Media has shaped the way children are raised, the way people date, and, as this reading explains, how people act. The author, Rajiv N. Ramil, starts their reading with, “Humans act, at least partly, on the basis of how they think others expect them to act”. I think this is true, solely based on my own experiences and opinions from my peers. Throughout the reading it it explained in technical terms data-backed research into why this is true.
The first and most important point made is that humans may act as they think others want them to act, but they are very often inaccurate in their assessment of those others. The name given to this is pluralistic ignorance. The author uses the example of the college students and their own perception of underage drinking. Students believe that others consume more than they do, because media has showcased partying and drinking in every movie we watched as a kid and teenager. But once the time of college and partying comes around, the actual level of consumption of alcohol is much lower than depicted on the big screen. I have experienced this first hand after attending college and living on the UNLV campus. I felt the need to drink and party to have fun, because I felt that everyone else was doing it, but I have found that a lot of people think that.
The false consensus effect is similar to the pluralistic effect, because they both involve misconception. The false consensus effect is the “tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share…”(Rimal). I see this in myself when I see a picture of my high school friend at the gym or with their new boyfriend. My first assumption is that they’re doing better than I am or that I’m less than them, because I don’t have those things. What I don’t think of is that they’re only going to share what they want to share, not the bad things they’re going through.
These two effects have a huge amount of influence on young adults from Instagram to Facebook to their own college campus. They may not realize social media is separate from their real life. Learning to push past these phenomenons will help people form a better understanding of how others display themselves on social media and how that very much differs from them in person. It could also help people connect on a deeper level, because there isn’t a mask of social media before the actual person.
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