Cyber living: how students use social media at Exeter
Social media has transformed the way we interact with the world. See what Nancy Jo Sales '82, author of American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers (2016), and several Exeter students have to say about the risks and rewards of social networking.
According to the website Small Business Trends, social media, as we have come to know it, was first introduced in 1997 by way of a site called Six Degrees, where users could create personal profiles and connect with one another. Soon thereafter, in 1999, web logs, or “blogs,” were born, and the whole concept mushroomed. MySpace, a social networking site, arrived in 2003. Two years later, in 2005, came the video-sharing site YouTube. Then, in 2006, Facebook — first launched at Harvard in 2004 by Exonian Mark Zuckerberg ’02 — became available to the general public. Since that time, social media and social networking have completely transformed the way we interact with the world and with one another. The movement has revolutionized existing businesses and sparked wildly successful new ones. It has permeated education, cultural organizations, politics, sports and romance. Some researchers posit that it is even changing the way we think.
While many, many examples exist of ways in which social media can be problematic, even harmful —cyberbullying, the sexual objectification of girls and women, internet stalking — there have undoubtedly been positive influences and benefits to society. Creative startups can compete for seed money through crowdfunding platforms such as Kickstarter. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) research is moving forward thanks to 2014’s Ice Bucket Challenge, a viral fundraising campaign. And the proliferation of online affinity groups has meant that like-minded people can easily find each other, meet, and sometimes start social and political revolutions.
In order to better understand how Exonians interact with social media, as well as the implications for our community, the Bulletin recently sat down with a small cross section of Academy students, as well as alumna Nancy Jo Sales ’82, the Vanity Fair reporter whose most recent book, American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers, was published in 2016.
The Bulletin is grateful to the four students who shared their stories with us, and acknowledges that both time and magazine space preclude offering a broader survey in narrative form. Moreover, while the picture painted in this feature suggests that Exonians are, on the whole, using social media for good, there have been disciplinary cases involving students who have made poor choices, some of which have resulted in withdrawal.
Digital Dichotomies
“It’s funny, but in terms of social media, when I came here, it felt like being back in seventh grade,” recalls Emily Robb of her first weeks at the Academy. For Robb, a three-year senior who grew up in Brentwood, California, and first learned about Exeter at her sleepaway camp in Interlochen, Michigan, the difference in the way friends at home were employing, and occasionally exploiting, social media compared to how her fellow Exonians engaged with it was stark. “Back home I have friends who have 70,000 followers on Instagram, and their accounts are literally highlight reels of their lives. At Exeter, it’s different; there’s more of an innocence to [social media],” she explains. Why the disparity? “I feel like it could be an East Coast/West Coast ... thing,” she offers.
Geography aside, Exeter, says Robb, has its own unique culture when it comes to social media, often specific to class years. As an example, she cites the class of 2017 and Facebook. “We started as preps with Facebook,” she says, “and everyone in my grade has Facebook, but I believe we are the cutoff point. Very few preps have FB.” For younger grades, she adds, Instagram and Snapchat are de rigueur.
Exeter’s infamous workload, Robb says, also shapes students’ interactions with social media. “We are a bit busy, and so there’s less time, and fewer opportunities, for sharing photos and details of our lives.” However, that doesn’t mean Exonians aren’t on social media. “Many of us are multitaskers,” she explains, “which means that we will be checking our phones while studying — but that can sometimes feel like doing everything and nothing all at once.”
What about conduct? Do the principles of non sibi apply to Exeter’s often unfettered social media outlets? “For the most part, yes,” Robb says. “A lot of students use social media to say ‘Happy Birthday’ or send compliments. Many of us also use it to stay in touch with friends who graduate; it’s nice seeing what people are doing after Exeter.” Yet even at a school where “goodness and knowledge” are deeply embedded values and influence the mindset and comportment of students, Exonians occasionally make bad choices. “I have seen and heard of instances where students are nasty to other students,” Robb says. “I think where Exeter is different, though, is that the students here are too smart to be obvious.”