UPDATE - new blog

Hello friends,

I've changed blogs and I'm now working under www.kristinmarks.com so please check out my posts there.

Thank you!

Oprah Survey

If you have seen the Oprah Show, you are invited to participate in a simple and fun questionnaire asking for your thoughts and feelings about Oprah, her show, and general TV viewing. Your time and effort will greatly benefit college professors seeking to understand media selection and perceptions. There is no corporate interest involved in this survey; it is purely academic. We would truly appreciate your participation.
If you are interested, please click the link below:

https://lsucommunications.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_0wRwo1aRDUPqdco
Thank you very much!

Friendship definition changing with advancments in social media

“With the proliferation of social networking sites and the aggregation and documentation of comprehensive “social networks,” future research should address how the contemporary definition of “friend” is changing.”

Stefanone, Lackaff & Rosen

Social networking sites allow us to friend anyone and anytime with the technological advancements of smart phones.  I know I’ve asked the question, “Are you on Facebook?”  During discussions with my friends, I’ve heard the statement, “it’s not official until it’s on Facebook,” in reference to new friendships or new relationships.  These comments were made jokingly but it is important to recognize how social media influences they ways in which we define relationships. 

The above quote clearly recognizes this shift in how we define our friendships.  Do we define our friendships by the friends I interact with face to face or my online friends?  Some video game research shows that players feel that their friendships built online have the same strength as face to face friendships.

Other research shows that parasocial relationships provide only supplementary relationships and do not replace primary relationships.  Maybe the changing definition of friendship is occurring only on a case by case basis right now.  As technology continues to develop how much will friendship change?

Some people prefer texting to actually talking to someone over the phone.  Others prefer email than a phone call.  There are so many mediums to choose from that I wonder if phone conversations will end altogether. 

The article where I found the quote also noted the idea of “friend promiscuity” which means that someone will “friend” anyone on social media sites just to increase his/her number of “friends.”  Social media websites are creating new conditions.  There is now a disorder called social media hoarding, which involves a user spending an obscene amount of time on social media websites and time spent away causes discomfort for the user.

What other conditions may develop from social media? Some of the changes social media brings are useful and beneficial.  However, I am concerned about the depths the negative  components of social media bring to users.    

Are smart phones really smart?

A collogue of mine (this is a shout-out to you Phil) brought to my attention an article written by Berkos (2010) discussing the role of imagined interaction in online communication.  Berkos (2010) explains that “computer mediated communication (CMC) is as much a part of their social life as talking on the telephone.”  People use the Internet to socialize via email, newsgroups, discussion boards, blogs, and instant messenger (IM).  With the adoption and wide-spread usage of smart phones, the telephone is no longer solely a form of verbal communication.  The boundaries are further blurred as people can have CMC on smart-phones.  People are using smart phones less and less for verbal communication and instead they are generating emails, text messages, and social media updates more frequently.  Nie et al. (2004) explains that the average Internet user in the United States spends 3 hours a day online.  Most of this online time is associated with work with more than half attributed to communication. 

The most interesting fact to me from the Berkos (2010) article was that CMC allows for multiple drafts to be written with extreme ease.  Not only can one rewrite and create several drafts but they can be saved, revisited, and send to multiple receivers.  Online communication provides benefits that hand written communication does not allow.  Although, the nature of CMC allows for multiple drafts, I am uncertain if all Internet users employ that method.  In particular, I have come across spelling and grammar errors in emails and social media updates.  Mistakes in emails are particularly frustrating because there is an editing feature to correct for errors.  Because the nature of Twitter requires countless updates, the ability for drafts seems irrelevant.  So why do we revise emails and not Twitter updates? Is it due to the differing audiences or the differing mediums?  Although the two mediums have different purposes the content generated is still documented in cyberspace.  Maybe it is due to the fact that we know more about the consequences of poorly written emails and less about social media.  Do we need an edit function on social media before we can post?  And is it a good thing that we are so dependent on these edit functions rather than catching these errors ourselves?  Even I used Microsoft Word to draft my post before entering it into Blogger because Spell Check is easier to use. 

Why aren’t people utilizing imagined interactions for social media posts more frequently? It could be due to the fact that there isn’t one receiver but many.  Because emails have a direct receiver(s), we take more time in composing our thoughts.  Social media has a different type of feedback reducing our concern for grammar and spelling.

I wonder how this will change as technology develops.  Maybe Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook will generate an edit feature.  Only time will tell.

Language Creates New World Online

Riva and Galimberti (1998) describe how computer-mediated communication interacts with identity and social interaction.  They explain that “communication is not only – or not so much – a transfer of information, but also the activation of a psychosocial relationship, the process by which interlocutors co-construct an area of reality” (Riva & Galimberti, 1998, p. 1).

When I read this sentence it took me a minute to fully grasp what they were claiming… plus I had to look up interlocutor.  An interlocutor is one who takes part in dialogue or conversation.  These researchers note an important aspect of relationships, that communication is a key element in building relationships.  The really interesting component is that the communicator constructs his/her own reality.  This supports the theory of linguistic relativity; that language helps to shape our understanding of reality.  This idea affects both the communicator in how they draft their message and how the receiver interprets that message. 

Knowing this process helps us to understand how social media may play a role in the relationships we build.  My last post discussed how Facebook in particular causes negative feelings by users which demonstrate their own reality construction of the intended message.  Computer mediated communication allows for more misinterpretations to occur between the communicator and message receiver.  Maybe people should write more clearly to reduce this? Maybe readers shouldn’t take Facebook so seriously?  Maybe readers should ask the communicator what their intention actually was?

It seems that the articles I’m reading have mostly negative views regarding social media. Richard Landers on his blog Thoughts of a Neo Academic writes about a study conducted analyzing Twitter’s effect on G.P.A.  This study utilized Twitter as a teaching tool which had positive results as students G.P.A. scores improved.  However, there were confounding variables demonstrating the need of further research on this topic.  My point here is that people are also searching for the positive components that social media has to offer. 

Both studies show that social media is changing the way we interact and we learn.  Social media is a new phenomenon that requires much further research to really determine if it has more positive or negative effects on the population or more likely some combination of the two.     

Does the written word hurt even more?

I came across a blog titled “Thoughts of a Neo-Academic” by Richard Landers, an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA.  One of his recent posts describes how people can have bad experiences on online social networks.  He refers to research conducted by Tokunaga in Cyberpsyhcology, Behavior, and Social Networking. 

Tokunaga discovers ten types of negative experiences social networking users have online.  They are:

1. The person initiates a friend request which is denied or ignored by the person he sends it to.
2. The person tags a photo or leaves a message on a friend’s profile and later discovers it has been deleted.
3. The person visits a friend’s profile and discovers he is not ranked where he thinks he should be ranked on a “Top Friends” list.
4. The person learns that someone else has been “stalking” their profile.
5. The person waits longer than he expected for a response to a post.
6. The person discovers negative (e.g. flaming) comments on his profile, left by other people.
7. The person discovers someone else has written something about him that he did not know about – interestingly, the information does not need to be negative to be unwanted.
8. The person discovers that even though a friend request has been accepted, he has limited access to the new friend’s profile.
9. The person was removed as a friend.
10. The person discovers a group he wants to join but is not permitted to; alternately, the person discovers a group has been made about him without his permission.

Any of these can be damaging to someone’s self-esteem.  For some, they may be able to shake it off with little cognitive energy while others may develop intense anxiety.  This new form of cyber-bullying has taken form in many ways.  It can be as aggressive as intentionally typing negative comments or something much more subtle which is what Tokunaga found.  Social networks are wonderful for connecting long lost friends but inherently the Internet has some faults.  Tone, cadence, and intent are lost in cyberspace.  For example, number five on the list above explains that an author on a social media website is offended that someone took too long to reply to a post.  We take this untimely response as a personal attack that the responder does not care about us.  But there may be an alternative reasoning… maybe this person was out of town or had work deadlines to meet which prevented him/her from responding.  The online world removes the information we receive from body language.  The non-verbal communication is critical in developing and strengthening relationships because it helps to uncover the intent of comments. 

Cyber-bullying effects the adolescent population the most.  This happens because adolescents have become aware of how the appear to others and are concerned about that appearance.  Adolescents are considering the roles they will have in their adult world.  They do so by participating in a variety of activities (e.g. sports, extracurricular activities, etc.).  Erik Erickson, a psychologist offers that there are eight stages of psychosocial development and identity is the fifth stage occurring at the adolescent years.  Adolescents are striving to create their own unique identities by overcoming challenges.  Cyber-bullying on social media networks is creating a new set of challenges.  Not only do adolescents have to face challenges in their physical day-to-day lives in high-school, they now experience heartache online. 

Social media has both positive and negative consequences.  Cyber-bullying is occurring and it needs to be addressed in schools and in family discussions.  Furthermore, it is critical that adolescents are being provided the opportunities to develop strong identities in the “real world” which will allow them to disregard potentially negative comments online.

Most people have discounted the old saying that “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.”  We now know that words do hurt.  Does the written word hurt even more?   

Tokunaga, R. (2011). Friend me or you’ll strain us: Understanding negative events that occur over social networking sites. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking.

What kind of social media user are you?

I was perusing Nick Bowman's blog to discover some blogs he follows.  One blog is by Richard Landers at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA is an industrial/organizational psychologist who discusses technology, education and training research.  One of his posts describest the four kinds of social media users.

http://neoacademic.com/2011/02/18/there-are-four-kinds-of-social-media-users/

The four categories are: versatile, novel, expert communicator, and introvert.

Versatile (36.3%):  This is the most common user type.  Usually this user has fewer than 100 friends on the social networking site but actively engages with these friends.  Users interact on this site by sending messages both privately and publicly, comment on threads, update their profiles, and share links.  Usage on these sites is between 1-5 hours per day. 

Novel (25.3%):  The novel user also has fewer than 50 friends on the social networking site and has accounts on two sites.  This user logs in between 1-5 hours per week and updates his/her profile in addition to uploading photos. 

Expert Communicator (19.88%):  This is the most active social networking site user that uses these sites for more than 5 hours per day and typically has more than 100 friends.  This group engages with people they have little in person interaction with and uses social networking sites to maintain these relationships. 

Introvert (18.62%):  The introvert uses social networking sites to replace email and usually have an account on one site.  The communication on this site typically is through private messages.   Users usually have fewer than 50 friends.

What kind of user are you?

Please answer the poll question that is to the left of the title of this blog. 

Alarcón-del-Amo, M., Lorenzo-Romero, C., & Gómez-Borja, M. (2011). Classifying and Profiling Social Networking Site Users: A Latent Segmentation Approach. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking DOI: 10.1089/cyber.2010.0346 [↩]