The Fears, Facts, and Fiction of Digital Social-Networking (dsn)

The Fears, Facts, and Fiction of Digital Social-Networking (DSN)

By: Christopher Carvey

Right at this moment, somewhere in the world, someone is creating, thinking, or doing things that are new and amazing. The world seems to be advancing at a rate like never before... but is that really true? The answer is yes, but not in the way you think. People themselves aren't coming out with new ideas and theories any more frequently than they were a hundred years ago; rather there is a big difference between now and then; communication technologies. People have always had ideas, but now those ideas can be shared with thousands and even millions of people with the click of a button. So where is this going? Obviously communication, specifically the internet, now has a massive roll in the world. Not only do people use the internet for information, fun, or work... but also in conjunction with their social lives. This digital social network (DSN) needs to be researched by psychologist considering the percentage of people that engage in social networking throughout the world, and the obvious psychological differences and impacts that come with digital relationships versus face to face relationships. This topic is an extremely important issue considering that person to person interaction is what advances us as a species. I believe, as I'm sure many psychologists would agree, that the world's social network is our most important and defining feature. It is absolutely critical to the individual's and the overall population's survival to be successful in our communications and social relationships. We survive by working together, not alone. With this in mind, it is imperative to study huge social networks such as Facebook because of the obvious effects and change it brings to the WORLD'S social life and psychological needs. In this paper we will discuss the impact of social networking with a focused study on Facebook and its effects on people's social lives. It is also important to remember that "Studying online relationships and networking is important not only because of their growing prevalence, but also because they provide opportunities to test existing theories of interpersonal and mediated communication in virtual environments" (Sheldon, p. 67) (if you didn't catch that last part, DSN provides for more advanced and widespread studies on all psychological theories, not just the effect on DSN on user's lives, thus increasing the importance of such studies to a pivotal level). Some questions that will be addressed are... Why people (students) log onto Facebook, and whether there is a relationship between socially digressed people and Facebook usage. This will be done with information provided by a separate psychological study called The Relationship Between Unwillingness-to-Communicate and Students' Facebook Use (Sheldon, p. 67). Further we will cover a summary of that article, details into the tests conducted and the results found, and an overall critical analysis of the article.

From a psychological perspective, the problems with Facebook in conjunction with social life would seem obvious, but the results of studies may surprise you. The most apparent concern that most people share would be that digital communications is replacing face to face interaction, and many believe that this is NOT a good thing. It is thought (one that I shared) that the over-use of digital social networking (DSN) will damage user's ability to communicate with people in a real world context and digress them from REAL social interaction, with possible psychological problems or concerns ensuing. This is the fundamental question; does DSN damage people's social lives? The article in this paper tries to address that question by asking... "What are the motives for Facebook use and how does unwillingness-to-communicate in a real life context relate to different motives of Facebook use?" (Sheldon, p. 69). Also, "To what extent can unwillingness-to-communicate predict behavioral and attitudinal outcomes of Facebook use?" (Sheldon, p. 69). Let's start with breaking down those questions, and follow up with the studies and the results that relate to them.

Unwillingness-to-communicate, what does that mean? Basically it's a feeling of anxiety at the thought of a face to face conversation, possibly to a degree where any form of oral conversation (like a phone call) may be stressful is some way. So are people (again the studies involved students, but the idea is being applied to the basic Facebook user) using social network websites because they want to meet new friends, maintain relationships, find romance, entertainment, or perhaps just because they're bored and want to pass the time? Those are exactly some of the questions answered by students in psychological studies. Now, with those answers, how do they relate to those people's social lives? Do people that spend more time chatting on a DSN have a lot of friends outside the internet? Are those individuals who use DSN more likely, or less likely to engage in social conversation? What is the quality of the real relationships that heavy DSN users have outside the internet, and further what is the quality of the relationships with people met THROUGH the internet? That's the first question... Basically does Facebook create an unwillingness-to-communicate in a real life context and why. The second question was "To what extent can unwillingness-to-communicate predict behavioral and attitudinal outcomes of Facebook use?" (Sheldon, p. 69). This question addresses the results of the first one, and goes into detail at the possible psychological outcomes that may result from those findings. What kind of social attitudes and feelings (good or bad) do Facebook users have, and to what degree does that affect their everyday lives? Let's try to answer those questions by looking at the results of the studies and reviewing the conclusions drawn up by the author.

There have been many tests and studies over the years that have addressed social networking, and some of them are slightly contradictory. First, let's look at some of the studies addressing how much people use DSN (Facebook specifically), and why they use it. Here is some basic information about Facebook and its usage. "Created in February 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, a Harvard undergraduate student, Facebook, with its 21 million registered users and 1.6 billion page views each day, is one of the fastest growing social network sites (Needham & Company, 2007). At the most basic level, online social networks are internet communities where individuals interact,