By: Brittany Walker
Most people do not realize all of the affects social media has on them. From Twitter, Facebook posts, news articles and even Buzzfeed, reader’s opinions or the readers themselves are changing because of what they are reading. This society has turned to social media for all of their information and has let it have a bigger impact on them than need be. This type of process deals with the social learning theory and media, started by Albert Bandura in 1925, and the stages of moral development. The media also depicts things differently. Developing opinions based on social media can have a more negative affect than a positive one. Over the past decade, as technology becomes more utilized and improved, the social learning theory has become more important to the way children grow up and think.
In 1983, Richard Clark did research to see if media actually had an influence on the way people learn. His research proved that media “do not influence learning under any condition.”
“Media are mere vehicles that deliver instruction but do not influence student achievement any more than the truck that delivers our groceries causes changes in our nutrition,” Clark said.
Within the past year, there have been many violent acts in and out of this country and a switch of presidents that has caused America to go downhill. The social media (television, news, etc.) has not made these situations any better. Recently, Associated Press posted an article titled “Trump targets many more immigrants for possible deportation.”
A girl I babysit, who is a young Hispanic girl, had seen everything on the television about Trump’s “wall” and immigration ban. She had asked me about it before, but today she saw this photo and the title of the article. She asked me “Am I going to have to move?” I explained what this meant and re-assured this 10-year-old that she would be fine. A few minutes later, she looked at me and said “This new president makes me hate myself.” It broke my heart to hear those words, but it made me even more mad that this was happening because of the negativity going on in the world.
When self-hate is starting at a young age because of the events going on around them, it proves Bandura’s theory is correct. When Bandura was creating this theory, he did the Bobo doll experiment that proved children will take after adults when they seem them behave a certain way.
Cathy Faye, the Assistant Director of the Center for the History of Psychology at The University of Akron, was quoted on www.physocologicalscience.org talking about the Bobo doll experiment.
“In many respects, this research helped create the shift in psychology from a behavioristic to a social-cognitive approach to learning,” Faye said.
http://web.uconn.edu/myoung/Kozma.pdf
Ethics and Diversity in Media 