Anti-Social Media: the Role of Technology in Creating Superficial Ties

ANTI-SOCIAL MEDIA THE ROLE OF TECHNOLOGY IN CREATING SUPERFICIAL TIES INTRODUCTION The general topic that I would like to explore is communication and relationships with social media. In particular I am interested in the means that social media affects the way that we create or importanttain relationships and different identities, and if this alienates us from human understanding in relationships. This topic is connected to the concepts of online communication and individualized relationships, the concept of self-disclosure and the construction of identity (Duck & McMahon, 2012).Is the bite-sized world of social media leading to bite-sized and unsubstantial personal relationships? This was a question I asked myself recently when looking at some of my own relationships friendship, romantic, professional, and family alike. Social media plays a role in numerous of those relationships these days, and what I spy is that it isnt ceaselessly for the better. The main academic article s I will reference argon written by Pavica Sheldon (M. M. C. , Louisiana State University), a graduate commandment assistant and Ph. D. tudent in the Department of Communication Studies at Louisiana State University, Xin-An Lu, an Associate Professor in The Department of Human Communication Studies at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania, USA, and Sally Dunlop, a professor at University of Australia, school of public health, and her two co-authors, Eian More and Daniel Romer, both professors at the University of Pennsylvania. This paper will first outline the main points of the aforementioned articles. I will then draw upon their themes to help answer my research questions, and I will conclude with the derivations that can be drawn.THEORY REVIEW In the Rocky Mountain Communication Review, Sheldon (2009) looks at the motivations for the phthisis of social media, Facebook in particular, and the difference in use between genders. She examines 260 university students across four co mmon factors for enter onto Facebook relationship maintenance, passing time, entertainment, and virtual community. She finds done these parameters that Females used Facebook to maintain their relationships, to be entertained, and to pass time. Males, on the another(prenominal) hand, used Facebook to develop impertinent relationships (Sheldon 54).Specifically, she found through her focus groups that those who frequent the social networking site more are doing so out of loneliness (Sheldon 55). This links directly with Xin-An Lus paper promulgated in Proteus 27 (2011). Lu takes a much broader approach looking at the affects of social media on the grounding of identity and the modern administration of non-geographical communities. Lu argues that online community helps to reduce and look at social restraints and gives the user the ability to experiment with different identities, coming together based on shared and meat (Lu 53).However, these new text-based relationships may no t have existed before and we cannot use them to replace face-to-face fundamental interactions as they are media-poor, which is defined by Lu as possessing slight immediate feedback, fewer cues and channels, and weakened personalization and language variety (Lu 52), because relationships formed in this environment may be weak, superficial, and impoverished, as compared with those formed in face-to-face communication (Lu 52).We moldiness be wary as we read through this review of the comparisons of studies conducted years apart with different conclusions, and we must remember that technology advances at such a rate that should be taken into account when looking at conclusions of past scholars. Finally, Dunlop, More and Romer discuss the positive aspects for having an enlarged network of life, especially for adolescents who have been open(a) to, or are turn overing of suicide, stating that social networking sites may provide both greater exposure to such information and also greater social support to those who obtain this information (Dunlop et al. 078). This article, published in The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, suggests that online forums, which are often anonymous and have no connection back to the user, are more strongly related to increases in suicide ideation (Dunlop et al. 1078) than social networking sites. Nevertheless, the study shows that social networking sites increase exposure to stories of other suicides, and increase exposure causes increased suicide ideation, and increased curiosity to research and find forums and blogs.This is important to an article discussing youth and the internet, as new innovations are taking place at an alarming rate, and there are new ways to communicate and receive information every day. This article is succinct and fact based, studying the different uses for the internet and social networking sites, and identity creation and anonymity on the World Wide Web. DISCUSSION Communication is more than just th e exchange of linguistic communication, it involves a transaction between two people that results in a shared gist and understanding (Duck and McMahon 82).This greater level of communication involves more than the sending or exever-changing of symbols, but more the negotiation of the shared meaning between people based on their personal connections. A key element to creating this understanding is engaged listening which allows the listener to move beyond the words said for a greater understanding of the overall message. Usually, this involves the richness of face-to-face interaction. Online communications lack this richness due to the lack of incorporation of non-verbal communications, such as facial expressions and tone of voice, with the words being said (Duck and McMahon 228).The ease with which online communications become asynchronous cause concern for the development of understanding of social cues that are present in face to face interactions that hinder those who use the f ailsafe of online interaction to save face and to compensate for their own perceived shortcomings. Duck and McMahan state that online media has importantly increased the number of significant ties that people maintain, while the number of core ties remains the same.We can become so seduced by the ease of connecting with others online that we begin to think that these relationships are more intense, more committed and more complete than they really are. We run the risk of alienating the people who populate our daily lives in credit line of intimacy with our online friends. Another downside of social media relationships is that we are potentially subject to emotional contagion effects, as illustrated in research by John Cacioppo, a research worker at the University of Chicago. His studies show that loneliness is transmitted via social networks.Cacioppos findings suggest that if a direct connection of yours is lonely, you are 52% more likely to be lonely if the connection is a friend of a friend, 25% more lonely, if the connection is 3 degrees out (a friend of a friend of a friend), its 15%. While this research looked at offline social networks, it may have some implications for online social networking as well. If someone in your online social network is angry, lonely, or hostile, and takes it out on you, you are more likely to transmit this mood yourself.This means that even though you may never have met this person or interacted with them in real life, their bad behaviour can still influence yours. I have personally noted people interacting in mean and vital ways that, I imagine, they would find more difficult to do in real life. This is a problem, because any kind of negativity and bad manners has the possibility to multiply exponentially. The Internet is an amazing tool. Even as it is shrinking the world and brought us closer together, it is threatening to push us further apart.Like any helpful tool, to make technology serve us well requires the exercis e of good judgment. For whatever reason, the restraints that stop or so of us from blurting out things in public we hunch forward we should not seem far weaker when our mode of communication is typing. Unfortunately, typed messages often wound even more gravely, while electronic messages of remorse have little spring to heal (Lickerman). by chance we just do not think such messages have the same power to harm as when we say them in person. Perhaps in the heat of the moment without a physical presence to hold us back, we just do not care.Whatever the reason, it is clearly far easier for us to be meaner to one another online. CONCLUSION Social networking websites provide tools by which people can communicate, share information, and create new relationships. With the popularity of social networking websites on the rise, our social interaction is effected in multiple ways as we adapt to our increasingly technological world. The way that web 2. 0 users interact and talk to each other has changed and continues to change. These users now socialize through the Internet and it takes away from the in person socialization that has been around forever.Social networking websites effect our social interaction by changing the way we interact face-to-face, how we receive information, and the dynamics of our social groups and friendships. Communicating through the Internet and social networking websites is quite different than communicating in person. When users communicate through these websites, they use things like IM and chatting as well as status or Twitter updates to talk to friends and express themselves. Chatting online is quick and easy and allows you to connect to an almost unlimited measuring of people from all over the Earth. Although theInternet connects millions of people and allows them to chat, it changes the traditional in person conversation that is important to our social lives and friendships. This change to our social interaction is not of necessity positive or negative. The change expands the different outlets through which we can communicate and as long as we remember the importance of face-to-face contact in our social lives, we can find a healthy balance between the two. These social networking websites also affect the way we receive information and news. The sites open up different portals through which we get information and create a more diverse news outlet.Rather than reading the newspaper or hearing the news on TV, we rely on our friends on the sites to give us updates on the world around us. Through Facebook or Myspace statuses, posts, comments, etc. , web 2. 0 users find new information that is most likely relevant to them. These new diverse outlets lead to users discussing world news or other information on the sites and can remove the claim to discuss these events in person. Another way that web 2. 0 sites affect the way we socially interact with one another is by changing the dynamics of our social groups and fri endships.Social networking sites create a new model of social interaction and friendships. As peoples social circles grow, the ties of the online friendships are not always as strong as in person close friendships. Although these sites can alter the dynamics of friendships in that way, it also creates lots of new friendships and increases our social interaction. The many effects of social networking websites on our social interaction with one another can be both positive and negative, all that is sure is that there is a definite effect. We must assume the increasing use of web 2. 0 sites and the different roles they play in our social lives.There is not really a need to focus on the positive or negative effects of these sites because whether the effects are good or bad depends upon the things in society that you value, and that is different for most every person. These sites will most likely continue to grow in popularity and continue to alter the way we socialize with one another and we must embrace it. SOURCES Duck, Steve & McMahon, David T. The Basics Of Communication A Relational Perspective. Los Angeles Sage 2012. Print Dunlop, S. , More, E. , & Romer, D. (2011). Where do youth learn about suicides on the Internet, and what influence does this have on unsafe ideation?Journal o Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 5210 pp 1073-1080. Landau, Elizabeth. Loneliness Spreads In Social Networks. CNN. 4 December 2009. Turner Broadcasting System Inc. 1 March 2012. . Lickerman, Alex. The Effect Of Technology On Relationships. Psychology Today. 8 June 2010. Sussex Publishers, LLC. 1 March 2012. . Lu, X. (2011) Social Networking and Virtual Community. Proteus 27, 1, 51-55 Sheldon, P. (2009). Maintain or Develop advanced Relationships? Gender Differences in Facebook Use. Rocky Mountain Communication Review. 6-1, 51-56.