In the article “The Social Media Ecology: User Perceptions, Strategies and Challenges by Xhao, Lampe and Ellison discuss the ways in which people have had multi faceted use of communication through social media. This consistent change of ecology for these social media platforms has created a “norm” about what social media should look like. Moreover, people consider their “audience” and “content” when distinguishing what they should post on each site.

The authors emphasize that there is a misconception of the internet being known as a homogenous platform. However, social media platforms over the years have evolved to be diverse amongst users; different social media platforms have different uses. The study conducted in this experiment consisted of 29 participants from Midwestern City between the ages of 22-53. They were given a card-sorting task, where each card represented a different platform. In this experiment, they were told to create their own set of cards to list “modes of communication.” In this process, they described the relationship between these platforms. Through this experiment, they were able to discover that the participants based their post upon the “audience” and “norms” of their content. Essentially, their post depended on the social media app and what type of audience would interact with it. These researchers also discovered that people find it difficult stabilize their own platform but are always trying to find ways to adapt to “new tools”; new social medias or norms of it.

After reading this article, it is evident that social media has shifted the ways in which we behave and interact with people. We have become so conditioned to technology, that we base our actions of our audience or social media norms. It is fascinating to see how heavily social media has shaped how we choose to interact and post depending on which site we are on. There has become less of meaningful content, and more of “tailored” content.