Is Social Media Making Us Lonely?

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How often do you find yourself on social media during the course of a normal week? More importantly, how does using social media make you feel?

Since the beginning of the COVID pandemic, the ways in which we have used social media has changed, as well as how we feel about social media in general. Social media is a paradox. It connects us in some ways, while pushing us apart in other ways. Social media has become our source of information, and a valuable means of connecting with friends and family, while at the same time making us feel lonelier and disconnected.

In this talk, we will explore some of the research about social media, connection, loneliness – as well as looking at some ways that we might be able to helpful reframe our relationship social media in our everyday lives.

Tyler Shores is delighted to announce that he has secured two external speakers to join him next week.

Luke Fernandez is Assistant Professor in the School of Computing at Weber State University where he teaches classes on the politics of technology and software development and Susan J. Mattwho is Professor of History at Weber State. They have both co-authors of Bored, Lonely, Angry, Stupid: Changing Feelings about Technology, from the Telegraph to Twitter (Harvard University Press, 2019).

Tyler Shores manages the ThinkLab research program at the University of Cambridge, and is a Senior Research Associate at the Intellectual Forum, Jesus College. His research focuses on digital habits, social media, and how digital environments shape how we work and think. Prior to Cambridge, Tyler worked in online education at Stanford, served as a director at an international education nonprofit organization, and worked at the Google world headquarters in Mountain View, California while running the Authors@Google program. His various work has been featured in the New York Times, BBC, WIRED, amongst others. And he was once on an episode of The Simpsons.

Luke Fernandez is Assistant Professor in the School of Computing at Weber State University where he teaches classes on the politics of technology and software development. He is co-author of Bored, Lonely, Angry, Stupid: Changing Feelings about Technology, from the Telegraph to Twitter (Harvard University Press, 2019). He holds a PhD in Political Theory from Cornell University. He is also a software developer. His articles have appeared in The Washington Post, Salon, Slate, and the Chronicle of Higher Education, among other places.

Susan J. Matt is Professor of History at Weber State. Her research focuses on the history of emotions and US social history. She is co-author of Bored, Lonely, Angry, Stupid: Changing Feelings about Technology, from the Telegraph to Twitter (Harvard University Press, 2019). She is author of Homesickness: An American History (Oxford University Press, 2011), and Keeping Up with the Joneses: Envy in American Consumer Society, 1890-1930 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003). Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Journal of American History.

Number of sessions: 1

Zoom Video Conferencing