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'Itll be three weeks of 'I love my phone!' and then a whole week of 'I cant stand my phone!''

"Social media is taking over our lives starting with our hearts." Illustration published on Monday, Jan. 25, 2021.

Within the advances of social media lies a paradox.

Social networking apps like Twitter, TikTok or Instagram can help you to feel more connected to friends and loved ones who live far away. That being said, they can also bring about feelings of loneliness and isolation if you feel you are missing out on shared, in-person experiences.

Now that the pandemic has increased the physical space between friendships, some ASU students are grappling with this complicated relationship between social media and mental health.

Mareena Emran, a sophomore studying journalism and mass communication, is a former digital content creator at Buzzfeed.

She said her screen time can get up to 55 hours per week.

"It kind of comes in waves. It'll be three weeks of 'I love my phone!' and then a whole week of 'I can't stand my phone!'" Emran said.

Emran created content for Buzzfeed News' TikTok and Instagram accounts. She said the videos she worked on could take several hours to put together.

Despite finding new friends thanks to content creation, many of her long-lasting friendships were negatively affected due to her consistent social media usage.

"Although I was on social media more, a lot of my relationships with my friends were strained because I realized the amount of distance we had in between," Emran said.

Tyler Bender, a sophomore studying sports journalism, experienced the same feelings of distance between friendships due to social media.He said trying to keep up with people he met at ASU has been difficult.

"We've seen a lot of people during this time do the whole, 'Don't hit me up, Im going off of social media for a bit,'" Bender said. "There were a lot of people I didnt get to interact with."

Kaleigh Feuerstein, a senior studying marketing and management, is a social media correspondent for the W.P. Carey School of Business.Shes also a self-proclaimed social media addict, and said it had been easier to be dragged into what she calls "online rabbit holes" over the last year.

"You click on one tab and then next thing you know youre reading an article about something else," she said. "Next thing you know, two hours have gone by and you havent done anything that feels productive."

And taking classes on a screen has made falling into these holes even worse.

"Its definitely been a struggle to balance," Feuerstein said. "The fatigue of being completely online has resulted in burnout within my job, within my schoolwork, pretty much every aspect of my life."

According to an article by Steven Hickman, a clinical psychologist, when people start to be, "over-stimulated by extraneous data that we haven't had to process in the physical world, each new data point pushes us just a little bit farther away from the human-to-human connection that we all crave and appreciate."

Feuerstein said she tries to find balance with her mental health by spending more free time away from a screen, given her school and work life require she be glued to one.

"I've kind of reprioritized when I have to be on a screen versus when I dont have to," she said. "I've tried to incorporate more time outside, reading a book, or playing an instrument."

Meanwhile, Emran who has begun carving a career path in the world of social media is grateful for the opportunities the medium has offered her.

"Social media is definitely a good place to start when it comes to making friends," she said. "My freshman year, I was very lonely. I feel like that was my fault because I didnt take social media to my advantage."

When used appropriately, social media can help bridge the gap between social distances for college students.

"You never know what opportunities could come out of posting about your life," Emran said.

Reach the reporter at ghanevol@asu.edu and follow @GannonHanevold on Twitter.

Like The State Press on Facebook and follow @statepress on Twitter.

Continue supporting student journalism and donate to The State Press today.

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Hard-wired: Students grapple with pros and cons of social media in the pandemic - The State Press

close up young beautiful asian woman looking at smartphone for video online chat with friends or ... [+] surf the internet or playing mobile application in relax time, millennial technology lifestyle concept

I wasnt sure what to expect when I joined Clubhouse.

The new drop-in audio app has popped up a few times in my own Facebook Group and with friends and colleagues. It hasnt really gone mainstream yet I mentioned it to a few friends and someone thought I was talking about the Disney brand.

That might change soon. At last count, about 600,000 people have signed up and interest seems to be gaining momentum.

The idea reminds me of Marco Polo. Once you register for the invite-only iPhone app, you can then join an audio conference. Groups of people chat, with a few moderators. To speak, you raise your hand and wait for an invite. No video, no text chat its just audio for now. Also, no Android, no browser windows, and no desktop version.

Clubhouse obviously scanned my Twitter profile to see that Im writing a book (or at least guessed correctly), and within minutes I was listening to experts talk about new authors starting landing pages and email newsletters.

Since social media runs in milliseconds, I then posted on my Twitter feed asking if people would follow me, and a few dozen responded. Then a colleague started an audio chat about media relations and things blossomed from there. Ive now listened to a half dozen chats. Later, I started my own room with PR reps and a co-host and talked about story ideas. It was interactive, fun, and rewarding. E-commerce expert Akemi Sue Fisher told me she grew her following to 23,000 people in 23 days. Entrepreneur Alexa Carlin has attracted 3,000 people to her room in only a week.

The app is a bit of a trifecta, in my opinion.

First, its brand new. I first heard about it way back in May when they only had a few thousand users, but now that its catching on with the populace, the conferences are well-attended and worth the time. Second, we need new ways to network and connect. You can see icons for everyone attending the conference, follow them, and interact even during the conference. Third, its all about seeking advice. Most of us are still in a weird state of workplace evolution, heading toward long-term remote work at home. New apps pull us out of our dull routine. Networking is also a huge need.

The fact that you can learn something new is also helpful. Clubhouse is like an interactive podcast or maybe a call-in radio show. Like the Marco Polo app I mentioned earlier, there is a paradigm shift to networking in the digital realm.

I have a new term for that: passive interaction.

What it means is that, since many of us are busy living asynchronous lives in remote offices, the rise of passive interaction means we can still interact, but only when we really want to and only when we have time. I was able to join a few audio conferences without registering, clicking a link without even asking to join. I could drop out of the chat, so I was a passive listener and yet it is not a webinar. I could have also chimed in and interacted (by raising my hand) in my own timeframe.

This immediacy (everything is live) and passivity (I can just listen and not interact) is a good match for remote work because were already not adhering to normal schedules. Sometimes it feels like Im in a parked car and driving in the fast lane at the same time. Im parked because I can step away from my computer and walk the dog, grab coffee, or even leave my house. Yet these digital inputs and constant signaling arrive almost every minute of the day.

Experts say the human brain is not meant to handle that many inputs. Cal Newport in particular has noted how the brain is wired to be social and interconnected, but also to focus on things intently. Were not chipmunks. With apps like Clubhouse that promote passive interaction, it feels like you have your hand on the pause button at all times. (Zoom fatigue occurs when we cant hit pause, or at least we feel dumb when we do.) We can be social, or we can be passive, or we can drop out entirely.

Will the app continue to attract the masses? Im not sure.

Social media expert Kristen Ruby from Ruby Media Group told me she has attended conferences where hosts prioritized people who had high follower counts and showed bias. The barrier to entry to moderate a room is significantly lower than the regular conference circuit, she explained. This means that people are potentially responsible for moderating large groups of people when in actuality they may have zero formal moderator training.

I did find a few conferences where the talking heads kept talking on and on. I wondered if the app is meant for extroverts and not always the sharp exchange of ideas. For every room that seemed helpful and interactive there was a room where I felt like I was merely listening to other people chat. (Clubhouse does not provide contact information for their app or a media rep to ask about these issues; if they do, Ill add comments as needed.)

Since Im late to the Clubhouse party, I need to spend more time poking around. Anyone know of a good audio conference for people who like books, disc golf, and social media? Im going to be looking for all of those soon.

Want to chat on Clubhouse? Find me at username: jmbrandonbb

Need a Clubhouse invite? Post on my Twitter feed and Ill try to find you one.

More here:
Clubhouse Is The New Social Media App We All Need Right Now - Forbes

To hear more audio stories from publishers like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

SAN FRANCISCO Jack Dorsey, Twitters chief executive, publicly wrestled this month with the question of whether his social media service had exercised too much power by cutting off Donald J. Trumps account. Mr. Dorsey wondered aloud if the solution to that power imbalance was new technology inspired by the cryptocurrency Bitcoin.

When YouTube and Facebook barred tens of thousands of Mr. Trumps supporters and white supremacists this month, many flocked to alternative apps such as LBRY, Minds and Sessions. What those sites had in common was that they were also inspired by the design of Bitcoin.

The twin developments were part of a growing movement by technologists, investors and everyday users to replace some of the internets fundamental building blocks in ways that would be harder for tech giants like Facebook and Google to control.

To do so, they are increasingly focused on new technological ideas introduced by Bitcoin, which was built atop an online network designed, at the most basic level, to decentralize power.

Unlike other types of digital money, Bitcoin are created and moved around not by a central bank or financial institution but by a broad and disparate network of computers. Its similar to the way Wikipedia is edited by anyone who wants to help, rather than a single publishing house. That underlying technology is called the blockchain, a reference to the shared ledger on which all of Bitcoins records are kept.

Companies are now finding ways to use blockchains, and similar technology inspired by it, to create social media networks, store online content and host websites without any central authority in charge. Doing so makes it much harder for any government or company to ban accounts or delete content.

These experiments are newly relevant after the biggest tech companies recently exercised their clout in ways that have raised questions about their power.

Facebook and Twitter prevented Mr. Trump from posting online after the Capitol rampage on Jan. 6, saying he had broken their rules against inciting violence. Amazon, Apple and Google stopped working with Parler, a social networking site that had become popular with the far right, saying the app had not done enough to limit violent content.

While liberals and opponents of toxic content praised the companies actions, they were criticized by conservatives, First Amendment scholars and the American Civil Liberties Union for showing that private entities could decide who gets to stay online and who doesnt.

Even if you agree with the specific decisions, I do not for a second trust the people who are making the decisions to make universally good decisions, said Jeremy Kauffman, the founder of LBRY, which provides a decentralized service for streaming videos.

That has prompted a scramble for other options. Dozens of start-ups now offer alternatives to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Amazons web hosting services, all on top of decentralized networks and shared ledgers. Many have gained millions of new users over the past few weeks, according to the data company SimilarWeb.

This is the biggest wave Ive ever seen, said Emmi Bevensee, a data scientist and the author of The Decentralized Web of Hate, a publication about the move of right-wing groups to decentralized technology. This has been discussed in niche communities, but now we are having a conversation with the broader world about how these emerging technologies may impact the world at quite large scales.

Bitcoin first emerged in 2009. Its creator, a shadowy figure known as Satoshi Nakamoto, has said its central idea was to allow anyone to open a digital bank account and hold the money in a way that no government could prevent or regulate.

Business & Economy

Jan. 26, 2021, 4:58 p.m. ET

For several years, Bitcoin gained little traction beyond a small coterie of online admirers and people who wanted to pay for illegal drugs online. But as its price rose over time, more people in Silicon Valley took notice of the unusual technical qualities underlying the cryptocurrency. Some promised that the technology could be used to redesign everything from produce tracking to online games.

The hype fell flat over the years as the underlying technology proved to be slow, prone to error and not easily accessible. But more investments and time have begun to result in software that people can actually use.

Last year, Arweave, a blockchain-based project for permanently storing and displaying websites, created an archive of sites and documents from the protests in Hong Kong that angered the Chinese government.

Minds, a blockchain-based replacement for Facebook founded in 2015, also became an online home to some of the right-wing personalities and neo-Nazis who were booted from mainstream social networks, along with fringe groups, in other countries, that have been targeted by their governments. Minds and other similar start-ups are funded by prominent venture capital firms like Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures.

One of the biggest proponents of the trend has been Mr. Dorsey, 44, who has talked about the promise of decentralized social networks through Twitter and has promoted Bitcoin through the other company he runs, Square, a financial technology provider.

His public support for Bitcoin and Bitcoin-related designs dates to around 2017. In late 2019, Mr. Dorsey announced Blue Sky, a project to develop technology aimed at giving Twitter less influence over who could and could not use the service.

After shutting down Mr. Trumps account this month, Mr. Dorsey said he would hire a team for Blue Sky to address his discomfort with Twitters power by pursuing the vision set out by Bitcoin. On Thursday, Blue Sky published the findings of a task force that has been considering potential designs.

Twitter declined to make Mr. Dorsey available for an interview but said it intended to share more soon.

Blockchains are not the only solution for those in search of alternatives to Big Techs power. Many people have recently migrated to the encrypted messaging apps Signal and Telegram, which have no need for a blockchain. Moxie Marlinspike, the creator of Signal, has said decentralization made it hard to build good software.

The experimentation with decentralized systems has nonetheless ramped up over the last month. Brave, a new browser, announced last week that it would begin integrating a blockchain-based system, known as IPFS, into its software to make web content more reliable in case big service providers went down or tried to ban sites.

The IPFS network gives access to content even if it has been censored by corporations and nation-states, Brian Bondy, a co-founder of Brave, said.

At LBRY, the blockchain-based alternative to YouTube, the number of people signing up daily has surged 250 percent from December, the company said. The newcomers appear to have largely been a motley crew of Trump fans, white supremacists and gun rights advocates who violated YouTubes rules.

When YouTube removed the latest videos from the white supremacist video blogger Way of the World last week, he tweeted: Why do we waste our time on this globalist scum? Come to LBRY for all my videos in HD quality, censorship free!

Megan Squires, a professor at Elon University who studies new computer networks, said blockchain-based networks faced hurdles because the underlying technology made it hard to exercise any control over content.

As a technology it is very cool, but you cant just sit there and be a Pollyanna and think that all information will be free, she said. There will be racists, and people will shoot each other. Its going to be the total package.

Mr. Kauffman said LBRY had prepared for these situations. While anyone will be able to create an account and register content on the LBRY blockchain that the company cannot delete similar to the way anyone can create an email address and send emails most people will get access to videos through a site on top of it. That allows LBRY to enforce moderation policies, much as Google can filter out spam and illegal content in email, he said.

Even so, Mr. Kauffman said, no one would lose basic access to online conversation.

Id be proud of almost any kind of marginalized voice using it, no matter how much I disagreed with it, he said.

Go here to see the original:
They Found a Way to Limit Big Techs Power: Using the Design of Bitcoin - The New York Times

Generation Z, or Gen Z, is the true digital natives. Being exposed to the Internet and social networks from young ages, Gen Z presents a distinctively different online habits and social concepts, giving rise to a series of new products and services known as "the Gen Z Business".

The established social networking Apps such as Facebook and WhatsApp either help users replicate their offline relationships online or start with strangers social networking, providing users with new options to establish new relationships online and then transfer them offline. Either way, these established social networking App have a strong interest in offline connections, because they follow the social habits of the previous generations whose main demand for social networking products is to meet the needs of real life.

Gen Z, on the other hand, does not view the Internet as a supplementary part of their real life, but an indispensable lifestyle and life scene. In contrast, they are no longer satisfied with replicating offline interpersonal relationships online, and have new requirements for online social networking that are separate from offline and free from the social pressure of real relationships. Generation Z demands a completely new and different ambiance in the virtual world where they can relieve the stress and revitalize.

Soul App saw this unique market opportunity and delivered in a different way. SOUL focuses on spiritual needs of users to help them relieve the real life social pressure. The app explores users' inner characteristics, and identifies people with common interests and similar characteristics, offering them a platform to share common interest topics with each other. The matching mechanism is based on Soul's innovative big data and AI technologies.

Soul's decentralized distribution rules also place more emphasis on content quality than popularity, fairly recommending content posted by everyone so that every interesting one has a chance to be found. This design guides users to express themselves authentically, rather than consciously catering to traffic when expressing themselves, while creating a friendly social atmosphere.

In addition to one-on-one chats on topics of common interests, Soul App also helps young people extend their social circles and enjoy the sense of belonging within a like-minded community. Hashtags, posts, and group chats make it easier for souls with similarities to meet and connect.

People who feel depressed or eager to talk with someone appreciate quick responses. As Gen Z desires much more outside information and attention, they are also more willing to open up to others. It is also essential for them to release stress at work or from life. Soul App is focused on providing a solution to those needs, which have been neglected for long, and to improve the satisfaction and happiness brought by social networking.

Successful social mechanisms can help users get rid of the psychological constraints and encourage them to share their true selves. Soul App has been able to strategically capitalize on this trend by offering a platform, or a playground, for the coming Generation Z. SOUL not only strives to provide a kind and warm social networking platform for young people, but also builds a brand that represents the trend of youth and is recognized by young people.

SOURCE Soul App

http://www.soulapp.me

Go here to see the original:
Who Knows Generation Z Best? Soul App Gives the Answer as A New Social Playground for A Hundred Million Gen Z - PRNewswire

Riley Hillin may be a young 20-something, but he has already made his mark on the world of social media and cryptocurrency. With people spending more time than ever on social media sites and apps like Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and others, there is a massive amount of moneymaking opportunities for those who can see them. One of those people is Riley.

Going all the way back to 2012, Riley has been involved in the world of social media in some way. He had eventually shifted into focusing on digital marketing using social media and investing in cryptocurrency. He now does these full-time, which has led to him becoming incredibly successful. Thanks to using targeted advertising on Facebook and other social media platforms, Riley has been able to reach the potential customers who have the highest chance of converting into paying customers. That is why personal and professional brands flock to Riley for help with their digital marketing campaigns.

The social media and cryptocurrency landscapes are always evolving and changing. As they do, so do the strategies Riley uses to get ahead and unlock ever-greater success. Its been nearly a decade since Riley has begun getting involved in these markets. What originally was a hobby when he was a teenager later evolved into his bread and butter.

To get his start, Riley got involved in selling social media accounts. The money he made from these sales was then invested into cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. It wasnt long before this rinse-and-repeat process started earning Riley the big bucks.

With the help of his networking skills, Riley has been able to reach audiences in numerous niches by following a proven formula. This has led to him using digital marketing effectively by collaborating with influencers who have a large reach.

Through selling numerous accounts and using digital marketing, Riley has developed a reputation for being someone who is trustworthy and who always delivers quality. This has led to him establishing a way to support himself, and do so very well.

When it comes to his cryptocurrency investments, he has done incredibly well by investing in the two biggest cryptocurrencies on the market: Bitcoin and Ethereum. Since the start of 2021, these have gone to the moon, taking Riley along for the ride. However, Riley has been making money with Bitcoin and Ethereum for several years thanks to being an early adopter. Even if prices dipped down sharply, as they are known to do in this space, he is still far above what his initial investment was.

Now that Riley has unlocked his own extraordinary success, he helps others do the same. By being an example of what works, Riley has inspired countless other individuals to become self-made entrepreneurs using novel tools like social media and cryptocurrency to build their wealth. Riley plans to continue running his social media business and helping other aspiring entrepreneurs along the way.

You can keep up with the latest from Riley by following him on Instagram @rileyh.

Original post:
Entrepreneur and Investor Riley Hillin Explains How to Succeed With Social Media and Cryptocurrency - SF Weekly