Social Media & Adolescent Mental Health
Which of the following best describes "technopanic narratives"; as discussed in the course?
A) Evidence-based concerns about technology that are proportional to real risks
B) Exaggerated fears about new technologies rooted in older generations' beliefs and values
C) Systematic research by tech companies about digital harms
D) Documented patterns showing that all technological fears are unfounded
B) Exaggerated fears about new technologies rooted in older generations' beliefs and values
According to Moreno & Uhls (2019), which of the following is NOT a functional affordance of social media?
A) Networking
B) Replicability
C) Permanence
D) Scalability
A) Networking
According to lecture materials, what is cultural evolution?
A) The process by which all cultures become identical over time
B) The gradual elimination of cultural differences through globalization
C) The inevitable progression of all societies toward Western cultural norms
D) Intergenerational shifts in institutions, tools, practices, beliefs, and values due to variation and environmental change
D) Intergenerational shifts in institutions, tools, practices, beliefs, and values due to variation and environmental change
Globalization is best defined as:
A) The complete homogenization of all cultures
B) The process by which cultures influence one another and become more alike through trade, immigration, and exchange of information and ideas
C) The intentional imposition of Western values on other cultures
D) The economic dominance of multinational corporations
B) The process by which cultures influence one another and become more alike through trade, immigration, and exchange of information and ideas
According to Van Bavel et al. (2024), how does social media generally affect moral dynamics?
A) It creates entirely new moral emotions and behaviors
B) It accelerates and amplifies existing moral dynamics, both positive and negative
C) It consistently dampens moral emotions and reduces moral concerns
D) It has no effect on morality whatsoever
B) It accelerates and amplifies existing moral dynamics, both positive and negative
According to the lecture on AI and Power, which definition of AI is most accurate?
A) A technology that replicates human learning on big data
B) Any computer program that automates tasks
C) Collections of formulas that can perform complex tasks typically associated with human intelligence
D) Systems designed to augment human capabilities through computational assistance while maintaining human oversight and decision-making authority
C) Collections of formulas that can perform complex tasks typically associated with human intelligence
In the debate you watched between Jonathan Haidt, author of the book The Anxious Generation, and Candice Odgers, a developmental psychology researcher, which statement most accurately represents Odgers's position on social media and adolescent mental health?
A) Social media is definitely causing a mental health crisis among adolescents
B) There is no relationship whatsoever between social media and mental health
C) Meta-analyses show small or inconsistent associations; reverse causality may be at play
D) Research clearly demonstrates that banning social media improves mental health
C) Meta-analyses show small or inconsistent associations; reverse causality may be at play
How does the concept of "mutual constitution" apply to social media technologies?
A) It suggests that technology determines human behavior
B) It argues that material features of technology combine with cultural beliefs, values, and norms, influencing participation to create affordances
C) It proposes that affordances are properties of technologies that cannot be altered
D) It indicates that all technologies offer the same affordances to all users
B) It argues that material features of technology combine with cultural beliefs, values, and norms, influencing participation to create affordances
The concept of "peer cultures" in cultural evolution refers to:
A) The tendency of adolescents to copy their friends' behaviors
B) Stable sets of activities, artifacts, values, and concerns that children produce and transmit in interaction with each other
C) Negative influences peers have on each other's development
D) Adult designed environments for socializing children
B) Stable sets of activities, artifacts, values, and concerns that children produce and transmit in interaction with each other
In Greenfield's Theory of Social Change and Human Development, what is the relationship between sociodemographic conditions and cultural values?
A) Urban, high-technology, commercial market economies tend to foster more individualistic values
B) Rural communities inevitably become more individualistic over time regardless of technology access
C) Urban communities will eventually become more collectivistic with evolution of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) re-instating social ties of premodern cultures.
B) There is no relationship; values develop independently of social conditions
A) Urban, high-technology, commercial market economies tend to foster more
individualistic values
Research on social media and political polarization has found:
A) Clear evidence that social media is the primary cause of political polarization
B) That deactivating social media consistently reduces polarization cross-culturally
C) That social media use weakens people’s political convictions
D) Mixed findings, with some studies showing reduced polarization when people deactivate social media, but others showing no effect or even increased polarization
D) Mixed findings, with some studies showing reduced polarization when people deactivate social media, but others showing no effect or even increased polarization
According to Kate Crawford, how should we understand the relationship between technology and power historically?
A) Technology has consistently been used to consolidate power through communication, computation, classification, and control
B) Technology has increased opportunities to distribute power more equally
C) Technology has always been politically neutral
D) Technology has cyclically empowered and disempowered different social groups across historical time
A) Technology has consistently been used to consolidate power through communication, computation, classification, and control
The graph presented in lecture slides shows the "Distribution of Person-Specific Effect Sizes of Social Media Scrolling on Well-being" What does this data suggest?
A) Social media affects all users equally in a negative way
B) Social media has a negative effect on most people's well-being
C) The majority of users experience no effect, with roughly equal percentages experiencing positive or negative effects
D) Social media has a predominantly positive effect on most people
C) The majority of users experience no effect, with roughly equal percentages experiencing positive or negative effects
In the study of Zinacantán, Mexico (Manago & Pacheco, 2019), residents described both benefits and risks of communication technologies. What paradoxical affordance did they identify?
A) Technologies both connected them globally while isolating them locally
B) ICTs improved economic opportunities but reduced traditional cultural practices
C) Social media increased literacy but decreased interest in formal education
D) Cell phones both enabled greater self-expression and family connection while also posing risks related to deception and distrust
D) Cell phones both enabled greater self-expression and family connection while also posing risks related to deception and distrust
In Lew-Levy & Amir's (2025) paper on children as agents of cultural adaptation, which example demonstrates children's unique contribution to cultural evolution?
A) Children accurately reproducing traditions exactly as taught by adults
B) Children naturally absorbing adult cultural practices just by observing
C) Children learning formal academic subjects by adult teacher
D) Children developing Nicaraguan Sign Language through social interactions
D) Children developing Nicaraguan Sign Language through social interactions
The concept of "meta modernity" as described by Hampton (2016) suggests that social media:
A) Causes tension in traditional community structures
B) Resembles the feeling of living in a small-scale community before modern technologies
C) Recreates premodern community structures in combination with affordances for mobility
D) Creates entirely new forms of social organization without any connection to past structures
C) Recreates premodern community structures in combination with affordances for mobility
The "Paradox of Viral Outrage" (Sawaoka & Monin, 2018) refers to:
A) How expressing moral outrage sometimes violates other moral norms such as empathy
B) The fact that expressing moral outrage online often does not lead to offline action
C) How moral outrage spreads faster than accurate information
D) The phenomenon where morally motivated content is less likely to be shared
A) How expressing moral outrage sometimes violates other moral norms such as empathy
Based on Crawford & Calo's (2016) "There is a blind spot in AI research" what approach do they advocate for addressing the social impacts of AI?
A) Deploy and comply - implement AI systems and then address problems as they emerge
B) Values in design - incorporate ethical considerations during development
C) Social-systems analysis - examine the broader social, political and economic contexts in which AI is deployed
D) All of the above approaches are equally advocated
C) Social-systems analysis - examine the broader social, political and economic contexts in which AI is deployed
Which of the following research approaches can help to addresses the limitations in current studies on social media and adolescent mental health?
A) Focusing exclusively on correlational studies with larger sample sizes
B) Taking a person-centered approach that examines individual differences and contextual factors
C) Relying on retrospective self-reports about social media use
D) Eliminating confounding variables by conducting studies solely in laboratory settings
B) Taking a person-centered approach that examines individual differences and contextual factors
A teenage girl creates a "finsta" (fake Instagram) account to share more authentic content with close friends, while maintaining a polished "rinsta" (real Instagram) for broader audiences. Which theoretical perspective best explains this behavior?
A) This demonstrates how adolescents passively accept the constraints of technology
B) This behavior illustrates technological determinism in action
C) This shows how users actively negotiate affordances like scalability and permanence to manage context collapse
D) This represents a rejection of social media's fundamental affordances
C) This shows how users actively negotiate affordances like scalability and permanence to manage context collapse
How does social media transform peer culture according to the lecture?
A) It diminishes peer culture by connecting children directly with adults
B) It creates more harmful forms of peer influence and cultural transmission
C) It transforms peer relation processes through features like asynchronicity, permanence, and publicness
D) It increases the influence of peer culture on adult culture
C) It transforms peer relation processes through features like asynchronicity, permanence, and publicness
Professor Manago’s research study comparing two cohorts of indigenous adolescents in Mexico before and after the introduction of mobile devices and internet in the community found:
A) Dramatic increases in individualistic values aligned with increased social media use
B) No changes in cultural values despite 100% social media adoption in the later cohort
C) A complete rejection of traditional values by the 2018 cohort
D) Similar cultural values persisted despite dramatic differences in technology access and use
D) Similar cultural values persisted despite dramatic differences in technology access and use
Which of the following best illustrates how social media can both amplify moral outrage and promote prosocial behavior as discussed in lecture?
A) A high-profile environmental disaster generates viral content documenting the damage while simultaneously facilitating community cleanup efforts and long-term ecological monitoring networks
B) A viral campaign raising awareness about human rights abuses leads to both harassment of alleged perpetrators and widespread support for victims
C) A celebrity influencer on Instagram endorses a politician and increases voter turnout
D) A comedian's viral joke about trans individuals generates millions of laughing emoji reactions while increasing ticket sales for their upcoming tour, demonstrating how humorous content at the expense of vulnerable populations often bind people more closely to their in-groups
B) A viral campaign raising awareness about human rights abuses leads to both harassment of alleged perpetrators and widespread support for victims
What does Ruha Benjamin mean by "AI magnifies the world as it is"?
A) AI creates an objective representation of reality
B) AI technologies tend to reflect and amplify existing social biases and inequalities
C) AI systems are inherently designed to correct social inequalities
D) AI has minimal impact on existing social structures
B) AI technologies tend to reflect and amplify existing social biases and inequalities
Based on Jonathan Haidt and Candice Odgers' debate and professor Manago’s lecture on social media and youth mental health, which conclusion most accurately represents the nuanced research findings?
A) Social media has proven direct causality for increased depression rates across all adolescent populations
B) Methodological limitations have prevented any reliable conclusions about the relationship between social media use and mental health
C) Time displacement is the primary mechanism through which social media negatively impacts adolescent development regardless of content
D) Research shows differential susceptibility, where certain vulnerable subgroups experience stronger negative effects while others may benefit, depending forms of use.
D) Research shows differential susceptibility, where certain vulnerable subgroups experience stronger negative effects while others may benefit, depending forms of use.
In this course, we are using which of the following approaches to understanding social media affordances:
A) Design approach: Design features of technological artifacts that can be recognized by users and suggest their possible functionalities
B) Person-centered approach: specific individuals can use different functionalities of social media platforms based on their personal characteristics
C) Constructivist approach: Social processes shape technology use
D) Cultural tools approach: a relationship between the individual properties of an artifact, the developmental state of individuals, and what culture allows in terms of use.
D) Cultural tools approach: a relationship between the individual properties of an artifact, the developmental state of individuals, and what culture allows in terms of use.
Lew-Levy & Amir (2025) describe several ethnographic examples of children's contributions to cultural innovation. Which of the following is NOT a correct pairing of an ethnographic example with the mechanism of children's cultural innovation it demonstrates?
A) Matsés children in the Amazon discover medicinal plants through play in the forest, demonstrating how children's exploratory behavior contributes to ecological knowledge
B) Mayan children's weaving innovations occurred when aspects of weaving apprenticeship shifted, allowing children to adapt traditional techniques to more trial and error learning.
C) Children's geographic knowledge of liminal spaces develops primarily through peer-to-peer transmission, as children share "secret" locations and create their own maps of areas outside adult supervision
D) Children's innovative language use is limited to formal educational settings and decreases during adolescence, as conformity to adult norms becomes the priority
D) Children's innovative language use is limited to formal educational settings and decreases during adolescence, as conformity to adult norms becomes the priority
According to Manago & McKenzie (2022), how should we understand the relationship between digital media and cultural values within the context of globalization?
A) Digital media inevitably leads to the adoption of Western values worldwide
B) Digital media has no effect on cultural values in non-Western contexts
C) Digital media can function both as tools of cultural imperialism and as tools to expand local values and practices
D) Digital media primarily serves to preserve traditional cultural values against change
C) Digital media can function both as tools of cultural imperialism and as tools to expand local values and practices
According to Virtuous Violence Theory (Fiske & Rai, 2014) and course materials on social media and morality, which of the following best explains morally motivated networked harassment?
A) People engage in online harassment purely for entertainment with no moral motivation
B) Online harassment reflects the absence of moral reasoning
C) Most online harassment is motivated by moral concerns and a sense of righteous punishment
D) Online harassment occurs only when users are anonymous
C) Most online harassment is motivated by moral concerns and a sense of righteous punishment
Ruha Benjamin and Kate Crawford both analyze power relations in AI systems. If asked to evaluate a new AI governance framework being proposed by leading technology companies, which position would be most consistent with their combined critiques?
A) They would support the framework if it prioritizes technical solutions for bias mitigation and emphasizes industry self-regulation through transparency reports and ethical guidelines developed by AI experts
B) They would likely endorse the framework if it centers historically marginalized communities in decision-making processes and addresses the material infrastructure and labor conditions underlying AI development
C) They would consider the framework promising if it balances innovation with gradual regulatory oversight while preserving competitive market dynamics that drive technological improvement
D) They would advocate for the framework if it focuses on eliminating algorithmic bias through more diverse training datasets while maintaining the current institutional structures of AIresearch
B) They would likely endorse the framework if it centers historically marginalized communities in decision-making processes and addresses the material infrastructure and labor conditions underlying AI development