Effects of Social Networking

Professor Strate

by Patrick Stein Smith

Table of Contents

Abstract                                                         

Introduction                                                   

History of Social Networking                       

Effects on Communication                            

Effects on the Self                                         

Conclusion                                                      

Work Cited                                                    

Abstract

            I remember the first time someone asked me I had a Facebook. It was October of 2007 in my senior year physics class. My friend came up to me during a lab period and asked me "Hey Pat, do you have a Facebook?" At first I was confused, then curious. After a short chat I came to the conclusion that it was simply a MySpace knock off and not worth my time. A week later my girlfriend made me make one, but I didn't use it for about a year. Once I entered college though, adding old high school classmates, playing those make-a-child games, writing notes and checking out top friends lists became a big part of my social life. Four years later in December 2011 came Twitter. It was stupid. What's the point of this? It's just like Facebook, except it doesn't have most of the options. There are no games or top friends lists and you can only write up to 140 characters per message. And what's up with all this hash-tag talk? Another pointless thing another girlfriend persisted that I make.

            Fast forward to May 2013. I have had a smart phone now for a little under a year, but did not use it much. I had Facebook on it, but at this point Facebook is no longer the notification pumping machine it used to be. I had abandoned my Twitter because it was too redundant to have along with a Facebook. Lo and behold, another social media site emerges. Instagram. So it's like the other two, but only with pictures? No thank you. Once again, insisted by many that one be made. This one though, has yet to be abandoned.

            At this point in time it's more or less instinct then an actual thought. Whether it be while sitting at a computer or simply flipping through the apps on your phone. It's almost to the point where it's too be accepted as a social norm. Not just checking on them when you are on your own time, but while at work on in class as well. Checking who's tweeted you, messaged you, or tagged you in a picture is just about the first thing anyone does once they've turned on or unlocked their doorway to social media.

Introduction

            Throughout the semester we have covered many topics about New Media and how it has changed our daily lives. From an outside perspective one would give New Medias it's kudos, then just assume that it's another field that's evolved over time. However, once you really start to look in depth you realize that understanding new media is not only about the technologies that made it possible, but how people have changed and grown with it.

History of Social Networking

            Over the last twenty years or so technology has short forward like a rocket, evolving at rates never seen before in human history. It has brought about many amazing changes to the way we live. First came the internet, allowing people to interact with one another over great distances. Then can the world wide web, allowing access to information at speeds never before seen. As these technologies advanced, so did their capabilities. They became faster, they became more plentiful, they became easier to obtain and use. However people are social creatures and we love to communicate with one another. During the olden days, emails would be send out with joke and silly things but eventually bosses and corporations would crackdown and not allow people to send such things through email.

            The first sign of what would become social media as we know it today occurred in 1999 when "Friends Reunited" was launched in England. It was the first network to achieve prominence, and as others its purpose was to locate former school friends. The next social networking site did not come about for another 3 years. Friendster was launched in 2002 and gained 3 million users in 3 months. One year later, MySpace and LinkedIn were made. MySpace was essentially a clone of Friendster whereas LinkedIn was made as a business-oriented site working professionals. The following year in 2004 perhaps the most influential and well known social networking was created in a Harvard down room. Facebook was born and at the time was thought of as a college version of Friendster. However within two years it went from only college students, to high school students in 2005, and finally anyone 13 and up in 2006. In 2005 YouTube began its ascent and started to store and retrieve videos off of the 8 billion web pages that were on the internet. In 2006  Twitter was launched as a blogging site and the internet now had 25 billion web pages. In 2007 Apple released on of the most influential products of the last ten years in the iPhone. The following year Facebook finally surpassed MySpace as the main social networking website and tried to buy Twitter, but failed to (Curtis).

            In 2009 Facebook had 200 million users and had "Unfriend" added to the New Oxford American Dictionary. Twitter broke its first major news story of a downed airplane in the Hudson River. At this time there were nearly 58 billion web pages with 25 percent of  the world's population on the internet. Within one year's time Facebook went from 200 million users in 2009 to 400 million in 2010. The first time in history, a national party hired social network managers to help with a president's social network accounts. There were 1.97 billion people on the internet and it had surpassed newspapers as the way Americans got their news.

            In 2011 there were 550 million people on Facebook, 65 million tweets sent per day, and 90 million people on LinkedIn. With smart phones now in the hands of every person accessing social networking had become available everywhere and an essential part of the average American's life. By 2012 213 million Americans used the internet though the computer whereas 52 million us it through their smart phones and another 55 million use it through their tablets. Over 50% of adults (25-34) used social networking at work while 33% of young adults (18-24) use it in the bathroom. One billions people had now joined Facebook and YouTube had 800 million users watching 1 trillion videos a year. This previous calendar year YouTube had over 1 billion users with 4 billion views per day. Facebook had 1.11 billion users and Twitter had 500 million users with 200 million of them active (Curtis).

            Social Networking has become a worldwide phenomenon. There are literally over 1 billion people on Facebook alone. 1 billion. Five years ago there were only 200 million people on Facebook. Between the internet's never ending reach and the boom of smart phones amongst people of all ages, the ability to access social networking has never been as easy as it is today.

Effects on Communication

            I remember when I was hired for my first job almost six years ago. I filled out the application, got a call, and went in for the interview. I went to the manager's office where I looked him in the eye, shook his hand, and then proceeded to talk to him for 30 minutes or so. I remember not just listening to what he asked me and what he said, but also paying attention to how his face changed with each question I answered, the tone of his voice, and the way he shifted positioned his body throughout the interview.

            Two years after that when I applied for my second job it was just about the same process. I went in after I got the call, met my boss, gave a firm handshake, and talked face to face. The slight difference did not occur till after I was hired. My first boss would talk to me through texts or Facebook messages whereas my second boss would always have me come in to the office to talk to him. The main reason, in my opinion, for this difference is simple enough. Age. My first boss was 34 when he hired me whereas my second boss was nearing 70. That's not to say either was better than the other, but the large age difference made a huge difference in how we communicated while at work or outside or work. Another reason for the difference in approach was the profession. My first job was just as a clerk at a supermarket whereas my second job was as a Realtor, which required me to not only interact face to face with my clients, but to be able to clearly communicate all knowledge necessary on the spot, wherever we were.

            Nowadays there's a huge shift in the way people communicate in the workplace. The old ways of workplace communication sound strange and outdated. Phone calls, meetings, conferences, etc. In a world where speed has become nearly immeasurable, all of these antiquated practices only bother us and slow our day down. All we have to do to communicate is send a text or an e-mail and we'll be fine, right? "Studies show that only 7% of communication is based on the written or verbal word. A whopping 93% is based on nonverbal body language." (Tardancio) So what does that mean? It means that we are losing most of our communication skills when we merely send writing. We lose the ability to see the person's eyes, their facial expressions, their tone of voice, and the way the fidget and move while talking to them. So much of how we communicate is through non-verbal cues.

             Because of technology, people can hide how they truly feel about ideas. There's no way of knowing their emotions through text on a screen. Someone can hate the idea and just be agreeing and not actually plan on going through with it. Someone could be under a lot of pressure as is and is just the kind of person who cannot say no when someone tells them something. One would never know this through messages. They would merely see words on a screen that acknowledge that the recipient has seen and opened the message. This not only applies to the workplace, but to everyday social life as well.

            Using social networks such as Facebook and Twitter allows someone to make a persona they see as someone other people would be interested. They post pictures, quotes, status updates, etc. about things that do not really apply to how they are feeling. In fact, it distances them further from people then closer. Always keeping up the online persona. Not only does social networking allow people to basically remake themselves, it has totally changed the way people write and speak, not only online, but also in person as well. To the people that have grown up with social media, learning and adapting to it has been easy since we knew nothing before it came to be. However, to those that did not have social networking during their youth, it can present some challenges.

            The most obvious changes to the way we communicate is the language we use. Twitter, as all Tweeters know only allows the person to use 140 characters per message. Because of this, shorthanded versions of many phrases and words have come about. Some of the most common terms include "BRB, TTYL, G2G, AFK". (Chopra) Other very popular terms such as "LOL" and "ROFL" no longer even indicate what they stand for. They have evolved from communicating that you are laughing or you find something funny, to just making a message slightly more lighthearted.

            As stated previously, social networking allows people to make a different persona to either gain attention or hide how they feel. It also allows the user to over share what we think and feel. Have there not been time when on Facebook or Twitter you see a status or a picture that makes you think "Why?". Along with that, everyone at one point or another has seen a "fight" break out over Facebook. People publicly messaging back and forth, cursing like sailors and inventing new ways to use their favorite curse words. There was one time as an undergraduate during an online summer class one student made a snide remark to another's post. Immature? Yes, but nothing shocking. I posted my post and did not check back for about a day. I sign back in and look at the discussion board. Apparently the two students had kept going at it, on a public discussion board, in front of the whole class. By the time the teacher had signed in to check to discussion board there were nearly 50 messages sent back and forth between the two students.  Messages filled with foul language and degrading remarks all for everyone to see.  While I am not saying that this was solely because of social networking, I highly doubt anyone who hadn't grown up with social networking would be comfortable or accustomed enough to write such foul language for public view.

            Social networking has also made its effects felt outside of its realm. For example, during speeches or concerts or lectures, what is something you see numerous people doing? Using their phones to record or take notes. People no longer go to these events to just listen to what is being said or performed, instead they document it on their social networking pages either at that moment or later on. Along with at either formal or celebratory gatherings, social networking has infiltrated the regular, social situations that people are in everyday. When was the last time you were with a group of people for an extended period of time when someone did not use their phone? I cannot remember. Just as when recording or jotting notes during lectures, often times people are no longer in the "now and present", instead they are using social media to see what everyone else is up to.

Effects on the Self

            It's obvious that social networking has affected the way that we communicate with others. Something that is not talked about as nearly as frequently is how social networking can affect a person's mental and physical health. With access to some many people and ideas, social networking can have a positive and a negative impact on its users. Often times the younger the users are, the more negative the impact will be.

            "Hypernetworking" is when a teenager sends more than 120 messages in a school day, and in a 2010 study more than 12% of the polled students were "hypernetworkers". With that being said, "these teens were 60 percent more likely to report four or more sexual partners, 62 percent more likely to have tried cigarettes, 69 percent more likely to be binge drinkers, 84% percent more likely to have used illicit drugs, and 94% more likely to have been in a physical fight." (Payne) It is not just teenagers that experience a negative impact from using social networks. Adults as well are affected negatively. In 2012 a study was done where nearly 300 people were asked if social media had a negative impact on their behavior. "More than half (53%) of the respondents said use of social media sites had changed their behavior, with half (51%) of those saying the impact had been negative." (Paddock) The people, about 25% of those questioned said that they felt "less confident after comparing their achievements against...their friends".(Paddock)

            On top of that number, 67% had difficulty sleeping after using their social sites, 60% said the only way they could not look at their sites was by turning their device off, 55% felt worried when they couldn't log into their accounts and 25% said after an online argument, they had troubles at work and at home. Another study, the Framingham Heart Study, found that there was a 57% chance if a close friend became obese, they would become obese as well. It is suspected that "a social network influences what its members perceive as normal and acceptable" (Komaroff) Therefore if friends see other friends start to gain weight, they feel as though it is acceptable and bound to happen to them.

            The power that is social network can work for bad and good as well. In the same study it was shown that happiness is spread rapidly across social networks, especially amongst people of the same sex. Whenever someone puts a post or a picture of a good workout, it instills that notion that working out and being fit is normal. When someone puts an uplifting quote or video, it has the ability to inspire those who watch it. It's evidenced by how many self-made celebrities there are on YouTube and Instagram.

Conclusion

            The power that social networks have over people could be viewed by some as mind boggling. However, once you look into its roots you realize that it has been a long time coming. Ever since that first e-mail was sent back in 1971. All the advancements in technology have culminated to what we have today. Obviously the technology was not made to be used for networking, but people are people and we want to talk. We want to know and we want to be wanted. That is exactly some of what social media amplifies about our personalities. It takes that desire to be wanted, to be looked at and puts it on display for hundreds if not thousands of people to look at. It allows for far more feedback than we've ever had before, some positive and some negative.

            Social networking is a powerful tool that cannot be controlled. It merely amplifies who you are and who you surround yourself with. So the question is has social media really changed who we are, or does it just show us who we are behind the profile picture?

Work Cited

Curtis, Anthony. The Brief History of Social Media. University of North Carolina, 2013. Google. Web. 5 May 2014. <http://www2.uncp.edu/home/acurtis/NewMedia/SocialMedia/SocialMediaHistory.html>.

Tardanico, Susan. "Is Social Media Sabotaging Real Communication?." Forbes. N.p., 30 Apr. 2012. Web. 4 May 2014. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/susantardanico/2012/04/30/is-social-media-sabotaging-real-communication/>.

Chopra, Karan. "The Effects of Social Media on How We Speak and Write." Social Media Today. N.p., 17 Sept. 2013. Web. 3 May 2014. <http://socialmediatoday.com/karenn1617/1745751/effects-social-media-how-we-speak-and-write>.

Payne, Ed. "Study links too much texting, social networking to health risks." CNN. N.p., 10 Nov. 2010. Google. Web. 3 May 2014. <http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/social.media/11/10/hyper.texting.teens/>.

Paddock, Catharine. "Facebook Use Feeds Anxiety And Inadequacy Says Small Study." Medical News Today. N.p., 10 July 2012. Web. 5 May 2014. <http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/247616.php>

Komaroff, Anthony. "Social networks can affect weight, happiness." Harvard Health Publications. Harvard Medical School, 16 Dec. 2011. Web. 4 May 2014. <http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/social-networks-can-affect-weight-happiness-201112163983>