Week 3 critical reflection post

I thoroughly enjoyed this week's readings which discussed how the theoretical approaches to social media vary greatly, spanning across fields of philosophy, psychology and communication in a lot more detail than I have previously ever read. Qi et al (2018) , argued that existing research often lacks theoretical depth. The paper proposes a matrix based on lifeworld interpretation (rationality vs historicity) and consideration of others (instrumentalism vs being with). This matrix provides a way to categorize the different perspectives on social media behavior. E.g. Goffman’s self-presentation theory is related to how users curate their online identities, Bourdieu’s ‘social capital’ helps to understand the role of influence and reputation in digital spaces. Heidegger and Sartre contribute ideas on identity formation and community building, aiming to show that social media is also a space for collective interaction. It shows that social media behavior is not one-dimensional, and is shaped by many things like how people engage with others, how they perceive themselves and assumptions underpinning their reactions. I found this paper to be very dense but it was interesting to read through and I feel like I learnt valuable new terms & concepts

Ngai et al. (2015), in contrast to Qi, provides a review of social media research categorising it into: Personal behavior theories, social behavior theories and measles communication theories. The paper introduces the causal chain framework which structures social media research into input output relationships. This helps map factors that influence social media behavior and researchers break down social media’s effects into:

• Antecedents → factors driving engagement
• Mediators → variables explaining relationships
• Moderators → influencing factors
• Outcomes → behavioral/psychological effects

This makes it easier to understand the mechanisms behind our digital interactions. Lamberton & Humphreys (2022) carry this discussion on by looking at classical psychological theories in the context of social media. They argue that digital behaviors can be understood through pre-existing psychological models. By examining things like temporal structures and social presence, they showed that social media operates on fundamental psychological principles even though it is a new medium. I thought that it was interesting to read something that challenged the binary views of social media and papers that had so much nuance and it has certainly reinforced that theoretical pluralism is necessary for understanding social media's effects on our mental health.