Crossing the Streams: Discussing Context Collapse

I recently read two really great blog posts that dissected and analyzed Urie Bronfenbrenner's theory of ecological development in the context of social media use. Paul Gordon Brown and Paul Eaton are two fabulous writers/researchers doing work in the area of social media and student development. Each wrote about Bronfenbrenner's theory, but with slightly different twists.

Reading the two posts pushed me to think more about my own area of research interest related to how social media use influences male gender identity development. Of particular interest after reading Brown and Eaton's blog posts was the idea of how multiple systems make up a student's social ecology and how we can observe where those systems interact with (or bounce off of) one another when watching an identity develop on social media. After all, "we present ourselves differently based on who we are talking to and where the conversation takes place" (Marwick & boyd 2010, p. 114). So how does the interaction within and between a student's social systems create both friction AND a better understanding of personal identity development?

A little background: Bronfenbrenner's Bioecological Development Model falls under the person-environment theory branch of the student development tree. Bronfenbrenner studied how the interaction between a person and that person's environment influences student growth. Brown gives a very nice, succinct overview of Bronfenbrenner's work in his post:

"In Bronfenbrenner’s theory, development occurs as a result of the interaction of a person and the environment. This “ecology” consists of four components: process, person, context and time. The person, or college student, is the focus of the development and possesses certain characteristics and personality traits that influence or impact the trajectory of their development. The person develops thorough proximal processes that are the interactions that spur or retard their development. All of this takes place through time and in context. Context is the component of the theory that is of most interest here, and it includes four components:

• Microsystem: Activity and face-to-face interactions in the immediate environment. (roommates, family, sports teams, etc.)
• Mesosystem: Processes that take place between or as a result of microsystem contact and/or overlap. (campus culture, different role obligations, etc.).
• Exosystem: Influence an individual but do not directly include them. (School rules, financial aid policies, the NCAA, the Department of Education, etc.)
• Macrosystem: Overall contextual beliefs that influence the whole system. (American democracy, meritocratic notions, etc.)"

Interactions on social media sites fall within the microsystem category; the transactional interactions on a micro - or more immediate - level. A step back from that is the mesosystem, where microsystems are in contact with one another and create a more complete picture of the greater environment that influences a student. It's at this point where Eaton mentions context collapse in his post, which is one of the central ideas I would like to investigate in my research.

Eaton says of the mesosystem: "Social media users must navigate the interaction between digital environments and physical environments in a complex set of relational processes. boyd (2014) refers to this process as avoiding identity and context collapse." Eaton talks about the relationship between the digital and physical, and Brown talks about adding the layer of the relationship between multiple and varied digital environments. The various opportunities for identities and microsystems to bump into one another and disrupt or impede development is an area ripe for this idea of context collapse.

The plan for my dissertation research is to study how social media acts as a critical influence in male gender identity development.  Specifically how college men use public social media (e.g. Facebook) compared anonymous social media (e.g. Yik Yak) and examining performed gender in those online spaces.  I'm very interested in context collapse and feel as though this could be an interesting part of the qualitative data.

danah boyd used the term "context collapse" to describe how a social media network like Twitter collapses multiple audiences into a single context. That collapsing of contexts makes it difficult for the user to understand the scope of the audience and makes it difficult to negotiate and manage interactions like one would in a face-to-face conversation. Marwick and boyd (2011) wrote that individuals have a sense of audience in every mediated conversation. So whether that audience is imagined or constructed, the individual makes a decision about how to present themselves in a manner that they feel is appropriate to the context of that interaction. Through social media or through other methods of digital technology (Michael Wesch (2009) discussed context collapse via computer webcams in his research) the distribution of an individual's image or message negates an ability to negotiate a conversation like you would in a face-to-face interaction.

There is a vital connection between context collapse and performed masculine identity. The pressure to perform as a man and fit into whatever socially constructed image of masculinity exists in that particular man's context can create internal conflict regarding identity. When that performance is then disbursed digitally and left open for interpretation by others, the collapsing contexts can create a dilemma for college men. "That's not what I meant by that." "You misunderstood..." "I'm really not THAT guy." As an example: a college male may share a post objectifying women because of a masculine role defined by peers, but by doing so may jeopardize an opportunity for a summer internship. So identity confusion for men negotiating masculinity among social systems is compounded by this idea that he doesn't even really know who is seeing what he's posting or how it's being interpreted. This is troublesome and something I look forward to investigating as I move forward with my planned research.

Brown brings up several great questions in his post: Are our students in "multiple worlds" at once? Do each of these worlds contain their own set of interactions, norms and rules? How do students "hold everything together" when they hop from app-to-app, world-to-world, and relationship-to-relationship on their smartphones? My responses: "Yes," "yes" and "I have no idea - it's a struggle, but we can help!"

So what do we do about it? Context collapse is not really entirely preventable in a current college climate where our students exists in multiple social microsystems at once, nor should it be - learning to negotiate relationships and understanding both the scope of and differentiation within your social systems is vital to identity development. But there is an opportunity for education and guidance around context collapse. What are the soft skills that helps one navigate when one identity intersects with another? These might include:

1. Continued development of interpersonal skills
2. Understanding social and professional etiquette (though I understand the difficulties therein because of culture-specific understandings of both)
3. Recognizing politics of relationships and developing political savvy
4. Understanding consequences of social media mis-steps
5. Developing skills to "fail forward" - learning from struggles of balancing social systems in order to negotiate all relationships in positive ways

How do we engage students in the process of recognizing the complex nature of connections and relationships? Bringing in the idea of context collapse and understanding audiences - both imagined and constructed - and openly discussing how our performed identities are perceived and interpreted should be included in conversations.

I can't help but think of this valuable advice Egon Spengler once gave Peter Venkman in Ghostbusters. Spengler told Venkman never to cross the streams from the Proton Packs because of the dire consequences that may ensue. I think about context collapse in this way - we often warn students in very surface ways that posting and saying things online have potentially negative consequences and to be mindful of the crossover (i.e. "Don't cross the streams!"). But with the expanding use of social media, the streams are going to cross. And, as we saw in the epic final scene, the streams crossing can be messy but ultimately end up providing an opportunity for something positive (like beating Gozer and destroying the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, of course!). Crossing the streams may not result in the total protonic reversal of which Spengler warned us, but may actually spur identity development (both digital and non-digital) and push our students toward becoming more conscious of their social systems.

Thoughts? Ideas for how to address collapsing contexts in digital relationships? 

Confirmation Bias via Social Media

 "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." - Nobel Prize-winning physicist Max Planck

That statement is a pretty cynical view of the ability to argue and reason via dialogue, but it may well sum up where we are in the burgeoning golden age of social media. As we enter the point of global social media saturation, the use of the medium informs - and skews - our ability to share multiple perspectives. Ironic, isn't it? That the medium that seemingly shrinks the distance between people and ideas is often actually limiting us in our rational dialogue? Of course at its best social media provide terrific formats for conversation, idea sharing and knowledge acquisition. But unmediated, open venues are spaces where bullheaded persuasion is the key to determining what information has value. 

The truth now, according to Cordelia Fine, is "established less by the noble use of reason than by the stubborn exertion of will." This stubborn exertion of will is our commitment to our own ideas - to sticking to our beliefs and mindsets.

According to Stanovich, West and Toplak (2013), confirmation bias (or "myside bias") occurs "when people evaluate evidence, generate evidence, and test hypotheses in a manner biased toward their own prior opinions and attitudes." Confirmation bias is when we agree with something because it supports or aligns with what we already believe. It can be dangerous and limiting to our ability to have rational conversations and it's being amplified by social media.

You've likely heard Twitter being referred to as an "echo chamber."  An idea is shared and it's regurgitated over and over and suddenly it's just what 1,000 others have said and it loses it's impact. I first heard this term from T.J. Logan and have carried it with me when thinking about how I share and interact on social media. The echo chamber encourages and promotes confirmation bias - it keeps us in the same circles of thought and locks us into patterns of acting.

It's the easy thing to do, though. We fall in line with what others are saying. We take the popular perspective and tell ourselves we agree with it and then refuse to bring in other perspectives. (And even when we say we're open to other perspectives, our actions and words don't always support that. It's true. Don't deny it... we all do it).

Confirmation bias is the exact opposite of what we tell our students every day. We help our students move away from dualistic thinking from the moment they walk in the door, yet we often end up seeing ideas as "right" and "wrong" online. As a result, our actions in promoting our "right" and denouncing the "wrong" are not helpful models of rational thought and positive dialogue.

Many of us put off anything that might challenge us or make us uncomfortable - anything that falls outside our comfort zone. Behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner called this cognitive dissonance - when something we hold true or right is challenged and it pushes us to question our own beliefs... to question if what we thought was "right" is actually right anymore. But allowing outside perspectives to challenge us drives us toward conversations that eliminate duality and promote the very thing we encourage students to do - think globally, think from varied and diverse perspectives, respect the opinions of others. Social media gives us a powerful tool for letting other perspectives influence us if we take off the blinders of confirmation bias and avoid the echo chamber.

We see confirmation bias show through on big, vital, human topics like Ferguson and Eric Garner. But we also see it sneak into trivial, everyday conversations like college football playoff rankings. But letting confirmation bias affect thinking on the small things (like college football) trains us to let it affect how we think about critical moral and ethical issues (like privilege and race).

In his book "Digital Leader," Erik Qualman talks about the role we have in social media to create awareness and engagement. Qualman writes "Remember that influence has surpassed information in terms of importance because information is cheap and easily accessible." Reason, influence and dialogue evidently are not as cheap. So how are you using your digital influence to encourage dialogue? How are you avoiding confirmation bias in your digital engagement to allow others space to share, learn and grow regardless of whether their opinion is different than your own?

Our innate motivation to connect to those who share our point of view is important, but it's finding significance in arguments and opinions in opposition to our own thinking that make us better critical thinkers and better educators, particularly in the digital spaces we occupy. I hope we can all agree on that.