Lectures exam 3
Lecture 9 media use and effects
Moderate discrepancy hypothesis (MDH): central to notion that developmental characteristics
determine media preferences
States that children and adolescents are predominantly attracted to entertainment that deviated only
moderately from the thing they know, understand and are capable of
Children and adolescents are not or less interested in entertainment that deviates too much from their
existing framework and experiences
Hypothesis is viable explanation of why media preferences differ so much among different age groups
Has to match what they know and what they are capable of
The uses and gratification theory: media can be used to gratify certain needs
Needs gratifications sought use of media Needs satisfied
Developmental characteristics that inform needs and gratifications
Identity exploration: find out who you are
Autonomy and self-efficacy
Peer orientation
Emotionality (boost your mood, put on happy song) and sensation seeking
Physical development
Changes in appearance (skin, hormones)
Interest in sex
Impact on mood
This can have an impact on what needs they have, social media preferences / needs
They have a lot of questions about sex for instance
Social media and the internet can provide this information, so media can gratify this need for
information
For example the series sex education
Need to explore and fulfill sexual desires but also are not experienced, so there is a downside/risk, like
sending nudes
Pruning: decline grey matter (cell bodies and synapses) more efficient processing
Compared to sculpting: access material is sculpted away, also in the brain
After this is becomes harder to learn new things (like learning a language)
Cognitive development
Because of pruning advanced processing occurs
Formal operational thinking: logical, abstract, hypothetical, problem-solving, interest in future
Only completely in place at the end of adolescence, it develops over time
Adolescents will switch between concrete (children think like this) and formal operation thinking
,Considering moderate discrepancy hypothesis, the consequences for media use are:
Because of this they want more complexity in story lines, more complex characters and topics that
deal with big world issues war movies, science fiction
Cognitive development
Adolescents are quickly bored, so games have multiple levels so they don’t get bored
Changes is dopamine + increased cognitive capacities = boredom
Desire for adventure and excitement
Sensation seeking
Sensation seeking is the tendency to seek out novel, varied and highly stimulating experiences and the
willingness to take risks to attain them
Focus on immediate rewards
Peaks during adolescence
And then decreases
Need for excitement and risk taking can be gratified by media use, like only gambling, sexting, talking
to strangers (stranger danger)
Metacognition and relation to social media use: imagining the perspectives of others on “overdrive”:
what do other think of me? media platforms where people can have feedback (anonymous) for
example: www.sayat.me
Socio-emotional development
Autonomy: independent of person, become own person
Identity: who they are and who they want to be
Intimacy: learn how to form meaningful relationships and maintain them
To acquire these 3 things they need to learn:
1. Self-presentation: how to present yourself to others, dependent on audience (friends, family,
peers)
2. Self-disclosure: what info are you willing to share, how much? The first time you meet
someone you don’t share everything but if you want a meaningful relationship you have to
share
They learn these communicating skills through feedback, they do something and see the
reaction/feedback
Social media is designed to give and get feedback, when others respond positively continue
behavior
Affordances of social media: provides oppurtiniy
For example:
Asynchronicity: communicate when it suits them, in real time (synchronously) or delayed
(asynchronously): more time to respond
Identifiability: decide to which degree content is anonymous or linked to their true identity
(hide negative traits)
Cue manageability: show or hide visual or auditory cues about the self while communicating
Accessibility: easily find information and contact other persons
Scalability: choose the size and the nature of their audience
Replicability: copy or share existing online content
Retrievability store and later retrieve posted content
Sense of control ( is related to need for autonomy)
Media can also be used to:
Social media provide control over communication
Media allow individuals to producers of content
, Media provide info about how to solve problems
Identity formation
Need to develop clear sense of self (self-concept) and self-esteem
Exploration: behave in certain way and see how peers react to that
Developing self-esteem, fluctuations
Gender identity
Need for identity-relevant information
Need for role models
Need for identity experiments (exploration)
Again: media can be very instrumental to provide these needs
Media provide relevant identity information, role models, identity exploration (experiments: the
facebook version of you & the realistic version of you)
Intimacy
Relationships
Cliques and best friends
o Drama (loyalty): they still need to learn how it works
Strong need to fit in * validation (social antenna)
Subcultures (related to want to fit in, related to identity (sports or nerds))
Need to intimacy: romantic relationships. In beginning quite superficial but later on more
meaningful
Fear of rejection (related to need to fit in)
Subcultures change over time
Some adolescents form para-social relationships with idols: they think that they have a relationship
with them and that they know them
Media can help in forming social relationships
When social media was first introduced the initial assumption was that social media offer poor
communication (because you only see texts): it is more superficial and less personal
But this changed during the last two decades, because there are different ways to communicate, for
example using emoticons. They give more information and make the message more clear, the meaning
and urgency of a text becomes more clear
Hyperpersonal theory of communication (Walther, 1996)
Poses:
Communication online is more friendly, more social, more personal and more intimate than
face-to-face communication
This is because of the reduced cues in CMC (communication online)
Walther: “it surpasses normal interpersonal levels”
There are 4 effects when there is online communication
1. Sender: because of reduced cues there is the opportunity to present themselves in most
positive / optimal way possible
2. Channel facilitates this optimal self-presentation because of reduces cues (people can think
about how to present themselves)
3. Receiver: because of reduces cues has to fill in the blanks: overevaluating of the
message/sender
4. Feedback: positive feedback circle / loop: sender presents themselves in positive way, receiver
receives message in a positive way and responds positively and so on
More intimacy and affection
, Evidence for hyperpersonal communication theory – experiment
Tested in online dating experiment
2 groups: 1 where they met potential romantic partner in text condition and other group in video
setting and attraction was measured and after that both groups met the person face to face
Social attraction and romantic attraction were measured again
Results: in the text only condition social attraction was highest this remained even after face-to-
face interaction
Hyperpersonal effect existed only in women
So texting may lead to overevaluating message/sender
But still concerns about adolescents and social media use communication
Social media effects
Physical and social self-esteem
Mental wellbeing
Empathy
Social media and self-esteem
Insecure (especially young girls)
Constantly confronted with the ideal self-presentation (because of beauty and photoshop apps)
Insecure about bodies, identities and personalities
Body image and social media
Many studies about this, longitudinal
Social media has a negative effect on body image on both girls and boys, but small effect so not
everyone is affected or not in the same
Reasons for this negative effect: social comparison
Downward comparison: with people who are worse off
Horizontal comparison: with people who are equal
Upward comparison: with people who are better off
Research: upward comparison is stronger on social that with tradition forms of media
Because social media provides opportunity to present yourself in most optimal way
Social self-esteem: feedback
Less clear cut findings
Cross-sectional findings: social media – more positive feedback – more social self esteem
Only 5-10% receive negative feedback
Longitudinal findings (over time):
Social self-esteem predicts more social media use – not the other way round
Reason: different processes are working simultaneously (explains why we don’t always find clear cut
relationship between social media and self-esteem)
Overview of these different processes (figure below):
The self and others and a process of social comparison
Upward comparison with others negative influence on self
But if we receive a lot of positive feedback positive influence on self
Self-reflective processes: how we present ourselves also represents how we feel about ourselves
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