Social Media- the hive mind, collective intelligence. These are things that are part of our discussion this week in EME 6414 and it has generated this question for me- is social media actually making us dumber as a society, or is it helping us find better and more creative answers?
As the psychology teacher at my school, I am all too familiar with Asch''s experiments on conformity and groupthink. I am well aware of the dangers of the hive mind. So this has made me step back and think- do I fall prey to groupthink on social media even though I am aware of this potential bias? If the psychology teacher can't even handle the hive mind how can a teenager, or anyone for that matter?
First, if you are not familiar with Asch's experiment I will briefly explain. This was done with a group of college students, where they were put into groups and asked to look at pictures of lines of varying lengths. They were asked to say which line was the longest, and the group was comprised of only one real participant and several experimenters who were told to say the incorrect answer. Time and time again the experiment results showed that the participant would conform to the group answer even if they knew it was incorrect, conforming to what the group wanted. Psychologists have coined the term groupthink to explain this phenomenon- we are so concerned with group harmony that we do not speak out against irrational ideas. (Here is another explanation of Asch's experiment and a YouTube video explaining- https://sites.psu.edu/dps16/2016/03/17/aschs-conformity-experiment/ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyDDyT1lDhA
Armed with my psychology knowledge I began to think about my own experiences on social media. I think I probably experience this groupthink most on twitter- I see a tweet that resonates with me, I feel passionate about it, and I click retweet without even considering if it is true, factual, worthwhile. Sometimes I don't even read the whole article before retweeting. This is probably a dangerous thing, and I know we all do it sometimes, but this would be a huge disadvantage to the hive mind and social media.
As far as for education though, there have been times I have posted a question or asked for help on my Facebook and received excellent ideas. Those that were more creative and different approaches then I would have thought of by myself.
My next step was google- is social media making us dumber? I asked google. Well, I found an interesting article explaining a research study that was done in 2014 (https://time.com/9207/social-media-is-making-you-stupid/) attempting to answer this very question. They determined that people with more social connections could answer brain teasers by relying on their networks, "stealing", as they called it in the article, but no more able to answer on their own. Their conclusion was that social media use and the hive mind was diminishing our individual capacity for analytical thinking. This is interesting and has changed my question from is social media making us dumber to this-How do we use social media to teach people the best ways to problem-solve- both as a group and as individuals?
As the psychology teacher at my school, I am all too familiar with Asch''s experiments on conformity and groupthink. I am well aware of the dangers of the hive mind. So this has made me step back and think- do I fall prey to groupthink on social media even though I am aware of this potential bias? If the psychology teacher can't even handle the hive mind how can a teenager, or anyone for that matter?
First, if you are not familiar with Asch's experiment I will briefly explain. This was done with a group of college students, where they were put into groups and asked to look at pictures of lines of varying lengths. They were asked to say which line was the longest, and the group was comprised of only one real participant and several experimenters who were told to say the incorrect answer. Time and time again the experiment results showed that the participant would conform to the group answer even if they knew it was incorrect, conforming to what the group wanted. Psychologists have coined the term groupthink to explain this phenomenon- we are so concerned with group harmony that we do not speak out against irrational ideas. (Here is another explanation of Asch's experiment and a YouTube video explaining- https://sites.psu.edu/dps16/2016/03/17/aschs-conformity-experiment/ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyDDyT1lDhA
Armed with my psychology knowledge I began to think about my own experiences on social media. I think I probably experience this groupthink most on twitter- I see a tweet that resonates with me, I feel passionate about it, and I click retweet without even considering if it is true, factual, worthwhile. Sometimes I don't even read the whole article before retweeting. This is probably a dangerous thing, and I know we all do it sometimes, but this would be a huge disadvantage to the hive mind and social media.
As far as for education though, there have been times I have posted a question or asked for help on my Facebook and received excellent ideas. Those that were more creative and different approaches then I would have thought of by myself.
My next step was google- is social media making us dumber? I asked google. Well, I found an interesting article explaining a research study that was done in 2014 (https://time.com/9207/social-media-is-making-you-stupid/) attempting to answer this very question. They determined that people with more social connections could answer brain teasers by relying on their networks, "stealing", as they called it in the article, but no more able to answer on their own. Their conclusion was that social media use and the hive mind was diminishing our individual capacity for analytical thinking. This is interesting and has changed my question from is social media making us dumber to this-How do we use social media to teach people the best ways to problem-solve- both as a group and as individuals?
This is a great post! I always question if social media is making us dumber or helping us grow and learn. I think it is a little of both and that comes down to how you use it. This deals with the difference between learning and education. You can learn so much from social media but doesn't mean it is necessarily relevant or truthful information. I think if we are educated and know how to find the factual and insightful articles and posts, then we can gain so much knowledge from social media. I am like you-- I jump to conclusions, want to comment and post before finishing an article, which I agree is not the best. Social media does have us all looking for the approval of others, similar to that experiment you talked about. We may know the right answer or the right thing to say or post but chose not to go with our instincts because no-one else around us is. Because of the social status people want to achieve online, that can definitely cause social media to make us dumber as we are our own worst enemy and not allowing ourselves to learn from it.
ReplyDeleteJFoxx, you pose an interesting question. As you explained Asch's experiment (which I hadn't heard about before today) the first thing I thought about is sharing information on social media. Just like you said, others share information before checking to see if it is accurate. I wouldn't say this is making us dumber, just uninformed. Things are always going to get spread or blown out of proportion as long as we have social media to rapidly share information. We as people have to be smart about how we receive information.
ReplyDeleteI liked the article you shared and see why the author thinks social media isn't making us any smarter. Have you seen those riddles that get shared all the time? The ones with the math problems that incorporate pictures and are seemingly impossible to solve? I believe that some of the people getting the answers to these questions correct are just stealing answers from others. People like to portray that they are smart so they don't see what's wrong with taking a correct answer from someone else.
I don't think social media is making us dumber. In fact, I think it has lots of potential to make us smarter, better informed, and more well-rounded people. I just don't think people are using social media in the most effective way.
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ReplyDeleteJamie, you are spot on! I enjoyed your post. From my point of view, social media is a double-edged sword. I feel comfortable when I chat with others who have similar thoughts and values on social media and I also get a variety of information from them. However, I know that if I only keep seeing that I would like to see, I will be a big fish in a small pond. I also agree that I tend to believe what my friends and popular users say on their web pages just because we have close bonds.
ReplyDeleteEven though I admitted these negative aspects, I still think it is a new place for learning. Recently, my friend told me that he learned something new via tweets from me and my classmates and enjoyed the experience. He is not exactly in the education field, but he is a knowledge seeker. It seems that he believes the knowledge there is reliable since I and my peers are grad students who know that disseminating false knowledge is undesirable. If we are at least following credible resources and aware of the importance of critical thinking, social media won't make us dumber.