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Hi Sandy,

In your discussion post you discuss that people who suffer from low self-esteem or from a lack of friends are able to feel better about themselves or to make friends which are some of the new understandings social psychologists have regarding social media.  However, I am curious to know if you were able to locate any literature to support this perspective.  For, literature I was able to locate has indicated that frequent use of Facebook is detrimental to one’s self image and thus well-being, therefore this may not per se be a reason for people to be so focused on social media (Vogel, Rose, Roberts & Eckles, 2014).

Sandy, your perspective regarding community psychology is rather interesting.  Albeit, I can’t help but observe that the portion of your discussion regarding the relationship between social media and understanding community interactions appears to be very negative as you state it has “robbed us of social skills”.  Again, I am curious to know if you found and literature to support this and if you believe that there are also benefits to social media.  My understanding of the role of social media and community psychology differs from that of yours in that my understanding is that current literature trends discuss advantages and disadvantages regarding the role of social media in general and also regarding community psychology.  Albeit, there are positive benefits from social media, for example  online support groups can be helpful to individuals in need of assistance and though this not a traditional face to face interaction it still provides a forum for one to seek assistance (Schneider, Gruman & Coutts 2012).    Additionally, Twitter discussions are suggestive of potential suicide risk factors and may be used to facilitate interventions to help or aid individuals who are suicidal to reduce the occurrence of suicides (Jashinsky et al., 2014). 

Wishing you a positive and productive quarter!

-Keri Neal

References:

 

Jashinsky, J., Burton, S. H., Hanson, C. L., West, J., Giraud-Carrier, C., Barnes, M. D., & Argyle, T. (2014). Tracking suicide risk factors through Twitter in the US. Crisis. The Journal of Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention, 35(1), 51-59. doi:10.1027/0227-5910/a000234

Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., & Coutts, L. M. (Eds.). (2012). Applied social psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

 

Vogel, E. A., Rose, J. P., Roberts, L. R., & Eckles, K. (2014). Social comparison, social media, and self-esteem. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 3(4), 206-222. doi:10.1037/ppm0000047