Conférence par Prof. Antonia Lyons (Université d'Auckland): Social media, digital marketing and the health and wellbeing of young people

Résumé: La Professeure Antonia Lyons présentera ses travaux de recherche actuels sur comment les jeunes naviguent dans un paysage numérique dominé par ce qu'elle appelle le 'capitalisme des plateformes limbiquese'. Dans ses études elle analyse comment les plateformes de médias sociaux exploitent des algorithmes pour influencer les comportements des jeunes utilisateur·ice·s et pour promouvoir des produits addictifs (alcool, vapoteuse). Elle présentera également comment les jeunes tentent de préserver leur bien-être face à ces pressions commerciales.

Intitulée présentation : Social media, digital marketing and the health and wellbeing of young people

Abstract: Social media are central to young people’s social worlds, but this digital landscape enables the algorithmically targeted marketing of legal, psychoactive products (alcohol, vape products). The purposive design, production and marketing unhealthy products that stimulate habitual consumption and pleasure to maximise profit has been called ‘limbic capitalism’. Social media platforms intensify limbic capitalism. They are designed to generate, analyse and apply vast amounts of personalised data in an effort to tune flows of online content that capture users’ time and attention, influencing their affects, moods, emotions and desires in order to increase profits. Additionally, social media platforms, as well as the smartphones they are hosted on, are designed to be addictive. This talk will describe a project that explored young people’s digital worlds from their perspectives, using a ‘limbic platform capitalism’ framework. We used survey, friendship group discussions and digital ethnography methods to gain insight into young New Zealander’s (14-22 years) social media use, views on social media addiction, and exposure to unhealthy commodity marketing online. Findings showed that young people actively appropriate social media for their own ends while being aware of the addictive properties of platforms as well as their commercial nature. Many navigate the digital environment in ways that protect their health and wellbeing, even when being targeted by producers of limbic products and services. We need effective policies that protect young people from digital systems that encourage addictive and unhealthy behaviours.

La présentation se tiendra en anglais.

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