Pros and Cons of Social Media:
This article perfectly outlined the most important pros and cons of social media. The most important pros I found was boosting productivity completely made seance considering the abundance of information and accessibility of the internet. The article states "These tools offer more information— including real-time news—than a library full of encyclopedias, and the information’s accessible at any time of day or night" (par. 8). The biggest con I found however is also closely related to the pro. Social media allows false information to spread quickly. While on top of that being also addictive, the constant scrolling through feed can make an interesting looking post become popular without it actually having accurate information. 

Social media and youth political engagement: Preaching to the converted or providing a new voice for youth?
What I most took from this article was the variety of ways in which youth can voice their opinion on the internet. Through a variety of studies, the article showed how and when youth are most inclined to be politically engaged. 

The Personalization of Politics: Political Identity, Social Media, and Changing Patterns of Participation
Through personalization, people are being more inclined to participate in politics. As we see more and more candidates cater to different kinds of people, our options widen and we become a lot more comfortable voting when we see people with similar beliefs as ourselves. 

Blog post #2: Observing Crowd Behavior

This past weekend I had the opportunity to observe some of my competition while running in my first cross country race as an Argo. After my race, I was able to analyze my performance as well as the performance of my running peers. Winning a race takes much more than talent at the collegiate level. As we started the race I noticed that the "crowd" of runners were running a lot slower than I expected. This was a tactical race. Nobody wanted to take the lead or push the pace early on in the race in attempt to preserve as much energy as possible for the end of the race. I was able to correlate this behavior to Le Bon's interpretation of crowd behavior in a number of ways. From my understanding, Le Bon suggested that crowds are easily persuaded and conform to things that make them comfortable. Considering the slow pace in the race early on, I can conclude that all runners had the same idea in mind; to save energy. As the race progressed, so did the pace. After about the second mile of the four mile race, suddenly the "crowd" began to run faster and we all had to conform with the idea of gong with the pack at the risk of getting left behind.

"In his Politics, Aristotle believed man was a "political animal" because he is a social creature with the power of speech and moral reasoning: Hence it is evident that the state is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal." 

- Libertyfund.org

From reading the remainder of the article on Libertyfund.org I was able to understand Aristotle's ideas on humans as political animals. He suggested that every person is naturally a political animal because we all have the ability to create our own ideas and choose a political party. However, on the other hand he suggest that people who turn their backs on politics also tun their backs on society. Living as citizens without a "tribe", and without a heart. 

Blog Post #1: Looking Back, Looking Forward

After reading both, Looking Back, Looking Forward: ISPP at 40 and Future Directions

for Political Psychology and the introduction of The Crowd; The Study of The Popular

Mind, I have gained a better general understanding of the different topics Political Psychology

offers. While both articles covered extremely different information, they share similarities as far

as demonstrating the patterns of human behavior when making political decisions. 

    In the first article, Looking Back, Looking Forward: ISPP at 40 and Future Directions for

Political Psychology, author Katherine J. Reynolds introduces the ISPP (International Society

of Political Psychology). This organization hopes to stimulate discussion and ideas about the

future of political psychology. The ISPP warns us that there are three areas that will attract

more attention involving the ideology of political psychology. First, Reynolds talk about the issue

of possible decline in scientific rationalism and the threat of anti-liberalism. In this segment,

they introduce terms such as “truthiness”, “post truth”, and “motivated reasoning” to illustrate

the current climate of political thinking. Reynolds tells us that people have always doubted

scientific facts and relied more on emotions and personal beliefs when choosing which

“crowd” to choose. Second, Reynolds talks about the challenges with measurement and

prediction of political opinions attitudes and voting behavior. This topic is significant because

it shows us how social media is playing a significant role on political psychology by helping

us understand public opinion and voter behavior. This segment goes on to talk about

the various ways social media can automatically differentiate ones public opinions by which

post they like on Facebook, and later translate to how individuals are targeted when it

comes to advertising candidates or policies. The last segment Reynolds talked about

was common theoretical assumptions surrounding humans as political animals. This portions

talks on the topic of the way people first formulate their ideas. Whether it be form language,

culture, or anything else that surrounds them. After one has their set of ideas and beliefs

they join a “group” that shares similar opinions and together they attempt to advance

their group- based view on the world. 

My reading of the introduction of, The Crowd; The Study of The Popular Mind, was a bit

confusing. Perhaps it was the difference in the language of the article or the complex

academic vocabulary being used. Anyway, what I got from it was that there are great benefits

when you don’t follow a crowd or become a part of one. The article gives great examples

of this being beneficial. One great example being eminent thinker, M. Goblet d'Alviella,

stated, “belonging to none of the contemporary schools, I am occasionally found in

opposition of sundry of the conclusions of all of them. I hope this new work will merit a

similar observation. To belong to a school is necessarily to espouse its prejudices and

preconceived opinions.”. I thought this was significant because not too many people are

willing to join the unpopular opinion in today's political climate. From d'Alviella’s experiences,
I can begin to think for myself about the many times I followed the “crowd” when in reality
I had a difference in opinions or beliefs.

Political Parties, Motivated Reasoning, and Public Opinion Formation

https://www.jstor.org/stable/43783792?read-now=1&seq=5#page_scan_tab_contents