How much do you share on social media? do you have accounts linked to your computer, phone, and tablet? the average teen spends around 5 hours per day online, and checks his or her social media account about 10 times each day.
when an image or post is shared publicly, some students are surprised at how quickly their information travels across the internet. the scary part is that nothing online is really private. all it takes is one friend sharing your photo or updates with the public to create a very public viral trend.
for this project you will use what you have learned about exponential functions to study what happens if a social media post is shared publicly.
student henry isabelle javier kendra
description henry shared his video with 4 friends. his friends continued to share it, doubling the number of viewers each day.
isabelle shared her photo with 51 followers. each of them shared it with 2 friends, doubling the number of viewers each day.
javier shared his post with 4 friends, who each shared it with 4 more friends. they continued sharing at the same rate.
kendra shared her photo with 11 friends, who each shared it with 3 friends. this pattern continued.
1 - provide an exponential function representing isabelle's social media shares.
2- provide an exponential function representing javier's social media shares.
3- graph the exponential functions for all 4 students. if possible, place them all on 1 graph. if not, be sure to work with your partner so you have access to all graphs. be sure to label each line. you may graph your equation by hand on a piece of paper and scan your work or you may use graphing technology.
4- using the functions for each student, predict how many shares each student's post will have received on day 3 and then on day 10. justify your answers.
5- based on your results, which students' post travels the fastest? how is this shown in the equation form of the functions?
6- if henry decides to mail copies of his video to the 45 residents of his grandmother's assisted living facility, the new function representing his video is f(x) = 4(2)x + 45. how does this graph compare with the original graph of henry's video share?
7- if you had to choose, would you prefer a post with fewer friends initially but more shares or more friends initially but fewer shares? does your partner agree or disagree? can you think of reasons why more or fewer shares are preferable? justify your answer with your calculations from previous questions.