APA Formatting and The Social Dilemma Analysis

The American Psychological Association is most well known for how we all format and type out our papers in school. Most of us all know it as the APA format, the one taught and wanted for all college-level papers. Though, for some, the formatting of this writing style has confused many people, including myself. A video titled APA Style and Literature Searches - Tom Kluxen, posted by the Stockton University YouTube account helps give a better understanding of how to format in APA, as well as resources for students, specifically those attending Stockton University, can use to search for sources.

Formatting

One of the aspects that the APA format is known for is its use of an abstract. The abstract is useful for readers, as it gives them a brief introduction to what they are about to read. When writing an abstract, instructors will vary in how long an abstract should be, though, the general consensus states that it should be around 150-250 words in length. It is also important to note that when writing an essay, the abstract should be the last section of the paper to be written. 

The next important aspects of APA are the body paragraphs. The body paragraphs will contain the majority of the information you have researched. A good way to organize your paragraphs is through sections and connecting ideas. The number of body paragraphs you will need to write depends on the length of the paper, as well as the depth of research. An essay containing 6 to 8 paragraphs will be enough for a 3-page paper, but it will be insufficient for a 10-page paper.

Sources and Citations

Before the writing process starts, you should have found sources during your researching period to be able to write a complete essay. If you were to write a paper on a social science, it would be best to find information that was reported recently. This is because social sciences, such as psychology or criminal justice, can change easily. A report from 5 years ago can differ from one made 2 years ago, and a report from 20 years ago will differ from one made 6 years ago. Great places to find sources would be through academic journals and books, due to the fact that academic journals tend to be recent and peer-reviewed, and academic books have a reference page full of their citations at the end of the book.

The most common type of citation in the APA format is in-text citations. This citation includes two parts, the year of publication and the author's last name. For example, if one were to cite an article by John Smith from 2021, they would use the following: (Smith, 2021). An in-text citation is always needed if stating information from a source. Whether that statement is quoted or paraphrased, a citation is always needed.

On another note, last year, there was a documentary released on Netflix called The Social Dilemma. This documentary talks about how the purpose and use of social media have changed since its creation. This change has negatively affected the lives of everyday people, from children to adults.

The Social Dilemma

The issue that is talked about is the level of addiction that the social media creators did not originally foresee. The implications of this addiction have led to alarmingly high rates of suicide and self-harm amongst pre-teen and teenage girls, with the former increasing at a much higher rate than the latter. This increase in self-harm and suicide is caused by many things on social media, such as cyber-bullying, and the perception of what is considered perfect. This has caused medical experts to coin the term as social media dysmorphia. This is when young girls go in to get plastic surgery to look like their favorite social media stars or to appear more like the filtered pictures they took.

Another concern that the documentary brings up is the personalization of your social media feed. We would like to think that everything seen on our feed is based on what we like and who we follow, but it is more than just that. The algorithm used in every social media platform knows where you are, how you are feeling at any moment in time, and ads and posts are personalized based on your activities. The algorithm knows you better than you know yourself.

The documentary refers to social media as an addiction, in reference to drugs. The documentary states that only two markets in the world call their consumers "users", the drug industry and the tech industry. Every day people are being used by tech companies to build wealth. They manipulate users by exploiting their interests and allowing advertisers to make money off of their presumed consumers.