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BEHIND THE SCREEN
stores on her phone: 363 (fewer than before because she’s
maxed out her phone’s memory)
• The number of photos her
friends store on their phones:
around 800
• The number of people she’s
friends with on Facebook: 1,110
• The number of acquaintances
who’ve quit Facebook: 3 or 4
• She also uses the app InstaFollow to keeps tabs on who’s
unfollowed her on Instagram
(she quickly unfollows those
who defect).
Casey is a novice programmer
and has customized the code on
her Tumblr blog so it displays how
many people are viewing it at one
time. She and her friends aspire
to becoming “Tumblr famous,” or
attracting thousands of followers
to their sites. She’s wary of what
will become of Tumblr under Yahoo’s watchful, corporate eye.
“I don’t like that they bought
it,” she explains, echoing sentiments shared by others who use
the media network. “I’d rather it
was how it was before because I’m
afraid they’re going to change it
and make it worse.”
The most important and stressinducing statistic of all is the
number of “likes” she gets when
HUFFINGTON
07.14.13
The typical teen girl will send and
receive 165 text messages in a day.
she posts a new Facebook profile
picture — followed closely by how
many “likes” her friends’ photos
receive. Casey’s most recent profile photo received 117 “likes” and
56 comments from her friends,
19 of which they posted within
a minute of Casey switching her
photo, and all of which Casey
“liked” personally.
“If you don’t get 100 ‘likes,’ you
make other people share it so you
get 100,” she explains. “Or else
you just get upset. Everyone wants
to get the most ‘likes.’ It’s like a
popularity contest.”
Still, she notes with a twinge of
regret that a friend received more.
“I changed my profile picture