Chris Somerville

Thesis Statement

Excessive exposure to social media platforms is detrimental to social development, and can lead to anti-social behavior. To create awareness of this negative social impact, a conceptual installation will be created that will utilize live social-media interaction and allegorical imagery.

Abstract

Society is able to communicate with each other, one on one, one thousand friends to one, or a million hits to one. Share media, share ideas, like it, comment, tweet it, blog about your tweet, and write your own History in Wikipedia. Go viral. The social implication of this bombardment of electronic media has been viewed to have many social benefits. Social media platforms, like Twitter, have been shown to enhance our social lives and make our interaction with one another easier. However, many researchers have pointed to the fact that the development of electronic media meant to enhance our lives is proving to be detrimental to our social development. Communication with each other is not enhanced but hindered. How often have we seen a colleague stop mid-sentence to look at their text message, or witnessed the growing popularity of cyber bullying among teens.This thesis will create awareness of the negative effects of social media by the creation of an interactive installation art piece that will address the negative, anti-social influences of social media on society.