Reflections 10/19/20

One quote from the Pittman and Reich reading stuck with me: “Pittman (2015) found that as one’s affinity for and activity on  Instagram increased, self-reported loneliness decreased” (p. 157). This seemingly minor note impacted me because of the word “self-reported” — what if using photo-based social media platforms decreases one’s perception of loneliness, but not necessarily how lonely one is in fact? That is, what if social media changes individuals’ standards of loneliness to the point that going on some of these websites may even give us the impression that we’re less lonely, though we may actually still be lonely? I understand that the idea of loneliness is extremely personal and hard to measure — which might help explain why Pittman and Reich used “self-reported loneliness” and not some more objective measure of this feeling –, but I am still left wondering about social media’s potential for resetting one’s ideas of companionship or lack thereof. What might this speculated change in standards mean for how people create and interact with art that’s on social media?