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alessandriana · 4 years

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Internet trolls don’t troll. Not the professionals at least. Professional trolls don’t go on social media to antagonize liberals or belittle conservatives. They are not narrow minded, drunk or angry. They don’t lack basic English language skills. They certainly aren’t “somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds,” as the president once put it. Your stereotypical trolls do exist on social media, but the amateurs aren’t a threat to Western democracy.

Professional trolls, on the other hand, are the tip of the spear in the new digital, ideological battleground. To combat the threat they pose, we must first understand them — and take them seriously.

On August 22, 2019, @IamTyraJackson received almost 290,000 likes on Twitter for a single tweet. Put in perspective, the typical tweet President Trump sends to his 67 million followers gets about 100,000 likes. That viral tweet by @IamTyraJackson was innocent: an uplifting pair of images of former pro football player Warrick Dunn and a description of his inspiring charity work building houses for single mothers. For an anonymous account that had only existed for only a few months, “Tyra” knew her audience well. Warrick’s former coach, Tony Dungy, retweeted it, as did the rapper and producer Chuck D. Hundreds of thousands of real users viewed Tyra’s tweet and connected with its message. For “Tyra,” however, inspiring messages like this were a tool for a very different purpose.

The purpose of the Tyra account, we believe, was not to spread heartwarming messages to Americans. Rather, the tweet about Warrick Dunn was really a Trojan horse to gain followers in a larger plan by a foreign adversary. We think this because we believe @IamTyraJackson was an account operated by the successors to Russia’s Internet Research Agency (IRA). Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted the IRA for waging a massive information war during the 2016 U.S. election. Since then, the IRA seems to have been subsumed into Russia’s Federal News Agency, but its work continues. In the case of @IamTyraJackson, the IRA’s goal was two-fold: Grow an audience in part through heartwarming, inspiring messages, and use that following to spread messages promoting division, distrust, and doubt.

We’ve spent the past two years studying online disinformation and building a deep understanding of Russia’s strategy, tactics, and impact. Working from data Twitter has publicly released, we’ve read Russian tweets until our eyes bled. Looking at a range of behavioral signals, we have begun to develop procedures to identify disinformation campaigns and have worked with Twitter to suspend accounts. In the process we’ve shared what we’ve learned with people making a difference, both in and out of government. We have experienced a range of emotions studying what the IRA has produced, from disgust at their overt racism to amusement at their sometimes self-reflective humor. Mostly, however, we’ve been impressed.

Professional trolls are good at their job. They have studied us. They understand how to harness our biases (and hashtags) for their own purposes. They know what pressure points to push and how best to drive us to distrust our neighbors. The professionals know you catch more flies with honey. They don’t go to social media looking for a fight; they go looking for new best friends. And they have found them.

Disinformation operations aren’t typically fake news or outright lies. Disinformation is most often simply spin. Spin is hard to spot and easy to believe, especially if you are already inclined to do so. While the rest of the world learned how to conduct a modern disinformation campaign from the Russians, it is from the world of public relations and advertising that the IRA learned their craft. To appreciate the influence and potential of Russian disinformation, we need to view them less as Boris and Natasha and more like Don Draper.

As good marketers, professional trolls manipulate our emotions subtly. In fall 2018, for example, a Russian account we identified called @PoliteMelanie re-crafted an old urban legend, tweeting: “My cousin is studying sociology in university. Last week she and her classmates polled over 1,000 conservative Christians. ‘What would you do if you discovered that your child was a homo sapiens?’ 55% said they would disown them and force them to leave their home.” This tweet, which suggested conservative Christians are not only homophobic but also ignorant, was subtle enough to not feel overtly hateful, but was also aimed directly at multiple cultural stress points, driving a wedge at the point where religiosity and ideology meet. The tweet was also wildly successful, receiving more than 90,000 retweets and nearly 300,000 likes.

This tweet didn’t seek to anger conservative Christians or to provoke Trump supporters. She wasn’t even talking to them. Melanie’s 20,000 followers, painstakingly built, weren’t from #MAGA America (Russia has other accounts targeting them). Rather, Melanie’s audience was made up of educated, urban, left-wing Americans harboring a touch of self-righteousness. She wasn’t selling her audience a candidate or a position — she was selling an emotion. Melanie was selling disgust. The Russians know that, in political warfare, disgust is a more powerful tool than anger. Anger drives people to the polls; disgust drives countries apart.

Accounts like @IamTyraJackson have continued @PoliteMelanie’s work. Professional disinformation isn’t spread by the account you disagree with — quite the opposite. Effective disinformation is embedded in an account you agree with. The professionals don’t push you away, they pull you toward them. While tweeting uplifting messages about Warrick Dunn’s real-life charity work, Tyra, and several accounts we associated with her, also distributed messages consistent with past Russian disinformation. Importantly, they highlighted issues of race and gender inequality. A tweet about Brock Turner’s Stanford rape case received 15,000 likes. Another about police targeting black citizens in Las Vegas was liked more than 100,000 times. Here is what makes disinformation so difficult to discuss: while these tweets point to valid issues of concern — issues that have been central to important social movements like Black Lives Matter and #MeToo — they are framed to serve Russia’s interests in undermining Americans’ trust in our institutions.

These accounts also harness the goodwill they’ve built by engaging in these communities for specific political ends. Consistent with past Russian activity, they attacked moderate politicians as a method of bolstering more polarizing candidates. Recently, Vice President Biden has been the most frequent target of this strategy, as seen in dozens of tweets such as, “Joe Biden is damaging Obama’s legacy with his racism and stupidity!” and “Joe Biden doesn’t deserve our votes!”

The quality of Russia’s work has been honed over several years and millions of social media posts. They have appeared on Instagram, Stitcher, Reddit, Google+, Tumblr, Medium, Vine, Meetup, and even Pokémon Go, demonstrating not only a nihilistic creativity, but also a ruthless efficiency in volume of production. The IRA has been called a “troll farm,” but they are undoubtedly a factory.

While persona like Melanie and Tyra were important to Russian efforts, they were ultimately just tools, interchangeable parts constructed for a specific audience. When shut down, they were quickly replaced by other free-to-create, anonymous accounts. The factory doesn’t stop. They attack issues from both sides, attempting to drive mainstream viewpoints in polar and extreme directions.

In a free society, we must accept that bad actors will try to take advantage of our openness. But we need to learn to question our own and others’ biases on social media. We need to teach — to individuals of all ages — that we shouldn’t simply believe or repost anonymous users because they used the same hashtag we did, and neither should we accuse them of being a Russian bot simply because we disagree with their perspective. We need to teach digital civility. It will not only weaken foreign efforts, but it will also help us better engage online with our neighbors, especially the ones we disagree with.

Russian disinformation is not just about President Trump or the 2016 presidential election. Did they work to get Trump elected? Yes, diligently. Our research has shown how Russia strategically employed social media to build support on the right for Trump and lower voter turnout on the left for Clinton. But the IRA was not created to collude with the Trump campaign. They existed well before Trump rode down that escalator and announced his candidacy, and we assume they will exist in some form well after he is gone. Russia’s goals are to further widen existing divisions in the American public and decrease our faith and trust in institutions that help maintain a strong democracy. If we focus only on the past or future, we will not be prepared for the present. It’s not about election 2016 or 2020.

The IRA generated more social media content in the year following the 2016 election than the year before it. They also moved their office into a bigger building with room to expand. Their work was never just about elections. Rather, the IRA encourages us to vilify our neighbor and amplify our differences because, if we grow incapable of compromising, there can be no meaningful democracy. Russia has dug in for a long campaign. So far, we’re helping them win.

#this is SO important #read it #study it #and pay attention to what you're sharing!!!#us politics

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bountyofbeads · 4 years

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That Uplifting Tweet You Just Shared? A Russian Troll Sent It

Here’s what Russia’s 2020 disinformation operations look like, according to two experts on social media and propaganda.

By DARREN Linvill & PATRICK Warren |

Published November 27, 2019 | Rolling Stone | Posted November 27, 2019 |

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Darren Linvill is an associate professor of communication at Clemson. His work explores state-affiliated disinformation campaigns and the strategies and tactics employed on social media. Patrick Warren is an associate professor of economics at Clemson. Dr. Warren’s research focuses on the operation of organizations in the economy such as for-profit and non-profit firms, bureaucracies, political parties, armies, and propaganda bureaus.

#u.s. presidential elections #presidential elections #elections #election integrity #election interference #russia #u.s. news #u.s. politics #tech #technology #tech news #disinformation #politics and government #republican politics #political science #us politics #politics

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bluewatsons · 7 years

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Rob Horning, Mass authentic, The New Inquiry (October 3, 2016)

The tenacity of “authenticity” as an ideological talisman — as a motive force and a post hoc explanation for actions, as an all-purpose aspiration and excuse — stems from how it posits what it purports to merely describe. It seems to denote “genuineness,” like it were simply a rhetorical equals sign, but in practice it does the opposite; it is always used to call the inherent fact of what is into question, to cast doubt over what people are doing and posit “truer” alternatives. But these alternatives are fictions, not revealed inner truths; they are speculations seeking substantiation at the expense of what is.

Authenticity articulates something that never was as something supposed to be always already lost, in order to promise you are on the cusp of reclaiming it, as if naming it was the first step toward embodying it again, and doing away with your need for the word. Like “golden ages” generally, authenticity can only be identified retrospectively: In the past I was “genuinely myself” but now all I have are elusive memories of that fleeting experience, or brands and products that seduce me by pinpointing that feeling of loss and making it seem recuperable.

Goods that promise authenticity work like all other goods meant to express identity: They create a feeling of inadequacy, a sense that they embody a quality you are supposed to have but feel unsure of. The goods seem capable of anchoring your “realness,” but only by intimating to you your present insubstantiality. Describing something as “authentic” primarily opens a gap in the self, permitting desire, manufacturing demand. They are machines of “inauthenticity.”

In a passage from the introduction of Authentic™ (2012) Sarah Banet-Weiser gets at some of these same points, the power of “authenticity” as an ideology:

Even if we discard as false a simple opposition between the authentic and the inauthentic, we still must reckon with the power of authenticity—of the self, of experience, of relationships. It is a symbolic construct that, even in a cynical age, continues to have cultural value in how we understand our moral frameworks and ourselves, and more generally how we make decisions about how to live our lives. We want to believe—indeed, I argue we need to believe—that there are spaces in our lives driven by genuine affect and emotions, something outside of mere consumer culture, something above the reductiveness of profit margins, the crassness of capital exchange.

I agree that we should “discard as false the simple opposition between the authentic and the inauthentic” and not only because the definitions of these terms entirely depend on each other. But it’s tricky to discard that opposition without re-enacting the ideology that it authorizes. (The authentic thing to do would be to look past the idea of inauthenticity…)

In that passage Banet-Weiser seems to argue that we “need to believe” in the possibility of authenticity, even if the concept is bogus or untenable. But that “need” — that demand, that desire, is all “authenticity” ever refers to anyway. Her analysis suggests a gap between brands’ uses of authenticity and some “real” desire for realness (for “genuine affect and emotion”), but that gap is the trace of “authenticity” in action. It calls into question the inherent genuineness of any affect and any emotion in any situation. The presumption that only some feelings in some situations are real, and other feelings, though felt, are somehow false, is authenticity’s main ruse. The brands themselves are positing the “real space” outside of consumer culture that we are all supposed to yearn for; they aren’t fighting or denying that space, they are nurturing it.

That is to say, “authenticity” as it’s understood within consumer culture is internal to that culture and not the trace of a way of life that preceded it. It is not something off which consumer culture and brands are parasitically leeching. Authenticity, as we commonly use the term, is a product of consumer culture, even as it is deployed to try to evoke the life untouched by commercialization. As Banet-Weiser points out later, “Explaining brand culture as a sophisticated form of corporate appropriation, then, keeps intact the idea that corporate culture exists outside—indeed, in opposition to—”authentic” culture. Rather than thinking of incorporation by capital from some “authentic” place outside of consumerism, brand culture requires a more complex frame of analysis.”

If “authenticity” evokes “spaces in our lives driven by genuine affect and emotions,” it is because the term works to fashion such spaces as commercial properties; it creates them as new spaces of possibility internal to consumerism. “Authenticity” is that structuring process; it’s not a measure of the degree to which something eludes commercialization. “Authentic” things are not those that evade branding; in fact, only brands can be “authentic.” Authenticity-inauthenticity is fundamentally a continuum that can only be applied to brands. When we examine our own “authenticity,” we are thinking of ourselves in terms of our personal brand. If you are concerned about being authentic, you are concerned about your brand — not about how to escape the impact of branding on your self-concept.

“Authenticity” is commercialized nostalgia for that way of life that was articulated by a different set of economic relations: precapitalistic, or pre-massified, or pre-globalized — whatever word you want to use to describe how it seemed when you were nine years old, when things were “real” (because you were too immature to understand how they became that way, and how the world as given was both mutable and the product of human decisions).

In other words, authenticity doesn’t describe what we’ve lost through the relentless and implacable advances of consumer culture; it is how that consumer culture structures how an idea of the past is to be consumed in the present moment. “Authenticity” articulates contemporary consumerist values as if they were really external to consumerism, and could ground it, give it transcendental meaning: You really can consume your way into being real!

But authenticity and inauthenticity are both internal to the system of branding and commercialized communication. When something is “authentic” it is certainly not “outside of mere consumer culture”; it is instead the apotheosis of that culture.

Trying to be “authentic” is to pursue an apolitical, individualistic solution to an intrinsically political question. As André Spicer argues in this Ephemera article, the search for authenticity is not “a form of liberation” but “involves a profound ‘turn inwards’ whereby social struggles are pushed back onto the individual. This results in the search for authenticity becoming an internal psychological struggle rather than collective political struggle.” So it would solve nothing to insist on the pursuit of “real feelings.” That tends to lead to authenticity being used to disenfranchise those deemed “inauthentic” — that is, those who lack the means to insist on the standards that favor themselves.

To short-circuit this logic, as Banet-Weiser eventually suggests, one might begin by acknowledging that the affect and emotion generated by brands is as “genuine” as any other feeling. The extent to which “we need to believe” otherwise is the extent to which that “belief” precludes itself from becoming real. Letting consumer culture sell you a commodified sense of your immunity to consumer culture does not dismantle that culture.

One shouldn’t assume that it’s natural that most people think “real feelings” are inherently anti-commercial or anticapitalist. If we have been habituated to capitalist society, it may be that the commercialization of feelings makes them feel more substantial, more shared, more real. In consumer culture, safe spaces, as Banet-Weiser points out, are branded spaces: oases of familiarity that convey feelings of security, stability, and belonging — harbors of “utopic normativity.” Extending that, profitable things are understood as “viable.” Brands are “authentic” because they are valuable, popular, viral, etc. Many of us feel validated by the same sorts of measured engagement: We are more “real” when we get more likes. Moreover, we are able to feel “normal” because of the visibility of brands we associate ourselves with. This normality has more to do with feeling oneself to be “authentic” then the narratives of personal distinction often associated with authenticity marketing. “Authenticity” functions by harmonizing the desire to belong with the desire to be unique. The slippery incoherence of it is what allows us to find comfort in it.

#consumerism #authenticity #capitalism #belief #identity

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justindanielsampsel-blog · 5 years

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Justin Daniel Sampsel When You Want To Be The Best, You Have To Learn More About Lead Generation

Justin Daniel Sampsel Proficient tips provider. Attempting to gain new business leads without the proper techniques and strategies is like trying to move a steel block that weighs a ton. It's not going to happen. Think about your business niche, and consider what this article has to say about generating leads so that you can go about things the right way.

Use social media as a lead generation tool. In social media, you need to not only build a presence, you also need to build a community. It's an opportunity to build trust which will lead to more and more leads coming your way. Don't just look at the obvious social media channels. Consider them all.

Try a fax campaign to increase your lead generation. Fax may seem very 1980s in terms of business communication, but most companies still rely on these machines. So many people have ignored the fax machine in the 21st century. But that only means that you have less clutter to battle. Your message will be more likely to hit!

Justin Daniel Sampsel Professional tips provider. To generate the most promising leads for your business, your website needs very clear instructions for the visitor. Make your offer stand out from all other content on the page and make sure it's easy to understand. The visitor should have no problem identifying your offer and knowing how to get in on it quickly.

Create engaging content. Lead generation relies a lot on building trust with your product or service. Smart targeted content does a lot to help get you there. Your target audience will be more likely to do business with you if they feel you are providing great service and that you legitimately care.

Survey your current customers about where they typically congregate online. To generate quality leads, you need to understand where your audience hangs out. Once you know, get involved in that community any way you can. That may mean advertising or it may mean becoming a thought leader in the community.

Ask your current customers to pass on word about your company to those they know. Your current loyal customers are the best lead generation asset you have. Their word of mouth can really mean a lot to generating new customers. Just them sharing your company information in social media can be surprisingly powerful.

Always seek validation of lead information. Verifying real-time information for a lead is important. If you take the time to make sure that you have a good phone number, zip code and/or email, you can ensure that the lead you have is strong. Not doing so can waste a lot of your time.

Don't forget to utilize your telephone. You are going to find that the results can be rather surprising. No matter what you're selling, someone out there is looking for it.

Justin Daniel Sampsel Skilled tips provider. While generating leads is not a complicated matter, there is a precise science to it. Making an irresistible offer, getting it to the right viewers and giving them a good enough reason to act "now" are the three major components of lead generation. Think these over and develop ways to perfect that pitch package, and you should start generating more leads instantly.

Never overlook or underestimate a lead source. You will have many avenues for gathering leads such as buying or self-gathering or even word-of-mouth. Always look at each avenue for validity. Buying leads can be a great way to jump start your efforts, but they may not be the same quality leads you gain from a targeted effort.

If you really want to bring in leads, you must pair up your website with social media as well. From Twitter to Facebook, it's a good idea to use these things to help you get more leads. Make certain you use various campaigns, keeping an eye on what works and what fails.

One of the fastest and easiest ways to generate leads is through referrals for your services! Offering existing customers incentives for referrals, such as a certain amount of money discounted the next time they use your services, will let you have several leads quickly. It's a foolproof way to get new business!

Test out new avenues before you go in whole hog. You don't want to end up investing a lot of time and money and yet get nothing in return. Run a test of each new strategy you have and carefully monitor your results, then jump in when the testing reveals success.

Know your targeted audience and where they stand when it comes to the buying process. For example, a new parent may need a family car. Birth announcements offer a perfect opportunity for automobile salespeople to generate leads. All of their demographic information should be included in your determination.

Word-of-mouth referrals may seem like an old fashioned approach to gaining more customers, but they are like gold when it comes to generating leads. If you want to raise the stakes a little bit, come up with an offer or deal that potential customers can't refuse. You may even be able to come up with content that goes viral in order to generate even more leads.

Know what you expect from your leads. If you plan to purchase leads, do you know what you want? Is your promotion targeting certain ages or economic levels? This is important to know before you drop a lot of money on leads. You want to know who your leads are before you send your promotions.

Justin Daniel Sampsel Best service provider. Make sure your site is optimized for generating leads. A call to action or contact for will be the first thing people see. People need to quickly see what your product delivers and how you can be reached. This can make a significant difference in your results.

You need new leads for your business, and this article has focused on providing you with helpful advice concerning the matter. Now it's up to you to make it happen. Devising a solid plan is what you need to do now so that you're not finding yourself in this position anymore in the future.

#Justin Daniel Sampsel

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zoe-godijn · 5 years

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The Psychology Of Materialism, And Why It's Making You Unhappy

More money, more problems? It might just be true. Americans today, compared to 55 years ago, own twice as many cars and eat out twice as much per person, but we don't seem to be any happier because of it. Rather than rising levels of well-being, we've seen mounting credit card debt and increasing numbers of self-storage facilities to house the things we compulsively buy.

The holidays in particular have become a time when consumer culture comes out in full force. Black Friday, the annual post-Thanksgiving discount shopping spree, results each year in multiple deaths and injuries of consumers trampled by crowds in stores and shopping malls.

In a poignant, viral Huffington Post blog last month, "If You Shop On Thanksgiving, You're Part Of The Problem," writer Matt Walsh cast a harsh light on what the holiday shopping frenzy really says about our culture:

That's our entire economic system: buy things. Everybody buy. It doesn't matter what you buy. Just buy. It doesn't matter if you don't have money. Just buy. Our entire civilization now rests on the assumption that, no matter what else happens, we will all continue to buy lots and lots of things. Buy, buy, buy, buy, buy. And then buy a little more. Don't create, or produce, or discover -- just buy. Never save, never invest, never cut back -- just buy. Buy what you don't need with money you don't have... Buy like you breathe, only more frequently.

To some extent, most of us participate in consumer culture and value material possessions, and that's perfectly fine. But in excess, materialism can take a toll on your well-being, relationships and quality of life. Here are six things you should know about the psychology of consumption -- and strategies to find freedom from materialism.

Consumer culture may be harming individual well-being.

Research suggests that Americans' well-being has, if anything, declined since the 1950s, according to the American Psychological Association, while our consumption has only increased.

"Compared with their grandparents, today's young adults have grown up with much more affluence, slightly less happiness and much greater risk of depression and assorted social pathology," David G. Myers, author of The American Paradox: Spiritual Hunger in an Age of Plenty, wrote in an American Psychologist article. "Our becoming much better off over the last four decades has not been accompanied by one iota of increased subjective well-being."

The materialistic values that consumer cultures support may be to blame. Those who pursue wealth and material possessions tend to be less satisfied and experience fewer positive emotions each day. On the other hand, research has found that life satisfaction -- surprise, surprise -- is correlated with having less materialistic values.

Materialist values are linked to Type-A behavior.

Are you highly ambitious and competitive? It could mean you're also more materialistic. Australian research from the 1990s found materialist values and a possessions-based definition of success share common characteristics with type-A behaviors, including competitiveness and aggression. A 2008 study published in the Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology reiterated the finding that the desire to accumulate wealth and possessions is related to Type-A qualities.

Money really can't buy you happiness.

The Beatles wisely noted that money can't buy love, and we'd do well to remember that money can't buy happiness, either. Research has shown that there is no direct correlation between income and happiness. Once our basic needs are met, wealth makes very little difference to one's overall well-being and happiness. And in fact, extremely wealthy people actually suffer from higher rates of depression.

“The failure of additional wealth and consumption to help people have satisfying lives may be the most eloquent argument for reevaluating our current approach to consumption,” the authors of Worldwatch Institute's 2011 State of Consumption report wrote.

Some data, however, has suggested that there could be a link between higher income and increased life satisfaction. It seems that it may not be the money itself that leads to dissatisfaction, but rather, the continual striving for greater wealth and more possessions that is linked to unhappiness.

Materialism could ruin your relationships.

Can money buy you love? Not so much, and according to a study published in the Journal Of Couple & Marriage Therapy, materialism is actually correlated with unhappiness in marriages. Researchers studied more than 1,700 couples to find that those in which both partners had high levels of materialism exhibited lower marital quality than couples with lower materialism scores. Previous studies have found that students with higher extrinsic, materialistic values tend to have lower-quality relationships, and to feel less connected to others.

Materialistic people also typically have less pro-social and empathetic qualities, both towards others and towards the environment.

Consumer cultures may breed narcissistic personalities.

Some psychologists have suggested that consumer cultures may contribute to the development of narcissistic personalities and behaviors, "by focusing individuals on the glorification of consumption," psychologist Tim Kasser wrote in The High Price Of Materialism. Narcissists generally act with arrogance and are deeply concerned with issues of personal adequacy, seeking power and prestige to cover for feelings of inner emptiness and low-self worth, Kasser explains.

"Narcissists' desire for external validation fits well with our conception of materialistic values as extrinsic and focused on others' praise," he writes. "Thus it was not surprising to find that students with strong materialistic tendencies scored high on a standard measure of narcissism, agreeing with statements such as 'I am more capable than other people' ... 'I wish somebody would write my biography someday.'"

Consumerism is fueled by insecurity -- and remedied by mindfulness.

Research suggests that materialistic values are fueled by insecurity. A 2002 study published in the journal Psychology and Marketing found that those who chronically doubt themselves and their own self-worth tend to be more materialistic.

Consumerism -- which has been called a "modern religion" -- tends to capitalize on this insecurity and use it to sell products.

"In a practical sense, consumerism is a belief system and culture that promotes consuming as the path to self- and social improvement," Stephanie Kaza, University of Vermont Environment Professor and Buddhism practitioner, wrote in Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. "As a dominant cultural force, consumerism offers products to address every dissatisfaction."

So what's the antidote? Mindfulness -- the focused awareness on the present moment, which can be cultivated through meditation and contemplative practice -- may be an effective remedy to empty or compulsive consumption. As beat writer and American Buddhist thinker Allen Ginsberg put it in a 1966 letter to the Washington Post: "You own twice as much rug if you're twice as aware of the rug."

Americans are redefining success beyond money and power.

Our collective definition of the American Dream is slowly starting to change from one of materialism to a more purposeful idea of what it means to live the good life. According to the 2013 LifeTwist study, only around one-quarter of Americans still believe that wealth determines success.

"Dozens of the survey’s findings reflect a new American notion of success, but perhaps none more starkly than the sentiment that Americans ranked 'having a lot of money' 20th on a list of 22 possible contributors to having a successful life," the LifeTwist Study's authors wrote in a press release. "This sentiment mirrors the steadily rising trend ... that Americans are increasingly placing greater priority on living a fulfilling life –- in which being wealthy is not the most significant factor."

By Carolyn Gregoire

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theconservativebrief · 6 years

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It’s every scientist’s worst nightmare: six papers retracted in a single day, complete with a press release that’s helping the world’s science reporters disseminate and discuss the news.

That’s exactly what happened today at the journal network JAMA, and to the Cornell researcher Brian Wansink.

Wansink is currently the director of Cornell’s Food and Brand Lab. For years, he has been known as a “world-renowned eating behavior expert.”

Even if you’ve never heard of Wansink, you’re probably familiar with his ideas. His studies, cited more than 20,000 times, are about how our environment shapes how we think about food, and what we end up consuming. He’s one of the reasons Big Food companies started offering smaller snack packaging, in 100 calorie portions. He once led the USDA committee on dietary guidelines and influenced public policy. He helped Google and the US Army implement programs to encourage healthy eating.

But over the past couple of years, the scientific house of cards that underpinned this work and influence has started crumbling. A cadre of skeptical researchers and journalists, including BuzzFeed’s Stephanie Lee, have taken a close look at Wansink’s food psychology research unit, the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell University, and have shown that unsavory data manipulation ran rampant there.

Thirteen of Wansink’s studies have now been retracted, including the six pulled from JAMA today. Among them: studies suggesting people who grocery shop hungry buy more calories; that preordering lunch can help you choose healthier food; and that serving people out of large bowls encourage them to serve themselves larger portions.

In a press release, JAMA said Cornell couldn’t “provide assurances regarding the scientific validity of the 6 studies” because they didn’t have access to Wansink’s original data. (We’ve reached out to Cornell for comment, and they say they’ll be issuing a statement on Friday.) So, Wansink’s ideas aren’t necessarily wrong; he didn’t provide credible evidence for them.

But this story is a lot bigger than any single researcher. It’s important because it helps shine a light on persistent problems in science that have existed in labs across the world, problems that science reformers are increasingly calling for action on. Here’s what you need to know.

Vox

Wansink had a knack for producing studies that were catnip for the media, including us here at Vox. In 2009, Wansink and a co-author published a study that went viral that suggested the Joy of Cooking cookbook (and others like it) was contributing to America’s growing waistline. It found that recipes in more recent editions of the tome — which has sold more than 18 million copies since 1936 — contain more calories and larger serving sizes compared to its earliest editions.

The study focused on 18 classic recipes that have appeared in Joy of Cooking since 1936 and found that their average calorie density had increased by 35 percent per serving over the years.

There was also Wansink’s famous “bottomless bowls” study, which concluded that people will mindlessly guzzle down soup as long as their bowls are automatically refilled, and his “bad popcorn” study, which demonstrated that we’ll gobble up stale and unpalatable food when it’s presented to us in huge quantities.

Together, they helped Wansink reinforce his larger research agenda focused on how the decisions we make about what we eat and how we live are very much shaped by environmental cues.

The critical inquiry into his work started in 2016 when Wansink published a blog post in which he inadvertently admitted to encouraging his graduate students to engage in questionable research practices. Since then, scientists have been combing through his body of work and looking for errors, inconsistencies, and general fishiness. And they’ve uncovered dozens of head-scratchers.

In more than one instance, Wansink misidentified the ages of participants in published studies, mixing up children ages 8 to 11 with toddlers. In sum, the collective efforts have led to a whole dossier of troublesome findings in Wansink’s work.

To date, 13 of his papers have been retracted. And that’s stunning given that Wansink was so highly cited and his body of work was so influential. Wansink also collected government grants, helped shape the marketing practices at food companies, and worked with the White House to influence food policy in this country.

Vox

Among the biggest problems in science that the Wansink debacle exemplifies is the “publish or perish” mentality.

To be more competitive for grants, scientists have to publish their research in respected scientific journals. For their work to be accepted by these journals, they need positive (i.e., statistically significant) results.

That puts pressure on labs like Wansink’s to do what’s known as p-hacking. The “p” stands for p-values, a measure of statistical significance. Typically, researchers hope their results yield a p-value of less than .05 — the cutoff beyond which they can call their results significant.

P-values are a bit complicated to explain (as we do here and here). But basically: They’re a tool to help researchers understand how rare their results are. If the results are super rare, scientists can feel more confident their hypothesis is correct.

Here’s the thing: P-values of .05 aren’t that hard to find if you sort the data differently or perform a huge number of analyses. In flipping coins, you’d think it would be rare to get 10 heads in a row. You might start to suspect the coin is weighted to favor heads and that the result is statistically significant.

But what if you just got 10 heads in a row by chance (it can happen) and then suddenly decided you were done flipping coins? If you kept going, you’d stop believing the coin is weighted.

Stopping an experiment when a p-value of .05 is achieved is an example of p-hacking. But there are other ways to do it — like collecting data on a large number of outcomes but only reporting the outcomes that achieve statistical significance. By running many analyses, you’re bound to find something significant just by chance alone.

According to BuzzFeed’s Lee, who obtained Wansink’s emails, instead of testing a hypothesis and reporting on whatever findings he came to, Wansink often encouraged his underlings to crunch data in ways that would yield more interesting or desirable results.

In effect, he was running a p-hacking operation — or as one researcher, Stanford’s Kristin Sainani, told BuzzFeed, “p-hacking on steroids.”

Wansink’s sloppiness and exaggerations may be greater than ordinary. But many, many researchers have admitted to engaging in some form of p-hacking in their careers.

A 2012 survey of 2,000 psychologists found p-hacking tactics were commonplace. Fifty percent admitted to only reporting studies that panned out (ignoring data that was inconclusive). Around 20 percent admitted to stopping data collection after they got the result they were hoping for. Most of the respondents thought their actions were defensible. Many thought p-hacking was a way to find the real signal in all the noise.

But they haven’t. Increasingly, even textbook studies and phenomena are coming undone as researchers retest them with more rigorous designs.

Vox

There’s a movement of scientists who seek to rectify practices in science like the ones that Wansick is accused of. Together, they basically call for three main fixes that are gaining momentum.

Preregistration of study designs: This is a huge safeguard against p-hacking. Preregistration means that scientists publicly commit to an experiment’s design before they start collecting data. This makes it much harder to cherry-pick results.

Open data sharing: Increasingly, scientists are calling on their colleagues to make all the data from their experiments available for anyone to scrutinize (there are exceptions, of course, for particularly sensitive information). This ensures that shoddy research that makes it through peer review can still be double-checked.

Registered replication reports: Scientists are hungry to see if previously reporting findings in the academic literature hold up under more intense scrutiny. There are many efforts underway to replicate (exactly or conceptually) research findings with rigor.

There are other potential fixes too: There’s a group of scientists calling for a stricter definition of statistically significant. Others argue that arbitrary cutoffs for significance are always going to be gamed. And increasingly, scientists are turning to other forms of mathematical analysis, such as Bayesian statistics, which asks a slightly different question of data. (While p-values ask, “How rare are these numbers?” a Bayesian approach asks, “What’s the probability my hypothesis is the best explanation for the results we’ve found?”)

No one solution will be the panacea. And it’s important to recognize that science has to grapple with a much more fundamental problem: its culture.

In 2016, Vox sent out a survey to more than 200 scientists asking, “If you could change one thing about how science works today, what would it be and why?” One of the clear themes in the responses: The institutions of science need to get better at rewarding failure instead of prizing publication above all else.

One young scientist told us, “I feel torn between asking questions that I know will lead to statistical significance and asking questions that matter.”

Brian Wansink faced the same dilemma. And it’s increasingly clear which path he chose.

Original Source -> A top Cornell food researcher has had 13 studies retracted. That’s a lot.

via The Conservative Brief

#IFTTT #The Conservative Brief

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coldsoupy · 6 years

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High School Never Ends: Popularity and Engagement in the Digital Age

Everyone wants to be popular.

While this sentiment might not be outwardly expressed by many or overtly apparent in everyday life, there exists a deep-seeded need for validation and recognition. In the digital age (arguably starting with the first AOL Instant Messenger screen-names, MySpace profiles and Livejournal sites) this outward, public seeking of validation and approval has been at the core of every endeavor undertaken in the digital world of self-broadcasting, self-publishing and community entertainment.

Whether outwardly apparent to the post-er or not, every status update, photo upload, blog, vlog, reshare or creative work is a shared and curated element of self-promotion and self-branding that speaks to a need to control how people see who we are and recognize the things we stand for, create or “share.” Likes, comments, re-blogs and re-shares all amount to a point system, a personal catalog of validation that works like a checkbook ledger crediting and debiting the appeal of the creator.

People, hyper-aware of ideas on the spectrum of “going viral” to “trolling” post with total awareness of the weight they carry in the online sphere. Everything one “shares” is at its core a maintenance of an online persona, a way to lure people to think a-like or challenge people to debate with the intent of bringing attention to the very thing that was publicly created.

To exist on social media, in any capacity and on any medium, speaks to a personal need to be popular, accepted, validated and recognized.

Thus, I would like to focus on three key areas of 1.) personal creativity in a “friends” context, 2.) public personal creativity (blogs, vlogs, podcasts and websites) and 3.) activism to examine how public viewing, critiquing and collaboration have made virtually all forms of interaction on the media, at some level, an amplification of personal desires for popularity, acknowledgement and relevance.

I will attempt to articulate a unified nature to why we post what we post. What are we looking for in our digital authorship and will it ever be realized? Does our personal digital authorship have a point? Does our “shared” authorship matter if everyone’s an author? For what reasons does the “social media self” exist? Is there such a thing as post-popularity authorship?

Part I: Selfie

The selfie has become the poster-child for our digital times.

The sole-creator, sole-subject of a picture looks to show in the most blatant of ways, what “I” am doing. Check this out. While the selfie is not something everyone partakes in regularly while at the gym, at scenic locales or simply to show something unmissable in the moment, it does serve as a good starting point for the larger discussion of the role of popularity in social media. The selfie is a metaphor of the digital author in any form (including the selfie itself!).

In their paper Narcissism 2.0! Would narcissists follow fellow narcissists on Instagram?” the mediating effects of narcissists personality similarity and envy, and the moderating effects of popularity, Jin and Muqaddam (2018) point to a level of narcissism associated with and attached to selfie takers. They write that “selfies allow individuals to manipulate the angle of the shot, to be at the center of the frame, and to make certain poses and facial expressions that reflect the personality they wish to communicate. Social networking sites like Instagram and Snapchat provide filters that improve the quality of the image and digitally enhance the face by hiding skin-spots and controlling brightness. Hence, when social media audiences judge images where the source is self-centered, they naturally associate this self promotion with narcissism (Lee & Sung, 2016) and therefore perceive selfies as narcissistic behaviors (Re et al., 2016)” (Jin & Muqaddam 2018, p. 32). While the selfie remains one of the more obvious and self-centered forms of self-promotion on social media, the intent of the selfie is the same core intent that drives any singular post someone might make. It is a desire to outwardly “share” something with the expected viewership and feedback of a community in return.

Digital authorship, in all forms, is simply different reiterations of the selfie. The word count or perceived merits of “high-brow” creativity or the simplicity of the re-share does not take away from the core purpose of the piece of authorship: It is a way to be noticed and to reach a perceived audience.

Part II: Yourself, personally curated

Like a perfectly staged selfie of profile picture, how one portrays themself online through the things he or she shares speaks to the unique ability to self-create and self-curate our own online perceptions. Kurt Vonnegut once wrote, “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.” This has never been more true than in our digital age and in regards to the task of personal digital authorship.

The act of wording a Tweet or choosing a recipe to share or choosing a cause to “like” all stems from the intrinsic knowledge that this information will be seen. The online persona is a sum of its digitally authored parts and it is responsive to the input of other digital authors.

Essentially, digital authors are in constant flux, tweaking, branding and altering digital personas to appeal to approval or recognition from online communities. The digital self is not static, it is constantly malleable to changing trends and events. In their study of different types of Facebook profile pictures, Wu, Chang and Yuan (2015) point out that “people use the internet to explore themselves. That everyone has two different entities; ‘true’ self and ‘actual’ self have been proposed before (McKenna, 2007). The user is highly motivated to project himself in the best possible way in the virtual world (Emmons, 1987)” (Wu, Chang & Yuan 2015, p. 881). This differentiation between the “true” and “actual” self speaks directly to Vonnegut’s “pretend to be” self. The words “true” and “actual” could just as easily be replaced with “digital” and “real-world” self and with that we could even branch those selves further!

Joachim Vogt Isaksen (2013) writes that a “person’s construction of an ‘imagined self-image’ is done unintentionally. We are not consciously aware that we often try to conform to the image that we imagine other people expect from us” (Isaksen 2013). One mirrors what he or she thinks will be acceptable to others and creates a version of themself accordingly.

To consider what elements of digital authorship show about our “best possible projections” is to consider the implications for our choices of what we show. It is worth noting, how absorbing the digitally authored, online self can be. Even in the midst of navigating real-world situations, the parallel Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, blog or other social platform sits ready to show new forms of validation for something shared. Who hasn’t scrolled through Twitter on the subway? To post a photo is not just to post a photo. To post a photo is to monitor the popularity of that photo in real time. What is the fallout from that photo? What is the impact of that photo? When does following analytics for a given photo cease being something worth looking at a smartphone for?

Isaksen (2013) points to American sociologist Charles Horton Cooley when he asserts, “[the] looking glass self, states that a person’s self grows out of a person’s social interactions with others. The view of ourselves comes from the contemplation of personal qualities and impressions of how others perceive us. Actually, how we see ourselves does not come from who we really are, but rather from how we believe others see us” (Isaksen 2013). With Cooley speaking to us from the turn of the 20th Century, it is easy to see how this idea of “self-image” has become hyper-edited and hyper-curated in the digital age.

While in person one might mimic body language subconsciously to gain someone’s favor, the world of back-and-forth digital authorship has allowed people to spend time and put great care into the maintenance of exactly who they are through their authorship. Shows such as MTV’s Catfish are built on the whole premise of people completely mirroring to the point of assuming someone else’s identity just for the sake of validation.

A post is more than a post, it’s an established ecosystem.

The point is not about the post. The significance lies in the life that takes shape around the post. The discussion or feedback or “virality” of the post is more important than the post itself. It is the cosmos that forms surrounding the post that gives the author meaning, feelings of validation and a reason to continue engaging. The post, no matter what it was, gave life to something.

That’s creationism.

Part III: You be an author while I be an author.

To be a digital author is to engage in “correspondent authorship.”

The act of writing a post and then responding with a gif is a case in point of back-and-forth authorship. While a face-to-face conversation is built around the moment, social cues, pragmatics, situations, visual and auditory stimuli; the act of being a digital author allows for wait time between interaction. In this way, the only way to respond to one’s online publication, even one so simple as “Love shopping at Aldi!” (Who’s my audience with that line? Why’d I say Aldi? The irony!) would be met with a considered and measure expression in return. The act of even considering whether to “like” a post carries with it the weight of realizing that the “like” will be seen by the author and that the “like” stands for something.

That “like” stands for a person and everyone can see who they are, everyone can think about why they “like” it and everyone can judge them.

Correspondent authorship, even between “friends” on Facebook is public domain. This is a central idea to the popularity drive behind every social media interaction. Companies like Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr afford the user a free service and all-important “wait-time” to express themselves. The promise of millions of other users having access to view and consume what we say or do, whether that many people actually engage with our published material, is enough to give everything we post, say or articulate a literal “pause.” Ranney (2015) writes that “the ability to control the dissemination of information and monitor self-representation in digital contexts helps individuals develop positive impressions among others and cultivate the esteem of their peers (Walther, 2011). Thus, information and communication technologies facilitate social and emotional adjustment by encouraging individuals to be more careful and deliberative in their digital interactions and behaviors than they are in their face-to-face interactions” (Ranney 2015, p. 4). This act of being “careful,” the momentary finger-hover over the enter key is our brain working not as a conversationalist, but rather as creator, editor and publisher of our own persona, hyper-aware of how the thoughts put to publication might play out.

And that’s just in the person-to-person interactions!

The things we choose to post and the multitude of other posted fragments, whether it be a Pinterest board or Instagram feed or news site with attention grabbing headlines, all feed into our ambient awareness. According to Levordashka and Utz (2016), “Ambient awareness can be defined as awareness of social others, arising from the frequent reception of fragmented personal information, such as status updates and various digital footprints, while browsing social media. “Ambient” emphasizes the idea that the awareness develops peripherally, not through deliberately attending to information, but rather as an artifact of social media activity” (Levordashka and Utz 2016, p. 147). The act of mindlessly scrolling through Instagram after a long day of work is actively working to develop ambient awareness of tens or perhaps dozens of people mathematically chosen to appear for one’s viewing pleasure. This ambient awareness informs us of trends, events or ideas worth further investigating, engaging with or forgetting about.

If enough people post about something, it’s going to get noticed.

In their study of “ambient awareness” on social media platforms, Levordashka and Utz (2016) used questionnaires to assess the extent to which people became aware of information in their networks just by browsing through a Twitter feed. Levordashka and Utz (2016) wrote the “results of this study show that people experience a sense of ambient awareness towards their online network. More importantly, they were able to recognize and report information about individual people in their network, whom they know only through the microblogging platform Twitter” (Levordashka and Utz 2016, p. 150).

Just as we have become accustomed to “scanning” for information, so too has our awareness of our social, political and professional circles become crowd-sourced. To just browse through what friends are posting on Facebook on a given night offers not just close friends, but acquaintances, ads and other algorithmically driven sponsored content based on the things we choose to publish. Thus, our acts of authorship are motivated to determine what social, political or professional circles we both see and pop up in.

Levordashka and Utz (2016) go on to conclude,“We demonstrate that browsing social media and frequently encountering various social information allows social media users to gain awareness of what is going on in the lives of people in their online network” (Levordashka and Utz 2016, p. 154). To engage on social media as an author and as an author on someone else’s authorship is further created in the context of being watched in a “fishbowl” so to speak. To engage on social media is part creation, part mathematical equation and part right-place-at-the-right-time all stemming from the initial desire to be noticed.

Whereas in person one must cultivate who they are in a fully dimensional way (emotionally, socially, physically), the digital world has been left as a place to write, edit and re-edit our memoirs in real time, see who’s reading it in depth and be intrinsically aware of the many others “window shopping.”

Part IV: Social Activism…there’s a brand for that

Social media has made social activism click-friendly.

To be an activist does not require physical action only intellectual action and a willingness to be vocal. In this way, activism in social media circles is kind of like comparing bumper stickers. There is a certain awareness that a “like” to an organization, whether it is Black Lives Matter, the National Rifle Association or Greenpeace, proclaims publically what one stands for.

Furthermore, to be an activist on a platform like Facebook, to “like” a page, offers a scroll bar of like-minded organizations, all with the same goal in mind, more likes and more clout that translates to more “likes” for the liker from the kind of people they want “liking” their posts.

Fichter and Avery (2012) write, “Having power and influence, making the things you advocate happen: This is the essence of clout. Does clout matter? Yes. On different issues, at different times and for different reasons, everyone wants their voices to be heard and their points of view acted upon, or at least understood, acknowledged and validated in some manner” (Fichter & Avery 2012, p. 58). This idea of clout puts community, social, political and grassroots organizations into the interesting space of brand management in order to achieve change. At some point, maybe around 10k “likes,” an organization enters a space of brand recognition that affords it the ability to market itself to people as a kind of “badge of honor.” Social movements become a way to express oneself without showing anything more than a copyrighted title and font.

In many ways, this appeal to broad popularity in a social media platform (soft activism) becomes a gateway to more concrete forms of activism such as giving money, protesting or voting (hard activism). In a study done on whether civic activism online made young people dormant or more active in real life, Milošević-Đorđević and Žeželj (2017) found that “when tailoring policies to

engage young people in civic activities, one has to have in mind different platforms and different topics; making them engaged in one type of activity makes it more probable that they would engage in others, making them engage in “soft activities” makes it more probable that they would engage in “hard activities” (Milošević-Đorđević and Žeželj 2017, p. 118). Therefore, it becomes essential for an organization to develop brand appeal and clout through activism and a key way to do this is to stand for something that people can show publically and let it, in turn, stand for who they are.

A drawback to the click “like” approach to activism lies in the “browser” nature of how we consume information online. To get into the nitty-gritty details is simply not something everyone has time for, so to “like” something one stands for places a level of trust in the organization to promote an imagine that maintains the cultivated imagine one hopes to achieve by advertising their “like” for that organization.

Ranney and Troop (2015) explore how this at-a-distance approach to social interaction leads to disconnection when they point out that “information and communication technologies (ICTs) limit the number of non-verbal social cues available during social interactions (i.e., facial expressions, vocal inflections, body language; Lee, 2004; Tanis & Postmes, 2003; Walther, 2011), which in turn reduces the total amount of observed information that is exchanged during interactions. The consequence is that ICTs may reduce the total amount of information exchanged, including the ability to convey one’s emotions, revisit topics, and discuss topics in detail” (Ranney & Troop 2015, p. 64). This lack of information exchanged directly correlates to the Trump-era we find ourselves in. The “like” of something Facebook recommends we like or the “follow” we give to someone Twitter says we should follow supplants the way one explains themselves, relying instead on social crutches to explain their views or personality for them through shares or re-tweets.

In 2016 people could go online and like a page proclaiming, “Make America Great Again,” they could buy a red hat and wear it and in those few words, so much could be said. Was it a movement? A feeling? A trend?

Whatever it was, people could share it, their “friends” could “like” it and their views were validated. The kicker was when those “likes” turned into mobile votes.

Instances such as this, mass movements based on catch-phrases and gut-impulses, is a natural conclusion to an online, social culture based on self-promotion, fast, bountiful information and limited time to consume or articulate stances, viewpoints or feelings. There lacks a need to explain one’s post if it is someone else doing the explaining. The digital author simply gets the credit for sharing, not articulating and the greater the ecosystem of engagement created, the greater the success.

If something feels right, why not share it and see who reciprocates those feelings?

Part V: Moving On

As an avid digital author in numerous forms myself, it is unclear whether there is a remedy to the popularity driven social authorship or whether there even needs to be a remedy. In essence, is being driven by popularity wrong? The moral implications of why we engage on social media aside, it can be asserted with confidence that the vast majority of our social, digital authorship through personal posts, blogs, vlogs, podcasts or other forms of creative publication is driven by a need for validation within a community or by a more open-public audience.

Validation in the form of debate-seeking trolls or likes or upvotes all add to a subconscious (or conscious!) tally of who sees our stuff, who likes it and who values its creation in the first place.

In short, we are a large part of each other’s entertainment, so we’d better have evidence that we are entertaining!

Ranney (2017) in his study of adolescent social interaction on the internet as a means to maintain social hierarchies, points to the growing influence of digital societies on social interaction. Ranney notes that “socialization through information and communication technology (ICTs) is so pervasive that, compared to 35% adolescents who report socializing face-to-face outside of school, 63% of adolescents text their friends daily, 39% talk with friends on cell phones, 29% message friends through social networks, 22% communicate through instant messaging, and 6% email their friends daily (Lenhart, 2012). Although time spent in school and in-person gatherings with friends remain important for adolescents’ social and emotional well-being, a majority of the social interactions that peers have with one another during adolescence is currently taking place in digitally mediated contexts” (Ranney 2015, p. 2). This time spent in digital social circles points to a need to fully understand and embrace what drives acts of digital authorship, come to terms with the underlying reason people are engaging online and decide whether “online” is ever meant for something bigger; driven by creations that are less self-serving.

Despite researching adolescents, I would not expect an adult sample to look much different in terms of time spent in digital realms. An adolescent posting about secret levels in a computer game and a middle aged man posting a cat meme are both driven to publish material for the same reasons; recognition and validation. It’s almost like a mantra.

Thus, as with anything else, attention is the catalyst for what one chooses to do. Where we place our attention is where we place value and seek to find quality.

Tiffany Shlain (2017) points out that “attention is the mind’s greatest resource”. She goes on to picture “the Internet, like the developing brain of a child…in a rapid phase of growth and change” (Shlain 2017). Like a small child, countless synapses are forming as the Internet grows in real time. More than being just “along for the ride,” we are active builders in the unseen and unrealized scope of what the Internet will become. Our acts of digital authorship, while being currently driven by popularity as a catalyst to create might need to become something more empathetic or humble if we hope to see social media and digital platforms become more altruistic than they appear to be. If Facebook’s recent rebrand as something “pure” has shown us anything, it seems we might be turning a small corner towards seeing social media in a different light.

There’s more to all of this than just “sharing” in different forms. I’m sure of it.

“This means that just as we must be mindful in how we nurture our children’s minds,” Shlain notes, “we must also pay careful attention to how we develop our global brain” (Shlain 2017). Our information and our authorship is shared content in the public domain. No matter what the privacy settings, someone else has access to it. It is a building block. It might feel insignificant or goofy or even useless and futile, but it is valuable information that informs a larger design. With the role of “builder” rather than “user” in mind, one can begin to envision a larger calling in the name of global consciousness and motivation behind digital authorship. One begins to not just be a personal creator, but a contributing creator. One is part of a larger one.

On the other hand, maybe a good, well-timed meme is as good as it gets.

Resources

Fichter, D. d., & Avery, C. c. (2012). Tools of Influence: Strategic Use of Social Media. Online, 36(4), 58–60.

Isaksen, Joachim Vogt. (2013). The Looking Glass Self: How Our Self-image is Shaped by Society. Retrieved April 17, 2018, from http://www.popularsocialscience.com/2013/05/27/the-looking-glass-self-how-our-self-image-is-shaped-by-society/

Jin, S. v., & Muqaddam, A. m. (2018). “Narcissism 2.0! Would narcissists follow fellow narcissists on Instagram?” the mediating effects of narcissists personality similarity and envy, and the moderating effects of popularity. Computers In Human Behavior, 8131–41.

Levordashka, A. a., & Utz, S. s. (2016). Ambient awareness: From random noise to digital closeness in online social networks. Computers In Human Behavior, 60147–154.

Milošević-Đorđević, J. J., & Žeželj, I. z. (2017). Civic activism online: Making young people dormant or more active in real life?. Computers In Human Behavior, 70113–118.

Ranney, J. D. (2015). Popular in the digital age: Self-monitoring, aggression, and prosocial behaviors in digital contexts and their associations with popularity (Doctoral dissertation, North Dakota State University).

Ranney, J.D., & Troop-Gordon, W. (2015). Problem discussions in digital contexts: The impact of information and communication technologies on emotional experiences and feelings of closeness toward friends. Computers in Human Behavior, 51, 64–74.

Shlain, T. (2017). How The Internet Is Like A Child’s Brain. Retrieved April 17, 2018, from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/brain-power-film-and-ted-book_b_2083785.html

Wu, Y. w., Chang, W. i., & Yuan, C. d. (2015). Do Facebook profile pictures reflect user’s personality?. Computers In Human Behavior, 51880–889.

#edc534 #selfie #long reads #essay #philosophy #education #media #digital #Digital Literacy #computer #social media

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trendingnewsb · 6 years

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21 Toxic Clues That Prove Your Ex Was A Covert Narcissist

God & Man

This relationship could be the thing that completely destroys you and by the time you’re ready to walk away the damage is done.

While it’s hard to end a relationship with someone like this, the real challenge comes in healing after the fact and looking back as you wonder how you ever dealt with someone so intolerable.

You looked at who you wanted him to be rather than who he actually was. You saw the relationship not through accurate lenses but rather where you thought it would go if you invested enough time and energy into this person.

These relationships last a long time because you become almost addicted to wanting the outcome to be in your favor.

You walk away realizing all the love in the world can’t change someone. And giving someone everything you have doesn’t mean they will love you back.

1. Every conversation came back to him.

If you counted how many times he used the word I, you’d roll your eyes. These types of guys care about one thing and one thing only and that’s themselves. Your appeal is that you loved him as much as he loved himself and that’s the only real thing you had in common.

2. Things always had to be his way.

There was no negotiating or compromise what he said went and there were no questions asked. And while you liked that a first, you soon realized no matter what you said or how many times, he never heard it or cared enough to listen.

3. He manipulated and controlled you.

It was the little things he said and how he said them. He knew exactly what to say to you, to get under your skin or get you to do something. He knew exactly how you’d react and he got entertainment out of watching. He was like a puppeteer pulling every one of your strings.

4. The rules never applied to him.

He was above that. He thought he could get away with anything. And most the time when someone has that attitude they do because no one cares enough to stop them.

5. He cared a lot about his reputation.

He cared about what people thought of him. He liked controlling the narrative. And if any part of a story didn’t highlight the type of wonderful person he was, he’d change it. He would lie to protect himself. Lie to protect his reputation. And he didn’t care who he hurt if it meant making himself look good.

6. He constantly blamed you for things.

Nothing was ever his fault. When he lost it on you screaming, it was because you did something to cause it. Had you not done whatever you did, he wouldn’t have reacted that way. If ever you made a mistake he’d come back saying, “if I did it.” But it was easier to play the blame game then take responsibility.

7. He was entitled.

He deserved things because of who he was not because of how hard he worked. And with that pompous attitude, he often got everything he wanted taking it with a coy smile.

8. He thought a little too highly of himself.

If you straight up asked him he’d say something like he’s, is the best. Most people reserve those thoughts and keep it to themselves but he walked around looking down on everyone truly believing he was better.

9. He thrived on negativity.

One conversation with him (which was probably about him) wasn’t one you walked away motivated. But it drained you. That’s what narcists do, they take any positive energy you might have and fuel themselves turning you negative.

10. He had two very different sides to him.

He was charming and charismatic when you were out with groups. He always knew how to sell himself and he did it well. But behind closed doors, once the night ended his personality changed.

11. He was overly sensitive when it came to any criticism.

He could tell you how to improve. Often giving advice you didn’t even ask for. But the moment you try and dish it, he won’t listen because he truly believes there’s nothing he needs to change about himself.

12. He always made up excuses for his behavior.

He was the king of making up excuses. He couldn’t be here because of XYZ. But he needed you to drop what you were doing at that moment and give him your time or attention. He never understood the word no.

13. With him, there was always drama.

There was always this cloud of negativity around him and around you when he was in your life. Nothing was ever simple or easy but exhausting.

14. He constantly needed to be validated or needed to prove himself.

Validation was achieved through accomplishments and getting somewhere. Narcists have a lot of enemies and a huge chip on their shoulder wanting nothing else than to prove to people who doubted them that they made it. His motives weren’t pure and wanting to do well for himself but rather to brag about what he did.

15. He strived for perfection.

There is no such thing as failing. He never allowed it. This made you feel inferior trying to keep up but always feeling like you weren’t good enough.

16. He lacked empathy and understanding.

When you tried to tell him about something that upset you he couldn’t relate. He had the inability ability to see things from your perspective. Even when you were the one in need, he somehow made the conversation about himself. It was almost like he couldn’t hear you.

17. He pushed you away when you got too close.

A narcissist has such high walls. But wasn’t all their fault, he turned out the way they did but with that came an inability to show one’s vulnerable side. He learned at a young age that’s a sign of weakness. So that’s why he took off every time you thought you made emotional progress in understanding him a little better. Narcissists will never let you get that close out of fear of getting hurt.

18. He knocked you down just to build you back up.

The person who broke you can’t be the one to fix you. But he got some sort of enjoyment out of playing both roles. He’d scream at you and makes you feel horrible then he’d change and hold you in his arms saying he’s sorry and he loves you.

19. He always brought up the past.

Even when he said he forgave you, he’d bring up something from so long ago. There is no seeking forgiveness from a narcissist because they remember everything and don’t know how to let it go. They hoard blackmail inside themselves ready to use it at any point they feel like.

20. He was emotionally abusive.

No one realizes how bad an emotionally abusive relationship actually is. Not when you’re used to it. Not when you think you love this person. You begin to make up excuses for this behavior. You begin to justify it. You blame yourself and really start to believe some of the things he tells you. And this relationship is a sick cycle that doesn’t end because he doesn’t allow it too. He thrives from your weakness. And every time you’ve walked away, you’ve always come back.

21. He changed what you thought love was.

He made you believe he was the only one who would love you. But his definition of love was someone simply loving him without having to reciprocate it properly.