Social media helps people develop and maintain friendships by allowing them to communicate, socialize, and share stories outside of in-person interactions. However, it can also lead to issues like attention-seeking, false representations of self, drama, rumors, and even addiction. While social media enables strengthening connections, it may also create a false sense of friendship. Making friends online involves learning about others and displaying connections, but it can also form hierarchies and lead to inappropriate sharing of personal information.

1. Media Summary
Hanging Out, Messing Around and Geeking Out
By: Don Grady

2. • Social media helps:
Developing &
>make friends
>perform
Maintaining Friendships
friendships >socialize
w/ friends >negotiate
peer groups >flirt
>share
stories >author
public identities >public
connectedness >access
info. on others
>articulating meanings
>building
friendships
>strengthen friendships
• >

3. Developing &
Maintaining Friendships
• Social Media allows:
>reinforcing of
relationships
>constituting
new social arrangements
>“hanging out”
>expanded
connections with: school,
worship centers,
summer camps, work,
etc.
>public display of
connections

4. Developing &
Maintaining Friendships
• Social Media Issues:
>friendship hierarchies (top 8)
>creates attention needs
>drama
>status representations (ex.
lots of friends, comments,
likes, etc.)
>stranger danger
>influences teens and others
>seeking attention
>presentation of self
>gossip
>bullying
>addiction
>stalking

5. Discussion
Developing & Maintaining Friendships
Developing & Maintaining Friendships
• Social networking helps us to
maintain and improve relationships.
Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and other
social media can provide an additional
way can of communicating outside
the regular limitations of work,
school, and other activities. While
social networks can help to maintain
and strengthen friendships they also
open the door for false
representations of ones self and can
help convey and spread drama and
rumors.
• Q: Do you think social networking
sites create a false sense of who and
what friends are and do?

6. Internet & Social Media
Addiction
• Signs of Addiction:
>judge social network as
popularity contest
>maintaining multiple
social networks
>discuss intimate
matters w/out fear of
damaging face or
damaging local
reputation
>urge driven

7. Social Media
•
Addiction Quotes
“engrossed in searches” p.11
• “Facebook is better than real life” p.
28
• “adding anyone they know” p. 23
• “showing off her Photobucket
account, Stephanie proudly
proclaimed that she had more than
400 images in her album” p. 10
• “Youth today are ... borrowing from
the photo albums of people they’ve
never met” p. 13
• “accepts all Haitian friend requests”
p. 24

8. Discussion
Internet & Social Media Addiction
Internet & Social Media Addiction
• Users on social networks who have
urges to check or update their page
while searching through several other
acquaintances profiles and
commenting where they desire often
feel that friendships are being made
or improved. This can be problematic
and may also result in less exercise
and experiences outside of the
computer world.
• Q: How much time on social
networks do you think is healthy?

9. Making Friends Using
•
Social Media
friendships tend to have less
homogenous connections when
developed online
• learn more about acquaintances and
their backgrounds
• public display of established
connections
• teens use friends to enact their
identity
• develop set of shared social
practices for friending

10. Making Friends Using
Social Media
• Friending: >“I’d
feel mean if I didn’t accept” p. 25
>sign of
niceness >opening
for potential friendships
>deleting “friends” is
socially inappropriate and can be
problematic
>top 8’s/friends
-coveted #1 spot; reserved for
best-friend, significant other, or
close family member
-explicit ranking
-creates
hierarchies

11. Example of Friends &
Social Media
(follow link)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUGmcb3mhLM

12. Discussion
Making Friends Using Social Media
Making Friends Using Social Media
• Social media adjusts, and sometimes
creates, the way we see and perceive
others. The same can be said about
our own identities as our information
is being shared. Problems and drama
can occur with the assistance of
social networking sites through these
virtual unseen interactions where
users search through others
background information and history.
• Q: Do you think it’s wise to share
your personal information on a public
social-networking site? Why or why
not?
• Q: What’s your feelings on accepting
friend requests from users you hardly
know?