCIAL MEDIA, SOCIETY, TOP FOUR

The Death Of Print Newspapers

The death of printed newspapers has long been predicted – but there are still some pleasing signs of life. When the Australian newspaper celebrated its 60th anniversary this year, its founder, Rupert Murdoch, foreshadowed the death of print newspapers within 15 years. “Fifteen years, with a lot of luck,” declared the media mogul and chairman emeritus of News Corp in a Sky interview, much to the chagrin of his employees. It’s an uncomfortable prediction for those in an already struggling industry. In the past month, Australia’s newsrooms have continued to shrink. Big-name journalists have been taking redundancies across metropolitan and regional mastheads. Workplace discontent is also high, with job cuts following hundreds of Nine journalists striking over pay during the Paris Olympic...
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Parents Here’s How To Get Your Kids To Think Twice About Popular Social Media Challenges
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SOCIAL MEDIA

Parents Here’s How To Get Your Kids To Think Twice About Popular Social Media Challenges

Teenage brains are drawn to popular social media challenges – here’s how parents can get their kids to think twice. Viral social media trends started innocently enough. In the early 2010s there was planking, the “Harlem Shake” dance and lip syncing to Carly Rae Jepsen’s summer anthem “Call Me Maybe.” Then came the ice bucket challenge, which raised an estimated US$115 million for ALS research. In recent years, social media challenges have grown more popular – and more dangerous, leading to serious injuries and even deaths. It’s not hard to see why. The milk crate challenge dares people to walk or run across a loosely stacked pyramid of milk crates, the Tide pod challenge involves eating laundry detergent pods, and the Benadryl challenge encourages taking six or more doses of over-the-c...
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Social Media’s Addiction
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SOCIAL MEDIA, TOP FOUR

Social Media’s Addiction

Why students harmed by addictive social media need more than cellphone bans and surveillance. Recently, five school boards in Ontario filed a lawsuit against the major social media platforms: Facebook and Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok. Their lawsuit says that these platforms are designed to be addictive and have caused all kinds of problems for the education system. The lawsuit says social media causes children to suffer from mental health issues, and it increases distraction, social withdrawal, and cyberbullying. And it causes damage and disruption to the classroom, putting all kinds of new burdens on teachers who are already dealing with shrinking budgets and increased class sizes. The $4.5 billion lawsuit follows over 200 lawsuits by school boards in the United States in the...
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Teens See Selected Content As Not Just “For Them” But Also “About Them”
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SOCIAL MEDIA, TOP FOUR, VIDEO REELS

Teens See Selected Content As Not Just “For Them” But Also “About Them”

Teens see social media algorithms as accurate reflections of themselves, study finds. Social media apps regularly present teens with algorithmically selected content often described as “for you,” suggesting, by implication, that the curated content is not just “for you” but also “about you” – a mirror reflecting important signals about the person you are. All users of social media are exposed to these signals, but researchers understand that teens are at an especially malleable stage in the formation of personal identity. Scholars have begun to demonstrate that technology is having generation-shaping effects, not merely in the way it influences cultural outlook, behavior and privacy, but also in the way it can shape personality among those brought up on social media. The prevalenc...
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Dental TikTok Trends You Might Treat With Caution
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SOCIAL MEDIA

Dental TikTok Trends You Might Treat With Caution

5 dental TikTok trends you probably shouldn’t try at home. TikTok is full of videos that demonstrate DIY hacks, from up-cycling tricks to cooking tips. Meanwhile, a growing number of TikTok videos offer tips to help you save money and time at the dentist. But do they deliver? Here are five popular dental TikTok trends and why you might treat them with caution. 1. Home-made whitening solutions Many TikTok videos provide tips to whiten teeth. These include tutorials on making your own whitening toothpaste using ingredients such as hydrogen peroxide, a common household bleaching agent, and baking soda (sodium bicarbonate). In this video, the influencer says: And then you’re going to pour in your hydrogen peroxide. There’s really no measurement to this. But hydrogen peroxide...
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Why Emoji Can Be Even More Powerful Than Words — Is It A Sign of our times
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SOCIAL MEDIA

Why Emoji Can Be Even More Powerful Than Words — Is It A Sign of our times

Signs of our times: why emoji can be even more powerful than words. Each year, Oxford Dictionaries – one of the world’s leading arbiters on the English language – selects a word that has risen to prominence over the past 12 months as its “Word of the Year”. The word is carefully chosen, based on a close analysis of how often it is used and what it reveals about the times we live in. Past examples include such classics as “vape”, “selfie” and “omnishambles”. But the 2015 word of the year is not a word at all. It’s an emoji – the “face with tears of joy” emoji, to be precise. Formerly regarded with disdain as the textual equivalent of an adolescent grunt, it appears that emoji has now gone mainstream. Even if it’s not a fully-fledged language, then it is – at the very least – something that ...
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TikTok Fears: A Closer Look At The Problem Of Poor Media Literacy In The Age Of Social Media
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SOCIAL MEDIA, TOP FOUR, VIDEO REELS

TikTok Fears: A Closer Look At The Problem Of Poor Media Literacy In The Age Of Social Media

TikTok fears point to larger problem: Poor media literacy in the social media age. The U.S. government moved closer to banning the video social media app TikTok after the House of Representatives attached the measure to an emergency spending bill on Apr. 17, 2024. The House voted on each of the four components of the bill, and the one affecting TikTok passed 360-58 on Apr. 20, 2024. The packaging is likely to improve the bill’s chances in the Senate, and President Joe Biden has indicated that he will sign the bill if it reaches his desk. The bill would force ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, to either sell its American holdings to a U.S. company or face a ban in the country. The company has said it will fight any effort to force a sale. The proposed legislation was mo...
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Addicted To Social Media — Cut The Craving
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SOCIAL MEDIA, VIDEO REELS

Addicted To Social Media — Cut The Craving

‘It is hijacking my brain’ – a team of experts found ways to help young people addicted to social media to cut the craving. Many people have compared the addictive nature of social media to cigarettes. Checking your likes, they say, is the new smoke break. Others say the unease over social media is just the next round of moral panic about new technologies. We are a pair of researchers who investigate how social media affects the mental health of young people. More than 75% of teens check their phone hourly, and half say they feel like they’re addicted to their devices. Here are some of the things they’ve told us: “TikTok has me in a chokehold.” “I would 1,000% say I am addicted.” “I feel completely aware that it is hijacking my brain, but I can’t put it down. This leaves me feeling as...
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The Dangers Of Disinformation And Social Media: A Social Psychologist’s Guide
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SOCIAL MEDIA, VIDEO REELS

The Dangers Of Disinformation And Social Media: A Social Psychologist’s Guide

Disinformation is rampant on social media – a social psychologist explains the tactics used against you. Information warfare abounds, and everyone online has been drafted whether they know it or not. Disinformation is deliberately generated misleading content disseminated for selfish or malicious purposes. Unlike misinformation, which may be shared unwittingly or with good intentions, disinformation aims to foment distrust, destabilize institutions, discredit good intentions, defame opponents and delegitimize sources of knowledge such as science and journalism. Many governments engage in disinformation campaigns. For instance, the Russian government has used images of celebrities to attract attention to anti-Ukraine propaganda. Meta, parent company of Facebook and Instagram, warned on No...
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Hooked On Social Media
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SOCIAL MEDIA

Hooked On Social Media

41 US states are suing Meta for getting teens hooked on social media. Here’s what to expect next. In the United States, 41 states have filed lawsuits against Meta for allegedly driving social media addiction in its young users (under the age of 18), amid growing concerns about the negative effects of platforms. The lawsuits allege Meta has been harvesting young users’ data, deploying features to promote compulsive use of both Facebook and Instagram, and misleading the public about the negative effects of these features. What might we expect to happen next? And are there potential consequences for Australia? Leveraging whistleblower revelations The most significant suit, filed in a federal court in California, involves 33 states. The claim is based on breaches of state consumer protection ...
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