Deck 23: New Social Media and the Technomoral Virtues

Question 1

Shannon Vallor is very skeptical about using social media to evade "boredom, awkwardness, conflict, fear, misunderstanding, exasperation, and uncomfortable intimacies that often arise from traditional communications." You might think that evading these things isn't wrong at all. In your essay, describe a situation where it would seem appropriate to engage in those behaviors that Vallor is skeptical about. How does this situation encourage you to think about Vallor's argument?

Answer 1

Offer a defense of using social media as a form of evasion that makes a serious attempt to respond to Vallor's concerns about it.
Correctly identify and defend the defense's controversial components using sound reasoning, well-chosen examples, insightful analogies, etc.

Question 2

In your essay, describe what Shannon Vallor means when she talks about the virtue of self-control. Then, explain what it would look like to see self-control in action, imagining the example of one person who exhibits it well. Is this different from the way that you use social media?

Answer 2

Explain Vallor's definition of self-control.
Offer an example that captures what Vallor means when she talks about this virtue.
Explain whether or not this imagined example is different from the way that the author engages in social media use.

Question 3

In the conclusion of her essay, Shannon Vallor says, "Technologies are not stone tablets delivered from on high. They are malleable human creations that can be reshaped in the service of living well if our collective will demands it. So what shall we demand?" In your essay, be specific about what it would look like to demand tools that help us to live well in the realm of social media. Be specific. You may want to imagine that you are talking directly to a social media company.

Answer 3

Include a thesis that's focused and appropriate given the assignment.
Clearly and succinctly state the main argument for the thesis.
Correctly identify and defend the argument's controversial premises using sound reasoning, well-chosen examples, insightful analogies, etc.

Question 4

What is the "dubious ideal" that social media promote, according to Vallor?

A) Social haplessness
B) Frictionless interactions
C) Disconnected friendships
D) Joyless engagements
E) Technomoral vice

Question 5

Vallor blames social media for teenagers' boorishness, self-absorption, and social haplessness.

Question 6

Empirical studies of the effects of new social media on youth lend increasing support to what thesis?

A) The Robinhood thesis
B) The attention gap thesis
C) The shallows thesis
D) The rich get richer thesis
E) The empathic concern thesis

Question 7

How does Vallor define the technomoral virtue of care?

A) A matter of interest or importance to someone who is willing to extend kindness to others
B) A state of mutual trust and support between two members of a technosocial community who work to sustain each other
C) A habitual moderation in the indulgence of the appetites or passions within the context of social media use and extended to engagement with others
D) Friendly association with people who share one's interests within the world of social media use specifically and technosocial interaction generally
E) The skillful, attentive, and emotionally responsive disposition to labor to meet the needs of other members of our technosocial world

Question 8

Which virtue that Vallor discusses fits this definition: "an exemplary ability in technosocial contexts to choose, and ideally to desire for their own sakes, those goods and experiences that most contribute to our and others' flourishing?"

A) Courage
B) Self-control
C) Empathy
D) Moral attention
E) Temperance

Question 9

Vallor affirms that if new social media habits challenge our self-control, it likely has much to do with our ________ in technosocial environments.

A) Emotional responses
B) Cognitive behaviors
C) Peers' influence
D) Interpersonal connections
E) Attentional capacities

Question 10

Vallor discusses a number of features of empathic concern. Which of the following is NOT one of those features?

A) It requires that the person in need feel comfortable sharing
B) The neural mechanisms of attention that produce it require more time to activate than others
C) Being told of a person's emotional state is not enough to activate it
D) It relies heavily on the ability to read emotional cue from others' faces and bodies
E) Distractibility may pose a significant obstacle to exercising this virtue

Question 11

Vallor affirms that the comparisons between oneself and others on social media often has what effect on that person?

A) They are a significant cause of emotional distress
B) They may cause some negative self-reflection
C) They do not have much of an effect
D) They have the potential to have a net positive effect
E) They have an overall positive effect

Question 12

How does Vallor describe new technologies?

A) As inherently harmful tools that ought to be stopped
B) As rigidly structured constants manufactured by tech giants
C) As malleable human creations that can be reshaped
D) As stone tablets delivered from on high
E) As potential solutions to most every social problem

Question 13

Vallor affirms that caring about the truth of one's own character and focusing one one's own life within a moral community are indicators of vice.