Social VR - Repairing Facebook's Damaged Reputation

It’s fair to say that social media’s reputation hasn’t quite grown at the same rate as the number of people who register to use its various forms. Right now, there are an estimated 2.77 billion social media users around the globe, with this figure expected to hit the three billion mark in 2021.

- Benjamin Kerry & Gavin Lenaghan

VIRTUAL REALITY COULD BE A SAVIOR

From intrigue about the latest communications innovation, to wanting to keep in touch with others or not fall behind others in the ‘fashionable technology’ stakes, the reasons people have had to initially engage with social media have varied – as has its reputation. Recent worldwide incidents, like last year’s Cambridge Analytica scandal, have also done little to help the image of social media.

But it’s not just the way social networks are run that has created this negative digital aura. The ways social media is used, potentially against its users, have also become increasingly questionable. Even the term ‘user’ has taken on a more familiar dimension, as research into social media usage becomes more prominent in academic research.

COMPROMISED DATA AND DECISION MAKING

A recent study published by Michigan State University found that excessive social media usage is actually comparable to drug addiction. Given the patterns of repeated poor decision-making that are similar to those of substance abusers and problem gamblers, this is part of a growing body of work that suggests social media is changing the ways our brains work and becoming detrimental to mental health.

Not only this, but social media has changed the ways we perceive ourselves physically, too. While this is also essentially a mental health problem, the easy-to-manipulate images uploaded to sites are leading to an entirely new illness –