Creativity: One of the top three personality traits important for career success (Adobe, 2013, p. 19)

The report emphasizes, however, the shifting perceptions of the value of creativity in professional success.  This makes sense because is a rapidly changing environment, heuristics are increasingly ineffective.  Old rules of thumb don’t apply well to a world with new rules.  The challenge is to find a way to encourage creativity at all levels–educators as well as students, managers and leaders as well as employees and even parents as well as kids.

NB: One of the reasons why I feel privileged to be teaching these days is the challenge of  preparing students for our rapidly changing, socially-networked world.   In the courses I teach on leadership psychology and media psychology at MSPP, we spend a lot of time exploring ways to implement creative approaches to leadership and media.  We integrate design thinking, a systems perspective and adaptive leadership approaches to avoid falling back on traditional approaches and solutions to 21st century problems.  I know there are lots of you out there taking on the challenge as well and I welcome your insights and feedback!

Overuse of social media might be the symptom, not the cause

The study’s findings are correlational, not causal.  In other words, all the headlines saying that ‘social media may harm your kids grade point average’ are inaccurate just as mind is above.  The results of the study say that social media use may be an indicator of or related to (not the cause of) lower GPAs or, equally, that lower GPAs might be an indicator of or related to (not the cause of) higher social media use.

Other things we know about young women —actually all young adults  — in their first year in college is that some adjust better than others.  Some struggle with the newly found freedom and have trouble balancing social life and academics.  This was true long before social media. One college president routinely reassures visiting parents on Parent’s Weekend that a freshmen wanting to transfer to a different school was actually the norm rather than the exception.  They don’t call it the Freshmen blues for nothing.

Around the age of 18, college freshman of both genders are on a developmental path to establish an identity as an adult and to emancipate emotionally from their family of origin so that they can go out and find their path in the world. The urge to connect socially is part of that—young people tend to focus more on peer connections during this period.  At the same time, spending an extended period away from home, family, friends, the dog and familiar places and routines is scary, lonely, and difficult at any age.  When our college-age kids showed up for a weekend (with dirty laundry), they lounged about like they were still 9 years old rather than able-bodied adults.  We used to remind ourselves “they’re big, but they’re little” so we could be compassionate instead of impatient—or jealous.  As most of us know, being an adult is not all it’s cracked up to be, so it made sense that they might want take a bit of a developmental hiatus while they still could.

Research findings have also shown that overuse of many digital activities, such as social media, Internet surfing, or gaming can be indicators of depression.  The same, however, can be said of beer-drinking, partying or shopping at the local mall.  Some earlier findings have suggested that females and minority students are more likely to feel a loss of control and alienation than white males.  Loneliness and small social network support has been associated with lower levels of antibody response.  In the Walsh et al study, the participants reported the number of minutes they used social media, not the size of their social networks, which might be an interesting question.

The prevalence of peer-to-peer communications, the biological drive to connect, and the ease of access to social media, might also suggest to educators that it’s time to think about using new communications models to engage students in lieu of a passive lecture hall model.  Lecture halls have always been boring, but social media provides a pretty easy escape. Research findings have suggested that the human brain doesn’t completely develop until the early 20s, so it’s not a shocker that young people do are not always able to exercise wisdom and foresight or to see the long game rather than respond to a text about the next kegger location.

But most of all, we have to remember that learning balance and self-control comes from practice.  And, unfortunately, the best way to see the implications of bad choices is to get undesirable results.  But before we fix a problem by automatically assuming that a dipping GPA is due to high social media use, we might want to check what else is going on—overuse of social media might well be the symptom, not the cause.  We also have to be careful when we read study results that we aren’t just confirming our own biases.  When it “makes sense” to those who view social media as a waste of time that higher social media use would cause grades to fall, then inaccurate headlines get embraced as ‘facts’ and passed around.  We humans often don’t question what we believe and we are very good indeed at finding what we expect to see.  If your kid is on the receiving end of a declining GPA, it’s important to investigate with an open mind.  Of course, it might be over-indulgence in online socializing (although that rarely happens without the equivalent over-indulging in offline socializing), but the expectation that social media is to blame might keep you from seeing something more fundamental that is driving their relentless urge to connect socially, like loneliness, depression, or feeling alienated and overwhelmed.

Cross-posted in Psychology Today Positively Media.

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Walsh, J. L., Fielder, R., Carey, K. B., & Carey, M. P. (March 26, 2013). Female College Students’ Media Use and Academic Outcomes: Results from a Longitudinal Cohort. Emerging Adulthood,  from http://eax.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/03/05/2167696813479780.

What’s your opinion about selfies?  Vote here.

Western civilization has a rich history of self-portraiture that continues to expand with technological innovations.  Where once they were the province of the elite either in status or skill, cell phones and Instagram have democratized self-portraiture, making them less precious and more fun.   Voila selfies.

Selfies aren’t new, in spite of the recent surge.  Self-portraits tagged as #selfie began to appear on the photo-sharing site Flickr and on MySpace back in 2004 and the first definition of a ‘selfie’ gained entry on UrbanDictionary.com by 2005 (albeit spelled ‘selfy’).  But camera phones, especially those with front and back lens action, have made taking selfies faster and easier than ever.

Young women are the biggest population of selfie-posters and you know it’s going mainstream when marketers jump on the bandwagon.  The Fashion Conglomerate Westfield launched a contest called “Selfies Style” soliciting selfies that highlight individual style after research indicated that six out of every ten women used their mobile device to take self portraits, most of which end up on Facebook.

Humans have long demonstrated an interest in self-exploration.  From early Greeks to present day, people have used self-study and self-observation to explore identity and sense of self.  Trying to figure out who we are and what we’re about is a distinctly human pursuit for almost everyone, whether you are trying to find greater consciousness or figure out what moved you to buy the blue shoes.

It’s not a big leap to go from a pursuit of self-exploration to the desire for self-portrait.  As far back as Ancient Egypt, people of wealth and power have commissioned self-portraits, although less for self-exploration than glorification.  Nevertheless, a number of technological breakthroughs throughout history have continued to lower the barriers to the creation and display of self-portraits.

We take mirrors for granted, but their invention in the 15^th century let artists paint themselves, which some, like Albrecht Durer, did with gusto.  The camera in the 1860s launched a new era of selfies, but the technology demanded skill and expense.  As the camera evolved, more and increasingly creative versions of self-portraiture appeared.  Digital cameras freed portraiture from the cost and time lag of film. 

Then mobile phones became cameras, too.  By 2012, 86% of the population of the US had a cell phone, lagging behind a host of countries like the UK, Italy, Spain and China.  You might not always take your camera with you, but you always have your phone.  The floodgates were open on our ability to not only document everything at no marginal cost, but share them as well. (Mobile Internet access allows easy real time posting but people can also post to a Facebook page using text messaging.)

Western civilization has a rich history of self-portraiture that expands with technological access.  Cell phones and Instagram have democratized self-portraiture, making them less precious and turning them into selfies.

In spite of the wealth of negative headlines, there are several reasons for selfies that have nothing to do with narcissism.

• Selfies facilate self and identity exploration.  One of the most effective ways to know yourself is to see yourself as others see you.  Selfies offer the opportunities to show facets of yourself, such as the arty side, the silly side, or the glamorous side.  We learn about people by accumulating information over time.  Our understanding of everything, include other people, is a synthesis of all the things we know about them.  By offering different aspects through images, we are sharing more of ourselves, becoming more authentic and transparent—things that digital connectivity encourages.
• Selfies cab clearly identify a passion or interest that reinforces our social identity, like the selfies of Japanese teens doing the Kamehameha moves from the popular Dragon Ball manga and anime series. 
  
• Selfies can be more about the context than the self, such as an artistic expression of fashion or photographic technique.
• Selfies can be a transitory question, such as seeking feedback from a friend — “Do you like this outfit?”
• Selfies are not all about seeking external validation. People often say that posters of selfies just want approval.  We ALL seek approval.  Humans are social animals, driven by the need for connection and social validation.  We want to be valued, appreciated, and included in the groups that matter to us.
• Selfies have many layers. As viewers, we are aware that every selfie is self-generated.  We also take this into account with every selfie — we inherently look for the sub-test about what is being revealed.
• Selfies feel more real than traditional portraits.  Selfies are popular with celebrities who cultivate their fans because in their casual rawness, selfies feel more immediate, intimate and personal, enhancing the celebrity’s connection to their fans.
• Selfies can be normalizing.  For years, people have been concerned about the amount of images of ‘perfect’ women on the Internet.  Between profiles pictures and selfies on photo sharing sites, there are many more photos of ‘real’ people images compared to idealized images  by thousands.  The “ugly selfie” has also emerged in part a response to criticism about narcissism and in part a self-exploration of motive.  The push for authenticity has emerged, sometimes through humor as in Reddit’s “Pretty Girls Ugly Faces” meme, in which users upload photos of themselves with disgusting faces next to the conventional shot.   One artist commented that the ugly selfie challenges her own vanity and puts her personality back into the self-documentation.
• Selfies offer users the ability to create a life narrative through images—silly, ugly, pretty, whatever.  Images interact differently with the brain than text.  Images encode experience.  When we look at old photos, our brains revive the event allowing us to relive some of the emotions, context, and experience.  We can look back on our motives and actions and gain insight we couldn’t’ get in any other way.

And maybe it’s okay to celebrate yourself along the way.  What’s your opinion about selfies?  Let me know here.

Selfies from top: Rihanna, Amanda Bynes, Albrecht Durer, Japanese teens performing Kamehameha Attack moves from popular Dragon Ball anime and manga, and Justin Bieber.

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Cross-posted on PsychologyToday.com in Positively Media