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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

The Yak Is Back: Creating Community On The Digital Bathroom Stall Wall, Georgia Bates Jan 2023

The Yak Is Back: Creating Community On The Digital Bathroom Stall Wall, Georgia Bates

Scripps Senior Theses

Offering access to an expanded world of contacts, activities, and self-expression, the internet has been changing the traditional landscape of the college experience for nearly two decades. The manner in which students interact with the world around them is augmented and transformed by the affordances of digital social networks like Yik Yak, an anonymous, hyperlocal networking app that has found its main market on college campuses. A hybrid ethnographic approach to Yik Yak based on participant observation and in-depth interviews spanned from Fall 2021 to Spring 2023, engaging with concepts of place and affect as they were intertwined with student …


The Internet-Extended Mind: The Psychological Ramifications And Philosophical Implications Of Cognitive Offloading, Gloria Choi Jan 2021

The Internet-Extended Mind: The Psychological Ramifications And Philosophical Implications Of Cognitive Offloading, Gloria Choi

Scripps Senior Theses

In this thesis, I explore the internet-extended mind through both philosophical and psychological lenses in order to investigate the questions “To what extent is the mind extended onto the internet and, more generally, outside our bodies?” and “How will an increasingly internet-extended brain change the ways in which humans communicate, remember, and behave?”. First, I introduce the idea of a mind that extends out into the world, instead of lying solely in the brain. Then, I outline existing research that introduces the challenges and implications of an internet-extended mind in an ever-changing internet landscape. Next, I discuss how the internet …


College Students "Coupling Up" With Reality Dating Shows: The Interpersonal Relationships Fostered By Reality Dating Show Viewership, Juliana Romeo Jan 2021

College Students "Coupling Up" With Reality Dating Shows: The Interpersonal Relationships Fostered By Reality Dating Show Viewership, Juliana Romeo

Scripps Senior Theses

On college campuses across the US on Monday evenings, groups of college students cluster around laptops and dorm lounge TVs to watch The Bachelor or The Bachelorette. Viewership of reality dating shows is clearly a popular social activity among students, but why? What needs are college students fulfilling with their viewership of this genre? This thesis explores college students’ relationship with reality dating shows and specifically how college students connect the realities of the contestants, the media space, and their everyday lives. Over nine months, I conducted ethnographic interviews and focus groups with twenty-one college students at residential colleges …


Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: A Case Study Of Social Media As An Agenda Setting Tool In The U.S. House Of Representatives, Jenna Floricel Lewinstein Jan 2019

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: A Case Study Of Social Media As An Agenda Setting Tool In The U.S. House Of Representatives, Jenna Floricel Lewinstein

Scripps Senior Theses

The purpose of “Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez: A Case Study of Social Media as an Agenda Setting Tool in the U.S. House of Representatives” is to explore the impact of a politician’s social media presence on agenda setting in Congress. It was born out of the research question, “how do freshman members of the House of Representatives seek power and influence in their first term?” I answer this using Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a case study, as she is a current freshman legislator with undeniable power and influence. I studied Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s tweets from two time periods: the month leading up …


Social Comparison And Self-Presentation On Social Media As Predictors Of Depressive Symptoms, Janet L. Uhlir Jan 2016

Social Comparison And Self-Presentation On Social Media As Predictors Of Depressive Symptoms, Janet L. Uhlir

Scripps Senior Theses

Social media, an online arena for social behaviors such as self-presentation and social comparison, may have effects on users’ mood and mental health. Favorably presenting oneself is linked to positive outcomes such as higher self-esteem, whereas social comparison, in general and specifically upward social comparison to higher-performing others, is related to feelings of inadequacy, envy, and depression. Social comparison may explain the “Facebook depression effect,” acting as a mediator between time spent on social media and depressive symptoms. A correlational study is proposed that will ask 200 participants to report their time spent on various social media sites, self-presentation of …


Intentioned Network Convergence: How Social Media Is Redefining, Reorganizing, And Revitalizing Social Movements In The United States, Jesse Janice Klekamp Apr 2012

Intentioned Network Convergence: How Social Media Is Redefining, Reorganizing, And Revitalizing Social Movements In The United States, Jesse Janice Klekamp

Scripps Senior Theses

This analysis seeks to understand the power of social media to create sustainable social movements. The 1999 World Trade Organization protests in Seattle were one of the first internet-supported acts of protest and illustrate the power of the Internet and social media to bring together diverse coalitions of actors and maintain decentralized power structures. Next, the analysis studies the non-profit advocacy organization Invisible Children and the recent media explosion of their Kony 2012 campaign to make sense of how uses of the Internet have expanded since 1999. The Kony 2012 case illustrates the power of committed networks in disseminating information …