Research shows Generation Z uses social media differently than their parents. Is this true for Ball State students and faculty?
At this point, modern society nearly revolves around technology, and it’s rare to meet someone who isn’t on social media. According to Pew Research Center, 72% of Americans said they use at least one social media platform in 2018. While Generation Z may be the most tech-savvy generation, almost everyone spends part of their day online.
However, there are some stark differences in how different generations use social media. For instance, according to the 2012 Millennial Branding Survey, millennials add around 16 co-workers on Facebook.
Ball Bearings sat down with both students and professors and asked them what kind of place social media is to them.
Katie Lawson is an associate professor of psychological science at Ball State University
I use it in different ways. A lot of social media for me is to stay in contact with people I usually wouldn’t be able to stay in contact with otherwise. So people I graduated from high school with, I wouldn’t necessarily know what they were doing without social media.
It’s more personal for me. I do have some social media that’s professional and some people do it more than I do. Most of it’s more personal, really just sort of pictures of [my] kids to stay in contact with my family.
I don’t put a lot of personal information [online]. I would just rather not have it. Most of the time is again just sort of pictures so that my family can see my kids growing up because I don’t live right by them.
I think I was raised more in a generation where we were taught that [social media] could be used against us in terms of hiring decisions and what not. And it is used against people. And sometimes I don’t think younger generations are aware of that.
Angelina Yarbrough is a freshman criminal justice major
[Social media is a] source of information, entertainment.
[I use it to] socialize, word of mouth and stuff like talking or typing stuff out
[I have posted social justice content] on Instagram mainly about African Americans, about feminist history. People agree with it but it’s like on social media you can’t really do, you just see. So I feel like you use social media to say what you need to say and then you can do your actions outside of social media.
[I limit myself] basically on Facebook. Family is for Facebook, so watch what you post and employers watch what you post.
I’m pretty private, though, so for me it doesn’t matter. People have ways of finding out a lot of information and getting patterns and stalking and stuff like that so it’s scary.
People are negative all the time [on social media].
Abdelaadim Bidaoui is an assistant professor of Arabic and French at Ball State
Even though I’m a very old-fashioned guy, I still love to use social media and especially Facebook. Being international, I’m away from my family, my friends. My friends are all scattered all around the world, so Facebook allows me to stay connected with all my friends. I can share their joys, share their sorrows, and stuff like that, so it keeps me connected with all my friends.
Honestly, privacy is not a big issue for me. I like to share both my personal life and also my academic life with all my friends and the people who know me, so privacy is not a big issue for me. I don’t mind sharing places that I go visit with all my friends, or whatever my academic achievements with all my friends and stuff like that through social media.
I don’t want to put more stuff and make people’s pages busy. So sometimes I refrain from posting stuff. I’m very selective in what I post.
I only put very particular, specific moments [on social media]. Like if I’m traveling to Morocco, having a wonderful time, if I’m visiting a place. It’s only very precious moments of my life, not every single detail of my life.
Zech Bateman is a freshman biology major
I use it for if I’m bored and I want to see something funny or see quotes or something or just contact my friends and see what’s going on in their life.
[I] put myself out there, but I don’t put nothing crazy or inappropriate.
It’s positive for me. If it was negative I wouldn’t be on it. If there would be drama it’s just based on which path you take on social media, I guess, and who you follow and what you go to on social media.
I don’t respond to anything on social media on my own, I just keep it to myself.
Catherine Chen is a professor of information systems and operations management at Ball State
I don’t use social media. I don’t trust it from the beginning because I started using computers in the 80s. So I don’t like to put my personal information out there. Now I trust [the internet] because I do e-commerce, because I buy things online, those kinds of things, I trust that encryption is strong enough that those are secure. So for that, I just did not have [social media] to begin with.
I do use only LinkedIn, because that’s how I can connect with students after they graduate, like if they don’t use Ball State email anymore and a couple years later I might want to ask them to come back and talk to my students, that’s one way that I can connect with them. That’s pretty much all I use.
I don’t feel the need to get other people’s approval, I’m comfortable in my own skin, I don’t care. However, I do say [there are] a few things that make it really nice. A couple apps out there I used in my country, so that’s how I get a very fast connection with my brother, so that he can let me know exactly what’s going on. My dad is 93, so we get real quick updates all the time.
Before social media, [my friends] lost contact for 40 years, and then you have somebody who was just so enthusiastic about this and started finding friends. We kind of keep updated with them, that’s really great. But we are not on there all the time, and we don’t get sensitive topics on there. So then things that you have a very strong opinion like politics and religions, we don’t go on that, because we don’t want to hurt old friends’ feelings.
So other than emergency reasons I think that’s wonderful with a phone and all that, but other than that I don’t see why my life has to be tied to it all the time.
Sebastian Garibay is a freshman nursing major
Well, I do feel like we use it a lot and in a way we’re a little bit more anti-social than the other generations.
I feel like some people are more outgoing online than they can be in person.
I should probably limit myself because I look at the times I spend on there, and it’s a lot of time. There will be weeks where I’ll be on there for, like, ten hours or even longer.
I think it’s what you make of it because if you dove into the negative you’ll definitely get there and you’ll definitely think about it. But then I think there’s a lot of positivity to it.
I definitely do think we should hold back more on social media] because not everything should be out in the open air.
Ball Bearings has edited statements for clarity.
