The thought of achieving any form of popularity had always seemed light-years away for someone like myself who is accustomed to mediocrity. I had never found the prospect of widespread admiration particularly attractive to begin with. As cliché as it sounds, external validation has always seemed a little shallow to[Read More…]
Tag: Twitter
Pulling back the curtain: Access to sports superstars through social media
“I Dont wanna be here,” tweeted then-Phoenix Suns point guard Eric Bledsoe on Oct. 22. When he pressed send, Bledsoe had used a little over seven per cent of Twitter’s now 280-character limit to captivate the entire basketball world. Within a few hours, sports news sites picked up the tweet[Read More…]
Everybody hurts, sometimes: Social media accounts reveal Kevin Durant’s emotional side
Last summer, Kevin Durant made possibly the biggest decision he’ll ever make. After eight years with the Oklahoma City Thunder, he published an article on The Player’s Tribune, announcing his intention to sign with the 73-win Warriors—not long after his Thunder had blown a 3-1 series lead against them in[Read More…]
Echo chambers on autoplay: How social media news videos hurt political dialogue
Flashing through countless newsfeeds with bold lettering and eye-catching, often shocking imagery, online news videos have become intrinsic to users’ experience on social media. Painstakingly engineered for maximum impact on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, these brief videos are just one embodiment of social and news media’s increased reliance on one[Read More…]
Confirmation bias on social media limits conversation
Between Facebook posts, online publications, and Reddit threads, it is overwhelming to begin to imagine the amount of different opinions, ideas, and information a regular internet-user processes in a single day. Consequently, the digital age is heralded for supposedly allowing people to become educated on a broad assortment of topics[Read More…]
