meliskocer

For my research, I began with finding connections between social media and empathy. The first related article by Berryman, Ferguson, and Negy (2017) argues that the overconsumption of social media does not necessarily affect one's empathic abilities, which was contrasting with my argument. However, as I continue reading it, the key aspect was how one uses social media. For instance, a person can spend over 5 hours a day on social media but the mere exposure time does not imply that it has a negative impact. Quality rather than quantity is superior in this case. Then I found another article about Facebook and its photo feature. This innocent-looking feature might actually be linked to narcissistic behavior since it creates pressure among individuals -especially among females- to create an alluring self-promoting profile with the urge to seek attention from other users (Alloway et al. 2014). Furthermore, a scholar named Konrath did research on students from the time 1979 to 2009, wh...

In today's world, the notion of empathy is very much lost and I believe the main reason for that is the overconsumption of social media applications since spending so much time on these platforms is lacking our skills to really interact and understand each other. We are so used to looking at our phones when we are bored (even if we are with somebody) that we get less chance to practice empathy. The second the conversation becomes awkward or dull, we immediately grab our phones to check what other people are doing on Instagram as if it is the most significant thing of that moment. It is not, or at least it should not be.  This issue has become my main focus nowadays. I want to investigate this loss of empathy from different aspects. What are the algorithms and design decisions that make these platforms so addictive? Which strategies are these people or companies using to have such a chilling impact on human activity and psychology? Are they intentionally making these decisions just ...