Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Macayla Botelho
Dr. DiManno
Senior Seminar
May 11, 2016
Table of Contents
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
Introduction
Highlights/Findings from the Literature Review
Methodology
Findings
Conclusion
References
Annotated Bibliography
I. Introduction
This research paper discussed social media and its affects on
interpersonal communication. This research paper includes the effects
of social media, why it is affecting our social skills and how it may be
destroying our social skills. In todays world, digital technology has
taken over our lives (Fowlkes, 2012, 1). Given that communication
plays a central role in personal relationships and that relationships are
assessed by the communication skills of others it can potentially
impact family relationships, socialization, school performance, and
employment (Drussell, 2012). The immediate access people have to
digital technology, especially cell phones and computers, has an effect
and this topic was worthy of research because face-to-face
communication is important and necessary in peoples daily lives. With
out the ability to use face-to-face communication, our social skills may
be destroyed. This research topic was also worthy of being studied
because social media and its affects on interpersonal communication
has already been brought up as a possible communication crisis and
people should know how it affects their social skills, why it will affect
their social skills, and how it will affect their social skills in the future.
Through research, this study aimed to find out how social media
is affecting kids, students, and adults already and why it is affecting
their interpersonal communication skills, and how it will affect them or
their children in the future. There may also be communication barriers
created because of social media and this research paper discusses the
topics about social media and digital technology and its affects on
Cellphones filter all areas of our lives. Since people have adapted
to their cell phones and social media and digital technology as a way of
life and a way of communicating, people shield themselves from
external communication with others interpersonally.(Auter, 2007,
141). This affects the way they communicate face-to-face because
people would rather pull out their phone and not say anything at all.
Awkward silence happens but people are okay with it because their cell
phones create that barrier to stop the awkward silence. People take
out their cell phones to shield away that awkward silence and to
distract themselves from actually communicating with others. A
research study by Philip J. Auter from the University of Louisiana at
Lafayette, talked about how social media allows people morality,
efficiency, productivity, and ultimately independence. When people
have their cell phones and a connection to social media at all times, it
gives them the freedom to connect themselves in a different way
rather than connecting face-to-face with other people. Social media
keeps a person busy through a digital device through a screen. This
article also stated, Mobile phone phenomenon is not only changing
how society communicated but even affecting our societal framework
regarding how we define what is acceptable in social spaces (Auter,
2007, 147). There are different situations where people feel compelled
to use their cell phones. Some of the situations may be at a party that
people are used to using their cell-phones for everything but because
of the fact that its easier and people arent use to face-to-face
communication being a necessity and a social norm now.
Again,
people feel the need to pull out their cell phones when they feel they
may need to interact with someone face-to-face. USA Today wrote an
article on social media and its affects on face-to-face-communication
and wrote about how social media interaction now dominates both
online and offline conversations. With a cell-phone, anyone can make
themselves available to social media to resist the interaction face-toface. Not having face-to-face communication as often as we should
has a negative effect on our social and verbal skills. Our interactions
on social media tend to be weak ties-that is, we dont feel as
personally connected to the people at the other end of the
communication as we do when were face-to-face (Keller, 2013, 1).
Even though one may be communicating more on social media, it does
not mean the relationship is stronger.
When people use social media, they are able to hide behind a
screen. Interaction is different and misinterpretation is implied. Online
communication is different than face-to-face communication and social
media has had an affect on that in many ways. Keller (2013) talked
about Booth and how he stated that there are three key issues
surfacing regarding the role social media now plays in peoples
post or the tweet, projecting any image they want and creating an
illusion of their choosing (Tardanico, 2012, 1). This doesnt allow
others to receive nonverbal cues and with all the powerful social
technologies at our fingertips, we are more connected-and potentially
more disconnected-than ever before (Tardanico, 2012, 1).
Through research studies and personal experiences, social media
has provided a new set of communication barriers affecting
interpersonal communication. Social media has allowed us to be able
to interact with people 24/7, seven days a week, at our fingertips, with
the worlds largest community, the Internet. As stated, by Susan
Tardanico, in her article, social media has the potential to make us less
social. In todays society, social media and digital technology has taken
over our lives. People know this because social media and digital
technology are everywhere.
In the workspace, adults are around digital technology and social
media all day, which has an impact on their day-to-day communication
and face-to-face communication when they are in and out of work. A
Forbes article talks about how in the workplace the use of electronic
communication has taken over face-to-face and voice-to-voice
communication. Since the workplace consists of electronic
communication there is a lack of comfort with traditional interpersonal
communication among a growing segment of our employee
and when were on dates (Turkle, 2012, 1). Sherry Turkle, the author
of this New York Times Article, studied technologies of mobile
connection and talked to hundreds of people of different ages and
learned that cell phones, that supply us with access to hundreds of
different social media networks, are so powerful that they change our
habits about what we do and who we are.
Turkle wrote that one of her 16-year-old students, who relies on
texting for almost everything, said to her Someday, someday, but
certainly not now, Id like to learn how to have a conversation (Turkle,
2012, 1). Children in this generation are growing up with cell phones
and digital technology that forces them to communicate electronically.
That is why interpersonal communication is lacking when it comes to
being so invested in social media. Social networking relies on
technology and is conducted over specific devices with no presence of
face-to-face interaction, which results in an inability to access
interpersonal behavior and signals to facilitate communication
(Drussel, 2012, 11). Overall, social media and digital technology have
had a huge impact on interpersonal communication and how people of
this generation communicate. Email, Twitter, Facebook, all of these
have their places- in politics, commerce, romance, and friendship but
no matter how valuable, they do not substitute for conversation
(Turkle, 2012, 1). Though social media might be a fun way to connect
III Methodology: For this research paper, research about social media
and interpersonal communication was searched for in scholarly articles
and journals. During the research process, previous research studies
about social media and interpersonal communication were referenced
and that information was used to support this research paper. In those
research studies, both quantitative and qualitative data were collected
by surveys and those surveys will be used to support this research
paper. An interview will also be conducted to a college student about
how social media affects his or her life on a daily basis. The interview
includes questions about how social media affects her on a daily basis,
how often he or she is on social media, if he or she would rather use
face-to-face communication or social media to communicate. In
addition, an original survey was created specifically for this study.
Using scholarly articles, scholarly journals, previous research studies
with surveys and interviews are the best approaches for this topic
because the information provided through scholarly journals are
accurate facts and facts that have been surveyed from real people. The
methodology used for this research paper was the best approach
IV. Findings
A research study was conducted by John Drussell at the
University of St. Thomas with a sample of college freshman ages 1819 who were the target population for the research study. The goal of
the study was to accurately represent social networking involvement
and experiences with interpersonal communication in young adults. A
survey was distributed to students 18 and 19 years old and remained
anonymous. A total of 22 students took the survey. One of the first
questions asked was if they own of have access to a cell phone with
texting capability and a computer with the ability to connect to the
Internet. All 22 respondents had cell phones, access to Internet, and
had a Facebook account. (Drussell, 2012, 22).
Next, the survey asked to report on minutes spent each day on
different social networking sites and texting. Texting ranged from 20
minute to three hours with an average of 77.5 minutes. (Drussell,
2012) The survey also showed that the average time spent on
Facebook ranged from zero minutes to four hours. For face-to-face
communication, the range was from zero minutes to two hours. Of
those 22 students surveyed, they spend more time on social media
The last part of the survey concluded that some of the participants
agreed that people who rely on social networking are loosing the
ability to talk with others. Also, many people strongly agreed that it is
easy to take things the wrong way over social networking. (Drussell,
2012, 25). This is true because communication over social media
doesnt have the same effects as someone speaking to someone faceto-face. When people are speaking face-to-face they can feel the
V. Conclusion
From the findings we can conclude that social media does affect
interpersonal communication. Since this generation is so into social
media and social networking, it is a habit that almost everyone enjoys
and because of that, face-to-face communication is becoming harder
because people are use to communicating through technology. These
findings lead to recommendations for people to put down their cellphones and detach from social media once in a while to experience
face-to-face communication without cell phones at a party or a family
gathering and see how much more connected they feel in that
situation. Disconnecting from social media once in a while can help
people gain confidence in face-to-face communication again and
people will not have to feel the need to take out their cell phone, and
go on social media, for a distraction. This research paper on social
media and interpersonal communication can be useful in the future to
other researchers because this topic has been brought up as a
communication crisis and further research could be conducted to see
how worse this issue is getting and how people can resolve or better
the issue.
VI. References
http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=735
44af4-cb47-4b77-9636d7fd224c7f28%40sessionmgr104&vid=0&hid=115
Veveres communication study discusses her survey of college
students and how social media affects their day-to-day
communication when they speak and write. The majority of
students agreed that their online behavior affects their everyday
communication and that they use abbreviations, contractions,
and specific symbols. Her survey also showed that the majority
of students dont think of grammar and punctuation when
sending text messages or on social media, which poses a habit
when writing professional emails. With this research study, I am
able to use her survey and conclusions when discussing how
social media affects interpersonal communication.