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Summary
Summary
Sexting. Cyberbullying. Narcissism. Social media has become the dominant force in young people's lives, and each day seems to bring another shocking tale of private pictures getting into the wrong hands, or a lament that young people feel compelled to share their each and every thought with the entire world. Have smartphones and social media created a generation of self-obsessed egomaniacs?
Absolutely not, Donna Freitas argues in this provocative book. And, she says, these alarmist fears are drawing attention away from the real issues that young adults are facing.
Drawing on a large-scale survey and interviews with students on thirteen college campuses, Freitas finds that what young people are overwhelmingly concerned with--what they really want to talk about--is happiness. They face enormous pressure to look perfect online--not just happy, but blissful, ecstatic, and fabulously successful. Unable to achieve this impossible standard, they are anxious about letting the less-than-perfect parts of themselves become public. Far from wanting to share everything, they are brutally selective when it comes to curating their personal profiles, and worry obsessively that they might unwittingly post something that could come back to haunt them later in life. Through candid conversations with young people from diverse backgrounds, Freitas reveals how even the most well-adjusted individuals can be stricken by self-doubt when they compare their experiences with the vast collective utopia that they see online. And sometimes, as on anonymous platforms like Yik Yak, what they see instead is a depressing cesspool of racism and misogyny. Yet young people are also extremely attached to their smartphones and apps, which sometimes bring them great pleasure. It is very much a love-hate relationship.
While much of the public's attention has been focused on headline-grabbing stories, the everyday struggles and joys of young people have remained under the radar. Freitas brings their feelings to the fore, in the words of young people themselves. The Happiness Effect is an eye-opening window into their first-hand experiences of social media and its impact on them.
Author Notes
Donna Freitas is a Nonresident Research Associate at the University of Notre Dame's Center for the Study of Religion and Society, and when she is not traveling for research she teaches in the Honors Colleges at Hofstra University. She is the author of Sex and the Soul: Juggling Sexuality, Spirituality, Romance and Religion on America's College Campuses (Oxford University Press, 2008), as well as several novels for young adults. A regular contributor to Publishers Weekly, she has also written for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Freitas (Sex and the Soul), a nonresident Notre Dame research associate and Publishers Weekly contributor, takes a thoughtful look at dilemmas arising from young people's social media use. Her opinion, based on interviews with 184 students at 13 colleges in the U.S. and 884 survey responses, is that there are more insidious problems than rampant bullying and sexting. These users, the first generation to come of age with social media, are under pressure to appear perfectly happy. Students have the "notion that one must carefully craft, cultivate, and curate" their public profiles. This pressure can "warp how students see themselves," lead to loneliness, and encourage nasty anonymous behavior. Students' voices make up most of her book, which contains chapters on the importance of likes, selfies, and smartphone use. Her most interesting chapter, however, is the conclusion, which comes up with eight guiding principles for the use of technology based on Aristotle's Nicomachean ethics. Freitas makes a well-reasoned argument, albeit one based on a pretty specialized population sample. The question that still remains is whether social media is to blame for this social pressure to perform happiness or merely the medium by which it spreads. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
The latest exploration of why social media may not be so great after all.Examining her extensive series of face-to-face and online interviews of college students, Freitas (The End of Sex: How Hookup Culture is Leaving a Generation Unhappy, Sexually Unfulfilled, and Confused About Intimacy, 2013, etc.) discovered "one unifying and central theme [that] emerged as the most pressing social media issue students face: the importance of appearing happy." She emphasizes appearing' because what she realized is that while students today are often extremely unhappy, they feel an intense pressure to show only the good, successful, fun, happy experiences of their lives on platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Knowing that everyonefriends, peers, parents, teachers, potential employers, and even complete strangersis likely to view their profiles forces people of all ages, but particularly those in high school and college, to project an upbeat appearance, regardless of how they feel inside. Though extremely stressed by this pressure, they are diligent in monitoring their posts, going so far as to separate their contacts into specific groups that receive exclusive posts, posting only at certain times of day when they are certain to receive the most likes,' and cleaning up old posts that may portray a younger, less mature person than who they are now. Each social media user understands that his or her name is now a brand, a concept that must be protected and yet projected as successful and, above all, happy. Freitas interweaves her research into personal stories from many of the interviewees, providing readers with a rich assortment of relatable tales that stress just how addicted people are to their social media profiles. The author ends with several methods that will help readers unplug and relax, creating an opening for true happiness to set in. Attention-grabbing research that amply shows the many detriments of social media, particularly for young adults. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Choice Review
Basing her book on surveys involving over 850 college students and interviews with close to 200 students across the US from various backgrounds, Freitas (religion and society, Univ. of Notre Dame) argues that "happiness" is the key concept to understanding young people's behaviors with cell phones and social media. She claims that the widespread moral panic about youth's alleged narcissism, apathy, and other concerns hides the reality of the relationship between youth and digital media, which is about branding oneself as a happy individual. Her study shows that even though not all young people are excited about their social media engagements, many feel that they must remain on social media in order to be relevant among their friends. Furthermore, they are under pressure to appear happy, so even when they are unhappy they learn to tweak their profile updates with a positive spin. The influx of seemingly happy statuses and pictures, however, makes many young people feel that their lives are not as enjoyable as their peers, leading to psychological and emotional struggles. Freitas concludes that young people must slow down their lives, meditate, reconsider the importance of personal branding, and sometimes stay away from mobile technologies. Summing Up: Recommended. All levels/libraries. --Yuya Kiuchi, Michigan State University