Dr. Jeffery A. Hall, a Professor of Communication at the University of Kansas, spoke on the benefits and harms of established and emerging social media platforms on Thursday, March 21. Held in Arjona Hall with a virtual component, the talk focused on whether well-being increases or decreases when using social media, as this framework does not villainize social media from the jump. Rather, it emphasizes the role of the person behind the screen and how their interactions on social media shape how they feel afterwards.
A brief introduction was made by Lili Romann, a master’s student pursuing Communication, noting Hall has been featured by all the top news sources and that he recently published a book titled “Relating Through Technology,” published through Cambridge University Press, that was awarded by the National Communication Association. As of now, he heads the Relationships and Technology Lab at the University of Kansas, along with being a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University.
Hall began with quotes from politicians including President Joe Biden that slandered the supposed symptoms of social media consumption on the youth and adults. As he later elaborates, pinning social media companies as catalysts of mental health crises around the nation is misrepresentative of findings by researchers, claiming, “These discourses do not match the reality of the research on the topic.” Many also say that social media leads to lower well-being, though this argument is backward. Citing multiple types of evidence, Hall chalks up social media use as another product that will be detrimental if someone uses it too much. Therefore, correlations between social media and lower well-being are most present in people who are struggling outside of their Internet usage.
Anyway, social media is defined differently by everyone. Even in academic environments, individual interpretations of what qualifies as a social media platform are subjective, which can change one’s research on the topic. Facebook users living in countries that were late to social media have not reported variation in their feelings since installing the app. This is not to disregard the brooding of hostility found on X, formally known as Twitter, which is believed to attract people, knowingly or unknowingly, seeking to use social media in harmful ways. While a researcher studying X may consider social media to be a demon, Hall and others think of it in terms of eating donuts, a strange metaphor that highlights how not going overboard leaves most people unscathed.
It was not long ago that social media was non-existent, but now that it is here, companies will continue to innovate and change the landscape. Social media is ever-changing; what we once knew as Facebook is now Meta and the once simplistic platform has imitated TikTok to stay modern. Nevertheless, Hall predicts other platforms will supersede the dominant force of TikTok within a few years, as television was rendered to be an outdated medium throughout this century.
Video games are often a means of escape from one’s surroundings, which are sometimes impoverished. Yet, they can provide powerful opportunities to connect with others, though not on Fortnite, as Hall mentioned while conversing with an Epic Games employee, who thought that the game is centered on winning and not making friends. Context and irony are at play here, the latter meaning there is bound to be a negative for every positive of social media use, or the inverse. For example, having close contact with family and friends is great, but as a result, much-needed distance in a close relationship is removed, and the boundaries in correspondence are blurred. Moreover, someone trying to detox from heavy social media use, a beneficial action on the surface, is no longer in the know about things important to them.
After providing lines of thought that state how social habits and routines must be supplemented by satisfaction to increase one’s well-being, Hall recommends four ways to foster good social media usage. Creating close relationships with online friends or maintaining other relationships using social media can make usage of your preferred platforms meaningful. Those who are just acquaintances are still good to keep up with on a less-involved basis. Feeling wanted in a social space can assist in validating one’s own identity or the group they are part of, along with generally positive sentiments shared between you and others, such as birthday wishes or check-ins.
In terms of future research, Hall expects attention to shift towards the effects of entertainment and inspiration of online content on its audience, given TikTok’s reach, though entertainment is believed to have minimal impact on one’s well-being. He also praised one of his graduate students for studying Twitch and its ability to grow communities that boost the lives of both streamers and their viewers, something I have personally experienced. If you are looking to stay tuned on research developments, Hall and other researchers are participating in an event at Harvard next Thursday that can be attended virtually on Zoom.