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

ANTI-SOCIAL MEDIA THE ROLE OF applied science IN CREATING SUPERFICIAL TIES INTRODUCTION The general topic that I would interchangeable to explore is communication and relationships with genial media. In particular I am interested in the way that neighborly media proceeds the way that we earn or maintain relationships and different identities, and if this alienates us from human judgment in relationships. This topic is connected to the concepts of online communication and soulfulnessal relationships, the concept of self-disclosure and the construction of individualism ( immerge & McMahon, 2012).Is the bite-sized world of societal media leading to bite-sized and unsubstantial personal relationships? This was a forefront I asked myself recently when face at some of my own relationships friendship, romantic, professional, and family a corresponding. companionable media plays a role in many of those relationships these days, and what I noniced is that it isnt al ways for th e better. The main academic articles I pass on reference ar written by Pavica Sheldon (M. M. C. , Louisiana severalize University), a graduate article of belief assistant and Ph. D. tudent in the Department of conference 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 S anyy Dunlop, a professor at University of Australia, school of everyday health, and her two co-authors, Eian More and Daniel Romer, both professors at the University of Pennsylvania. This paper will basic outline the main points of the aforementioned articles. I will then leave off upon their themes to help answer my research questions, and I will conclude with the derivations that john be drawn.THEORY REVIEW In the Rocky Mountain Communication Review, Sheldon (2009) looks at the motivations for the single-valued function of affectionate media, Facebook in particular, and the diff erence in habituate amid genders. She examines 260 university students across four common factors for logging onto Facebook relationship maintenance, passing time, entertainment, and realistic community. She finds through 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 sunrise(prenominal) relationships (Sheldon 54).Specifically, she found through her focus groups that those who give away the companionable electronic networking site more atomic number 18 doing so out of desolation (Sheldon 55). This links take inly with Xin-An Lus paper published in Proteus 27 (2011). Lu takes a much broader approach looking at the affects of fond media on the creation of identity and the modern physical composition of non-geographical communities. Lu argues that online community helps to reduce and remove social restraints and gives the user the qualifica tion to experiment with different identities, coming together based on divided up and consequence (Lu 53).However, these new text-based relationships may not dumbfound existed before and we seatnot use them to replace personal interactions as they are media-poor, which is defined by Lu as possessing less immediate feedback, fewer cues and channels, and weakened personalization and language signifier (Lu 52), because relationships organise in this environment may be weak, superficial, and impoverished, as compared with those formed in face-to-face communication (Lu 52).We must be wary as we point through this review of the comparisons of studies conducted years apart with different conclusions, and we must recommend 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 irresponsible aspects for having an enlarged network of support, especially for adolescents who make been exposed to, or are thinking of suicide, stating that social networking sites may propose both greater impression to such data and also greater social support to those who retrieve this selective 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 showings that social networking sites increase exposure to stories of other suicides, and increased exposure causes increased suicide ideation, and increased curiosity to research and find forums and blogs.This is important to an article discussing jejuneness and the internet, as new innovations are taking place at an appal rate, and there are new ways to communicate and nonplus information every day. This article is succinct and fact b ased, studying the different uses for the internet and social networking sites, and identity creation and anonymity on the World long Web. DISCUSSION Communication is more than just the exchange of words, it involves a motion between two hoi polloi that results in a shared meaning and understanding (Duck and McMahon 82).This greater level of communication involves more than the sending or ex changing of symbols, but more the negotiation of the shared meaning between tidy sum based on their personal connections. A key element to creating this understanding is engaged listening which allows the listener to move beyond the words say for a greater understanding of the overall message. Usually, this involves the richness of face-to-face interaction. Online communication theory 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 comm unications 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 failsafe of online interaction to save face and to compensate for their own perceived shortcomings. Duck and McMahan state that online media has signifi sesstly increased the number of significant ties that concourse maintain, small-arm 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 act and more complete than they really are. We run the risk of alienating the people who populate our daily lives in pursuit of intimacy with our online friends. Another downside of social media relationships is that we are potentially subject to emotional contagion establishs, as illustrated in research by John Cacioppo, a researcher at the University of Chicago. His studies show that loneliness i s behaveted 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 veritable(a) 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 critical ways that, I imagine, they would find more difficult to do in real life. This is a problem, because any amiable of negativity and bad manners has the possibility to multiply exponentially. The Internet is an amazing too l. Even as it is shrinking the world and brought us cobblers lastr together, it is saturnine to push us further apart.Like any useful tool, to make technology serve us well requires the exercise of good judgment. For whatever reason, the restraints that insure most(prenominal) of us from blurting out things in public we know we should not seem farther weaker when our mode of communication is typing. Unfortunately, typed messages often wound even more gravely, while electronic messages of remorse have little personnel to heal (Lickerman). Perhaps 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 front end 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 increasely technological world. The way that web 2. 0 users interact and conversation 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 ascertain 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 descend of people from all over the Earth. Although theInternet con nects 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 necessarily imperious 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 full-blooded balance between the two. These social networking websites also affect the way we receive information and discussion. The sites open up different portals through which we get information and create a more diverse news outlet.Rather than reading the newsprint 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 use up 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 friendships.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 emasculate 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 embrace 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 effec ts 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 basic principle 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 dangerous ideation?Journal o Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 5210 pp 1073-1080. Landau, Elizabeth. bleakness Spreads In Social Networks. CNN. 4 December 2009. Turner Broadcasting constitution 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 New R elationships? Gender Differences in Facebook Use. Rocky Mountain Communication Review. 6-1, 51-56.