Internet use – Not Not Communicating by Michael Rabby

September 28, 2020

The perceptions and reality of the internet in the mind of a child.

“Computers in Japan” by Sam Howzit is licensed under CC BY 2.0

By Charles McNealy

From an early age, children are taught not to talk to strangers. This develops a narrative in the mind of a child that all unfamiliar people are kidnappers and murders. Fear builds in their minds around the concept of strangers and the consequences of talking with one. Now let’s take this concept and apply it to the internet. How can children find solace and comfort in this new digital world without the fear of all these unknown people? Cernikova, Smahel, and Wright investigated children’s mental health in correlation to their experiences and awareness of the internet.

Little research has been done on how children see their mental health and how the internet impacts it. To address this, the researchers studied the common physical and mental concerns when going online. These concerns include:

Being kidnapped/murdered
Going blind
Vivid images or hallucinations (cognitive salience)
Committing suicide
Headaches
Increase in aggression
Tiredness/sleeping issues.

These are the major experiences and awareness’s that children reported from a study of children from the ages nine to sixteen, across nine countries in Europe (N=368). These ideals are also broadcasted from real world sources. Magazines publish articles, friends share stories, and parents spread the safety narrative. Media sources introduce an element of hyper awareness when navigating the internet. This is built off extreme events and rare occurrences. Children reported that they had experienced physical symptoms of too much online time. Commonly, people feel once you get a headache or your eyes feel sore, that it is time to get off the internet. Poor eating habits and increased aggression were also reported by children. A lack of digital literacy, or general frustration with the internet, results in something getting hit.

They also found an awareness of the possible effects of the internet. Common themes of this awareness are games leading to violence or death and being kidnapped by strangers. Many children spoke of these in terms of other children, exempting themselves from the possibility. Some children acknowledged the changing nature of the internet based on their own experiences. These accounts acknowledged the common concerns but are based solely off their own beliefs.

Two theories offer possible insight into how children are affected by the internet and the media’s impact.

The Media Panic Theory, an overreaching concept of reporting only amplified and dramatic stories. On a medium such as the internet, flashy and fast stories are all the rage. These can easily spread and be accepted as normal occurrences when in reality they are sparse.
The Third-Person Effect, the concept of underestimating the potential of the internet. The internet at its core is a platform for the masses, yet it can be easily forgotten that millions of people use it every day. This effect accounts for the misunderstanding of how fast the internet spreads news and how effective it is at delivering said news.

These two theories may account for the role media has on children’s awareness in regard to the internet. Cernikova, Smahel, and Wright concluded that technologies impact on children could potentially be manipulated by the media. The speed of news on the internet can make this difficult to verify. Considering this along with the media panic theory as well as the third-person effect, extreme cases can spread and influencing millions on the normality of the internet.

Cernikova, M., Smahel, D., & Wright, M. F. (2018). Children’s Experiences and Awareness about Impact of Digital Media on Health. Health Communication, 33(6), 664–673. https://ntserver1.wsulibs.wsu.edu:2137/10.1080/10410236.2017.1298197

April 16, 2019

Does stress actually affect social media usage?

By Briar Anderson

Today, about 65% of adults use social media. Inevitably, social media use has affected different aspects of life like parenting and dating. It connects people around the globe. Many people actually to turn to social media as a stress reliever, as it can provide perceptions of social support.

In a study of 201 adults with Facebook accounts by Denq, Denq, and Hsu, participants were put under two conditions, either stress inducing or not stress inducing. They were then given a 10-minute break on their own computers and allowed to do whatever they wanted. The survey additionally asked questions pertaining to:

How much stress they felt when certain events happened (e.g., “In the last month, how often have you felt nervous and stressed?”).
Frequency of social media usage (e.g., “How often on average do you ‘like’ someone’s photos or status updates per week?”).
Desirable and undesirable life events that range from common to uncommon of someone within the participant’s life. (e.g., if they knew someone who started a new job).
Support-seeking behavior on Facebook (e.g., “I tried to get emotional support from friends or relatives on Facebook”).
Individual’s perception of social support from family, friends, and significant others (e.g., “I get the emotional help and support I need from my family”).
Positive and negative mood affectivity (e.g., “inspired” or “hostile”).
Habits on Facebook (e.g., “I do without having to consciously remember”).
Urge to use Facebook (e.g., “If it were possible, I probably would use Facebook now”).
Feelings of sympathy and concern for others (e.g., “I would describe myself as a pretty softhearted person”).
Active or passive usage of Facebook during the 10-minute break (e.g., “did you see only the pictures without reading the text?”).
Importance of Facebook (e.g., “how important is your Facebook profile in regards to your happiness?”).

The results indicated that seeking social support may contribute to increased use of social media. Also, increased usage of social media is a gauge of both frequency and strength of inducing habitual behavior regardless of stress. However, the results do not reinforce that habit is a factor in predicting social media usage as a reaction to stress. It shows that a habit of using social media was a stronger indicator of social media usage than stress. This may occur because users with strong habits of using social media may use it regardless of being stressed or not.

This may not come as surprising to many who engage in social media. People naturally seek support from others during stressful times, and social media has become an easy, free, and useful place to do so. But, people’s natural inclination to use social media through both good and bad prevails. Social media is still such a new phenomenon; it will take a lot more time, learning and research to fully understand its effects when used as a stress relief or for social support, and if these harm or help.

Denq, B., Denq, W., & Hsu, W. (2019). Stress and Its Impact on Social Media Usage. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 49(2), 232–245. https://doi.org/10.1177/0047281618772076

Image by Geraint Rowland via Creative Commons

May 7, 2017May 14, 2017

Regretting that time I posted to Doritos’ Facebook page

By Guest Author AJ Schock, adrianne.schock found on wsu.edu

I am certain that everyone has posted something online that they regret. Statistics have shown that 11-46% of adolescents have reported experiencing online regret after sharing content on the Internet.

In the article about online regret, Dhir et al. focused on two main research topics. First, they examined the relationship between Social Networking Sites’ (SNS) brand participation, technology accessibility, and the regret experience and problematic use of Facebook. The second involved the relative influence of SNS’ brand participation, technology accessibility, and the problematic use of Facebook in predicting regrettable online experiences.

In four different cities in Northern India, 804 adolescent (aged 13 to 14 years old) Facebook users were given a pencil-and-paper survey in class on four separate concepts:

Online regret: Did the student feel sad after spending an immense amount of time on Facebook? Was their schoolwork affected by their time spent on Facebook? The students’ answers were measured on a 5-point scale with ‘1’ being strongly disagree and ‘5’ being strongly agree
SNS brand participation: Did the student feel that by participating in discussions on Facebook, brand pages gave them a sense of belonging to said brands? The students’ answers were measured on a 5-point scale with ‘1’ being strongly disagree and ‘5’ being strongly agree.
Technology accessibility: Students reported how they accessed Facebook by answering whether or not they owned a cell phone, had a mobile Internet connection and an Internet connection at home. This measure also dealt with the frequency and excessive use of Facebook.
Problematic Facebook use: Students reported their self-reflections of their own problematic Facebook use, their teachers, parents, and friends’ thoughts about the student’s problematic Facebook use, and conflicts with their parents and friends due to their problematic Facebook use. The students’ answers were measured as unproblematic, low problem level, medium problem level, and high problem level.

Dhir and colleagues found that students with and without home and mobile Internet had the same amount of regrettable online experiences while students with cell phones experienced higher online regret than those without. They determined adolescent brand participation results in online regret. The authors suggested that a possible reason for this is that adolescents are currently captivated with popular brands. An internal need exists for adolescents to connect with these brands by following the brands on Facebook or participating in a discussion on these pages.

Why would research on brands and regrettable online experiences be important? Branded pages on Facebook face two major problems: retaining existing members and initiating the active participation of community members. Regrettable online experiences lead to brand switching and the termination of services. Managers and administrators of these branded pages should explore different ideas to provide their community members with ways to actively participate without experiencing online regret. Active participation would lead to better ways to retrieve feedback and opinions from users while minimizing the regrettable experience.

Dhir, A., Kaur, P., Chen, S., & Lonka, K. (2016). Understanding online regret experience in Facebook use – Effects of brand participation, accessibility & problematic use. Computers in Human Behavior, 59, 420-430. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2016.02.040

October 29, 2012

Some Evidence that Blogging is Beneficial

By Guest Author Eduard Nagornyy, found at @eduardNagornyy and http://eduardnagornyy.tumblr.com/ .

A t-shirt promotes blogging Millions of people blog. Some blog just to vent and others do it to manage their distress (an emotional release). What many might not know is that blogging, for the majority of users, is therapeutic, socially supportive.

Initial research was done on the psychosocial (the relationship between individual thought and behavior, and certain social factors) benefits of blogging. Many bloggers blogged the initial research and created discussions about it.

Baker and Moore compared the responses in these discussions to the results of the initial research on social connectedness, satisfaction with friendship, and psychological distress; essentially they sought to determine if the blogging community agreed or disagreed with the initial research. They took three weeks to complete where searches were done on specific blog search engines (e.g. Google Blog Search), and they looked for any reference to the initial research. 167 sources found (English-written blogs) generated nearly 500 comments. The comments were then categorized under individual users (289 unique user comments) that commented on the initial research. The majority of the results agreed with the initial research, with 55% whole-heartedly supporting the results, 25% accepting the results, 11% feeling neutral towards the results, 6% opposing the results, and 3% that were unfriendly (comments that were angrily vented with foul language).

This research indicates that blogging can be beneficial. 80% of the users here claim to have a positive experience while blogging. Some of the benefits include increased self-esteem and self-worth, less stress after participating, emotional release, higher trust in others, inter-mixing socially, and friendship fulfillment. The overall well-being of a person who blogs might be higher quality because of recognized social support than that of a person who does not blog.

So, for those people who are under a lot of stress, make a blog and vent. Join the millions of other users who do the very same thing and release yourself emotionally. It might be surprising how therapeutic blogging can be and the social support behind it. On a side-note, this second-wave of research was done using dialogue, meaning that the authors used the responses to the research as evidence. This type of procedure is not widely used but the authors claim it should be used more often, especially since technology is allowing the participation of users with the research and results. The procedure provides the researchers and their methods more transparency.

Baker, J. R., & Moore, S. M. (2011). An Opportunistic Validation of Studies on the Psychosocial Benefits of Blogging. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 14(6), 387-390.

September 24, 2012November 15, 2013

Implications of improper email format in an academic community

By Guest Author Kelly Roby

I see parallels in the social consequences of improper email etiquette in academia and business. I believe that the parallels of increased use of technology and lack of focus on proper communication have grown at a rapid rate.

Stephens et al., conducted two studies using Interaction Adaption Theory (IAT) to examine improper or casual out-of-classroom emails and the impact these had on the student, student credibility, message attitude and overall willingness of a professor to comply with simple requests for a face-to-face meeting. IAT helps explain how individuals choose to respond to communication in either a matching or complementary manner. To accurately predict a response to interaction IAT uses three conditions:

Requirements (R)-what the receiver feels is necessary in an interaction
Expectations (E)-anything anticipated in the interaction and typically considered social norms or prescriptions
Desires (D)-what one hopes or prefers to occur in the interaction

R, E, and D form to make the interaction position (IP). When this position is compared to actual behavior (A), a positive or negative reaction occurs.

Study one utilized 152 instructors ranging from full-time tenured professors to adjunct faculty, with an average age of 38.0 years. It attempted to identify the affect on instructor opinion towards the student by manipulating message quality and familiarity.

Study two involved a more-pinpointed effort to expound on the results of study one. The intent was to identify whether generational differences had influence on student email content, why students might violate instructor expectations and the specific email aspects that bother professors more than students.

The results of the two studies points to a correlation between the use of casual email and text messaging. While generational aspects were evident, they were not significant enough to explain the reason for student decorum in out of class communication and professors’ response and opinions to such violations. The results supported the general consensus of a need for instructional emails from professors, and also identified a negative opinion towards students with casual or improper email. It is hypothesized that second and third order effects of continued violations could follow students to the business world and possibly generate the same affects from future employers and business relationships.

All in all it appears that with the increase of technology, the perceived need for training on proper correspondence rules and techniques has changed. With the rush of everyday life and immediate electronic conversations via texting, it appears that young students are creating habits that might echo beyond school. Effective communication is a vital skill in the business world. If students do not learn proper etiquette, it is quite likely they will expose themselves to embarrassment and criticisms in a business environment were perception is reality. Their communication with professors is a good place to start!

Stephens, K.K., Houser, M.L., & Cowan, R.L. (2009). R U Able to Meat Me: The Impact of Students’ Overly Casual Email Messages to Instructors. Communication Education, 58(3), 303-326.

February 25, 2011

Are Teens Hiding Behind The Screen?

By Guest Author Jonathan Nielsen

“R U 4 real?” The use of phrases like this demonstrate how technology has managed to merge itself with the social life of teenagers in the form of instant messaging, text messaging and social networking sites such as Facebook. A little observation will tell anyone that a large percentage of a teen’s time is spent texting on his or her phone or chatting online. With so much time devoted to these activities, researchers want to know if there are any side effects.

Pierce set out to examine the effects that teen usage of these technologies might have on their social life. She conducted a study that sought to determine if there was a relationship between recent social technologies and shyness among teenagers. In the study, 280 teenagers answered survey questions regarding how much time they spend on socially interactive technologies such as text messaging, instant messaging, and social networking sites. In addition to finding out how much time teenagers spent on these technologies, the survey also asked questions regarding each teen’s feelings toward face-to-face communication.

The results revealed a clear connection between social introversion and the socially interactive technologies. Those who disliked personal communication were more likely to use socially interactive technologies. This suggests that these new technologies are providing shy individuals with a comfortable means of communication, while replacing any opportunities that these individuals may have had to get over their timidity by practicing face-to-face communication. Lastly, the author concludes that since these technologies are relatively new, society has yet to discover all of the possible consequences.

With the results of this study in mind, it is crucial for teens to evaluate their personal use of these technologies. Do they substitute personal time with friends for time on Facebook? Do they text their friends more than they call them? Are they using these technologies as a way to avoid their social anxieties? As foreign as these problems may be to parents and teachers, the answers to these questions are important to a teen’s future success in life. Face-to-face communication is vital in the workplace, and many teenagers may not be properly developing the necessary interpersonal skills; therefore, these questions must not be avoided. All of this is to say that teenagers must come to realize that they are an experimental generation– No other generation has grown up using these social technologies, and the consequences of these technologies are poorly known.

Pierce, T. (2009). Social anxiety and technology: Face-to-face communication versus technological communication among teens. Computers in Human Behavior, 25, 1367-1372.

August 23, 2010

More Evidence that Online Communication Leads to Feelings of Closeness to Others

By Guest Author Hannah A.

Once again, one of the primal questions of how people relate on the Internet–is the presence of Internet communication helping or harming their relationships? In this case, we look at teenagers and pre-teenagers.

794 Dutch adolescents, between the ages of 10-16, were given a series of questionnaires within their school classrooms. The research conducted by Valkenburg and Peter focused upon three main points:

How Internet communication affects closeness to friends
How the users perceive the breadth and depth of the communication
How loneliness and social anxiety could alter the results

Their research leaned toward the hypothesis that most adolescents use the Internet to become closer with the friends that they already have, as opposed to using it to talk to strangers. They found that, in addition, adolescents feel closer to their friends when they talk to them on the Internet, showing that this communication only helps strengthen the relationships in all age groups that were tested.

In regards to how much breadth and depth can be reached through online communication, 30% of the sampled group thought that online communication can be more effective for self disclosure and sharing private information than offline discussions.

Lastly, this study supported the rich-get-richer hypothesis, in that it showed most adolescents who pursue online communication are generally not lonely or socially anxious. Rather, doing so enhances existing relationships or promotes new ones.

The evidence here suggests that the Internet is not having a negative effect on the lives or development of adolescents in this generation, at least in terms feelings of connectedness to others. For parents, this means not worrying if that if your child talks with their friends online, this can indicate anti-social behavior. They are disconnected from the real world, but rather are enhancing their relationships. For adolescents, this study indicates that reliance should not be solely on the internet, but on the symbiosis that can be achieved with existing friendships and those online.

Valkenburg. P.M., & Peter, J. (2007). Preadolescents’ and Adolescents’ Online Communication and Their Closeness to Friends. Developmental Psychology, 43, , 267-277.