In simple terms, I interpret the term ‘social media’ as a platform that allows different content, whether text, image or audio based, to be created, viewed and shared amongst a network of other users. In more detail, that often means the authoring, publishing and distribution of content is done through the platform’s own inbuilt content creating software, however, affords third party media to be shared as well. These platforms often have features like a home feed, direct messaging, an exploration page and “often have cues quantifying social distance with metrics such as number of shared friends, shared hobbies, interaction history” (Wei and Liu, 2020).

I learnt from the Sensis report that 70.3% of 18 – 29 year old’s use their phones during movies compared to 28.3% for soap operas, 42.0% for comedy shows, 34.8% for news and current affairs shows, 26.1% for sport, 37.0% for reality tv shows, 34.1 % for drama, 21.0% for documentaries and 1.4% for others. I found this statistic quite startling as one of my personal pet peeves is when people use their phones during movie screenings, whether in a cinema or at home as I like to enjoy films without any distractions. It was also surprising that, when compared to movies, the amount of people using their phones during television shows in general is quite low. Comedy shows are the second highest which is somewhat understandable as they can sometimes fade into the background quite easily especially if they aren’t good quality. Additionally, the genre can be quite broad so a show that might be slower paced with fewer ‘comedic’ moments could lose an audience members attention to social media but still be categorised as a comedy. However, I thought the percentage of people using social media during reality tv shows was quite low considering they are edited in a way to manipulate contestants and heighten drama to extreme levels which always gets people talking. I expected reality tv shows to be higher as social media offers audiences a platform for them to air their grievances with the drama or contestants on the show.

Another Sensis fact that took me by surprise was that 68.6% of 18 – 29 year old’s check their phone first thing in the morning. I thought this would have been lower than those who check it in the evening which is only 51.4%. I suspect this is due to many 18 – 29 year old’s having their phone in their bedroom and using it as an alarm clock, then after turning off the alarm checking social media. Compare this to 30+ male and females in both metro and regional parts of Australia. Only 55.3% of them check their phone first thing in the morning which is lower than those who check it in the evening which is 59.1% of Australians aged 30+. This seems to confirm my suspicions that there is a generational shift moving away from using alarms clocks amongst the younger demographic and instead using their phones to wake themselves up then checking social media afterwards. In addition to many of the 18 – 29 year old demographic having grown up with “increased availability of touch screen devices in the home” (Moffat, 2014). I know I personally do this so it makes sense that others in my demographic would do the same.

MOFFAT, P. 2014. SCREEN TIME. Community Practitioner, 87, 16-18.

WEI, L. & LIU, B. 2020. Reactions to others’ misfortune on social media: Effects of homophily and publicness on schadenfreude, empathy, and perceived deservingness. Computers in Human Behavior, 102, 1-13.