Blog Post #3 - Eighth Grade, Noah and Social Media Use: Are We Better Off Without It?


In this week’s readings, Graham Meikle mentions that “social media are networked database platforms that combine public with personal communication” (Meikle, 2016, p. 6). As we’ve seen in the films Eighth Grade and Noah, social media can have detrimental effects to individuals and their well-being. For those who forgot, Eighth Grade was about an introverted 13-year-old girl named Kayla who is finishing her last week of grade 8 and enjoys making advice blogs on YouTube. Meanwhile, Noah is about a guy who self-sabotages his relationship with his girlfriend after hacking into her Facebook account and changes their relationship status after he noticed a few messages between her and another guy. Unfortunately, both films depict legitimate consequences of using social media platforms that people have experienced in some way or another. After watching both films and drawing from your own personal experiences, do you think our society would be better off without the use of social media? There’s definitely a lot of pros and cons when it comes to social media usage, so it would be interesting to find out where our class stands on the issue. Moreover, what do you think these films tell us about our culture and do you think they accurately represent the world in which we live in? In lecture, we discussed how culture is both the resource and product of communication. Knowing this, do you think social media platforms can reduce or eliminate its hindrances altogether?


Comments

  1. Monique GirodatOctober 17, 2018 at 6:09 AM

    Hi Kendall!

    I agree with your points about both films portraying the detrimental effects of social media platforms towards individuals and their well-being, however I believe that both characters were able to learn and grow from these consequences posed by their devices. Kayla and Noahs situation greatly differs, as Noah is actively searching for an issue in relation to his girlfriend online where Kayla is subconsciously using her mobile device as she is growing up knowing this behaviour is the norm. Kayla's YouTube videos give her a creative outlet where she is not only giving her viewers advice, but she is also talking to herself while she feels alone and isolated beyond the applications she engages with on a daily basis; Snapchat, Instagram, etc. I think the film Eighth Grade is a great example of how social media can be both a detrimental and productive tool in the world we live in today in terms of forming our identities, whereas the short film Noah illustrates the more toxic ideas surrounding social media when it comes to our intimate relationships and the misinterpretations of messages that cannot be decoded online.

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