Pew Research Internet
Stats + related links for Social Media Use in 2021

A majority of Americans say they use YouTube and Facebook, while use of Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok is especially common among adults under 30. Open at source
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The New Yorker
TikTok and the Vibes RevivalThe New Yorker
8 min read · Apr 26th · Increasingly, what we’re after on social media is not narrative or personality but moments of audiovisual eloquence.
digital life
social media
inspiration
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Robin James describes this phenomenon as “vibe-capitalism.” If tightly associated with a product or company, a vibe can become a kind of free-floating commercial, including or alienating audiences based on their tastes. Think of the association of healthy-yet-intoxicating Californian bohemianism with the clothing brand Reformation or of turbocharged techno-masculinity with Tesla cars.
Vibes were made for the Internet not just because they’re audiovisual but because, like all memes, they are participatory. Anyone can assemble her own version.
The Verge
The US declared war on TikTok because it can’t handle the truthThe Verge
~13 min read · 2020-08-07 · The new internet cold war is all about lying to ourselves.
technology
social media
tiktok
The Verge
A teenager on TikTok disrupted thousands of scientific studies with a single videoThe Verge
5 min read · Sep 24th · One TikTok created a mystery for some scientific surveys.
science
social media
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A member of the Stanford Behavioral Laboratory posted on a Prolific forum, “We have noticed a huge leap in the number of participants on the platform in the US Pool, from 40k to 80k. Which is great, however, now a lot of our studies have a gender skew where maybe 85% of participants are women. Plus the age has been averaging around 21.”
Visual Capitalist
The World’s Top 50 Influencers Across Social Media PlatformsVisual Capitalist
~13 min read · May 15th · Which influencers have the most total social media followers? We tally up follower counts across all major platforms, from Twitter to TikTok.
social media
digital life
influencers
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As of April 2021, soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo was the most-followed person on social media with almost 500 million total followers.
The New York Times
We Tested Instagram Reels, the TikTok Clone. What a Dud.The New York Times
7 min read · 2020-08-12 · TikTok might not be winning over President Trump, but it sure beats its Instagram copycat for making and sharing short videos.
social media
facebook
tiktok
TechCrunch
TikTok just gave itself permission to collect biometric data on US users, including ‘faceprints and voiceprints’TechCrunch
5 min read · Jun 3rd · A change to TikTok’s U.S. privacy policy on Wednesday introduced a new section that says the social video app “may collect biometric identifiers and biometric information” from its users’ content.…
privacy
digital life
social media
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The policy also notes this part of the data collection is for enabling “special video effects, for content moderation, for demographic classification, for content and ad recommendations, and for other non-personally-identifying operations
BBC Future
Would Plato tweet? The Ancient Greek guide to social mediaBBC Future
10 min read · Sep 23rd · Socrates or Plato may not have used Twitter or TikTok, but as Nathan Dufour writes, they would have had things to say about how to navigate social media more wisely.
philosophy
digital life
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Early philosophers developed highly elaborate public personas
We may be returning to a state in which a thinker's claim to wisdom relies on their ability to effectively perform it
we may be returning to a state in which a thinker's claim to wisdom relies on their ability to effectively perform it
Packy McCormick (📜,📜)
Shein: The TikTok of EcommercePacky McCormick (📜,📜)
20+ min read · May 17th · The Quiet Chinese Quindecacorn Taking Over America’s Gen Z Shoppers
startups
social media
shein
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Shein (pronounced She In) is the fastest-growing ecommerce company in the world. It reportedly did almost $10 billion in revenue in 2020, and has grown over 100% for each of the past eight years.
Selling fast-fashion through an app allows Shein to lean into its advantages to compete on three vectors it’s uniquely suited to win:  Price: “affordability”  Selection: “choice”   Retention: “addictiveness”
The Intercept
TikTok Told Moderators: Suppress Posts by the “Ugly” and PoorThe Intercept
10 min read · 2020-03-16 · The China-based social media company also has policies censoring various forms of political speech, leaked documents reveal.
tiktok
media
social media
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