From screen to summit: an investigation of claims about social media use for outdoor recreation purposes

Recent increases in visitation to public lands in the U.S. are often attributed to a rise in social media sharing of outdoor spaces, and particularly to the use of geotagging and hashtagging for location sharing. There are conflicting views on the influence of social media on visitation to public lands, including negative perceptions of social media users, and positive perceptions of social media’s potential to spread information to underrepresented and underserved communities. Due to the growing interest in social media use and its effects on outdoor spaces, it is important to understand how social media use correlates with recreational behavior compared to the rhetoric about this type of use. To this end, I conducted a discourse analysis of media articles on the subject, and implemented a visitor survey about recreation behavior, attitudes, and environmental identity at Jedediah Smith State Park, a park in Crescent City, California which is popular on social media. While discourse analysis found that opinions on social media use is largely two-sided for and against the technology, the survey results display a more complex and diverse relationship between social media use and outdoor recreation experience