The past, present, and future of college kids and social media
Beyond Facebook, college students shape—and are shaped by—social media through meme pages, anonymous apps, and more.
Writer’s note: This newsletter is a bit of an experiment. I thought I’d put out what I’m calling an “ongoing thread”—a storyline I’ve been thinking about and have come across great reporting on. I’m also including a call for sources.
Thank you so much for the support for PHONE TIME so far. As always, I would love to hear from you—whether there’s something you’d like to see covered, anything you’ve particularly enjoyed (or not enjoyed), or if you just want to chat about anything internet-, media-, or tech-related.
In this issue, I’m revisiting some of the work I did last year during my final semester as a college student journalist. As PHONE TIME grows, I also want to extend an open invite: if you’re a student journalist (from any school or location), I’d love to hear about any stories you have written on any topic! Drop me a line or a link anytime.
In December, I wrote for the Columbia Spectator about the history of social media at Columbia. I briefly mentioned that story in a previous newsletter about why I think it will be hard for Facebook to recapture its original magic. While the story centers on Columbia, it also explores broader themes around how college students have shaped—and been shaped by—social media.
For the piece, I went back into the Spectator archives, starting in the early 1990s. When email was introduced at Columbia as part of an initiative called “Columbianet”—originally created for class registration and campus activity calendars—it quickly took on a social role. Because dorms usually offered broadband internet access (faster than what they could get outside the university setting), they were uniquely positioned to witness the early social internet as it blossomed.
The rest of the piece traces how students continued to shape the internet and social media as it evolved. Facebook is the obvious example, and I get into that—but students also helped define the landscape through meme pages, anonymous apps like YikYak and Sidechat, and more.
In a TikTok I made in February, which I’ve included below, I shared some thoughts about where I think things are headed when it comes to college students and social media. Here are a few of those thoughts, plus some extras:
Social apps and startups often look to college campuses as launch pads, incentivizing students to download the app for money or food. BeReal is a great example of this. So is Sidechat.
Many brands—not limited to social platforms—are building out campus ambassador programs. I reported on Bumble’s in 2022.
Different platforms serve different purposes. I reported on Columbia clubs’ use of Instagram for brand-building and student connection in 2023. Many also have TikTok profiles, and increasingly, Substack newsletters.
It’s impossible to write about the role of social media on college campuses without mentioning its current and critical role in campus organizing. I’ve included some relevant reported stories below.
Since publishing the original piece, I’ve started digging into student newspaper archives of other schools to see how their students’ experiences of the early social internet compared to Columbia’s. I’m hoping to continue building on that reporting—so here’s a source call:
If you were a student during these years and would be open to chatting, I’d love to talk to you. Or, if you think there are any news clips or otherwise interesting things I should look at, feel free to send them my way. And of course, I’d love to hear from current college students or recent graduates as well. (We can talk about anonymity if that’s a concern.)
Here is an incomplete list of stories on this topic:
In May 2024, The Harvard Crimson reported on how Sidechat had become both a key space for seeking connection and humor as students navigated everyday campus life—and a platform that enables anonymous, offensive posts with “no accountability.”
As I touched on in my December piece, on Columbia’s campus, the app became (and continues to be) a critical source of real-time updates about protests, campus closures, gate openings, and police presence. For students, this was key given delayed communications from the university administration and limited press access to campus.
These pieces in Distractify, Rolling Stone, and NBC are good reading about the “Burnerverse,” an anonymous network of SEC-focused college sports accounts responsible for misogynistic harassment and spreading false rumors about women students.
“Meta bans CUAD Instagram accounts, Columbia Students for a Democratic Society says,” according to a report in the Columbia Spectator last week.
In October 2024, The Intercept reported that “A former senior Israeli government official now working as Meta’s Israel policy chief personally pushed for the censorship of Instagram accounts belonging to Students for Justice in Palestine — a group that has played a leading role in organizing campus protests against Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza.”
My former colleague Taylor Graham recently wrote a great story for the Columbia Spectator on Columbia student YouTubers.
You should read this fantastically reported feature in the Harvard Crimson on Harvard’s student influencer scene.
An insightful report in Town & Country on the Ivy League influencer scene. “Part of these creators’ success is that they’re satiating an unceasing, underserved audience. Every year, a new crop of high schoolers become all-consumed by the college admissions process,” Andrew Zucker writes.
Another story of mine from April 2024 (in the Columbia Spectator) looked at the shift from Facebook to Instagram for incoming class pages, and how students used social media to make friends during the remote 2020-21 academic year and beyond.
Reporting from today and Sunday on “Rank Yale,” a site for ranking the popularity of Yale students (created by Yale students), from Emily Sundberg’s Feed Me and the Yale Daily News.