SCS-200 Project One Research Investigation

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Sociology

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Feb 20, 2024

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1 Project One: Research Investigation Name SCS-200: Applied Social Sciences Professor November 26, 2023

2 The issue I chose to research is “How social media changes interpersonal interaction, communication”. To me personally, this issue is significant because I truly feel that is detrimental to one’s health to compare your life to the best parts of other continually, and again this is just an opinion, but it seems as though people get caught in some shame spiral where they feel like their life isn’t adequate but instead of doing something to be more fulfilled, they continue to scroll through others and comparing it to their own. From a societal perspective, these types of platforms are still relatively new, and continue to grow and change at a rapid pace. We need to understand how and why these things affect us in the manors they do, positive or negative. The social principals that are the most affected in my opinion are social norms, beliefs, and values. Having social media has become a social norm, to the point where not having any is viewed as a bit peculiar. It’s affected how we spend a portion of our time throughout the day and even created opportunities for monetary gain. They are many aspects that social media has changed in the way we live our day to day lives. One positive thing to come out of it I believe is the way it can introduce you to another’s culture or traditions in a fun and engaging way, helping people learn about people different from themselves. That kind of information can help us understand each other and become more cohesive as a species. I have chosen to investigate how social media effect or mental wellbeing and communication skills. I firmly believe that in our society, it is almost impossible to have a well- balanced and fulfilling life with poor communication skills or a negative self-worth. That is my goal, to use the social sciences to better understand how social media is effecting these aspects of our lives. We have evolved as social creatures and according to an article on why that social need in so deeply etched into our evolution, one reason is this “By tying many social motives to the

3 basic existential concerns of the human species, which in turn are tied to an even more basic animal instinct for survival, the terror management framework provides a linkage between the psychological and biological sides of the human organism.” (Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Solomon, 2009) . Being social isn’t something we want, it’s something we have evolved to need. Understating how social media either hurts or helps that need is extremely important. Social media and its relationship with mood, self-esteem and paranoia in psychosis (Berry, Emsley, Lobban, & Bucci, 2018) is a fantastic journal article that has helped me so far, it deals with the mental aspect of social media and helps a lot with the psychology field that I have questions in. It seems very credible and helps me understand how it relates to a person’s self- esteem and daily mood. The use of social media and online communications in times of pandemic COVID-19 (Wong, Ho, Olusanya, Antonini, & Lyness, 2020) is a great article that is credible and relevant, showing how from a sociological perspective our communication has changed in over the years. During a time of pandemic, where it was hard for people to get together at all, it shows how social media was used to keep in touch with the people in your life and helps scratch a social interaction itch without putting yourself in danger. For the first time in recorded history the amount of communication that was possible was thanks to things like technology and social media. Social isolation and social anxiety as drivers of generation Z's willingness to share personal information on social media. (Lyngdoh, El-Manstrly, & Jeesha, 2022) Is a great article showing how gen Z, growing up with social media, has effect the willingness to give up privacy in a digital age due to social isolation and anxiety. It deals with a psychological factors that have led to an anthropic change in how we interact with the world. Does excessive social media use, more than an hour a day, effect peoples mental well- being and ability to communicate in a detrimental or helpful way? For this research question, you

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4 would need to look into a group of people mental state who does use social media for more than an hour, and a group people that don’t. After determining what is considered detrimental and helpful, you would need to look and evaluate which category each group falls into, or maybe there are aspects of both in both groups. And then with the same types of groups, after determining what criteria constitutes good communication and bad, see which group passes that criteria. The combine the results and see if there is a positive, negative, or even neutral correlation between using social media more than an hour a day. While I do believe an anthropologist or sociologist may find this question intriguing and useful, I think its best suited, at least in my context, to a psychologist. With psychologists needing to assess, diagnose, and treat mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders, it only makes sense that understand the effect of social media on a person’s health would be of interest. For example “several studies have reported a significant link between high social media use and low mood and depression. However, others have found no evidence of a link between social media use and mood” (Berry, Emsley, Lobban, & Bucci, 2018) . While that statement itself may be inconclusive, it shows the need for further study and the effect it can have on a person’s mental state. This type of research may also help people such as parents to better understand the problems their children are facing and may be able to help if this were to become detrimental. This information, on a less specific level, could benefit everyone who has any connection to social media, which is a great number of the population. Maybe a psychologist could understand the technical terms and what the data represents easily, a parent may need more of a summarized or more practical variation of the information. Understanding how social media effects a person’s mental health is information that can be vital to anyone with an account. Most people use it, so like sugar or nicotine, its crucial to understand the effects it has on us mentally,

5 and not everyone has a psychology degree to help them understand every technicalities that is included in some of these studies. This information needs to be easy to understand, concise on why it is important, and overall able to give a clear message on how to help with any mental distress it may cause. Overall this issue can affect many things in a person’s life. Mental health is a tough thing to understand to begin with, now in today’s social landscape, it’s important to understand how a big part of some people’s life effects the mental health. So far, from the research I’ve observed, it seems as though ones intentions truly determine whether it is detrimental or beneficial. It seems that if you use the platforms to compare yourself to others and monitor someone else’s life then it has a more negative effect. If you use it to communicate with people, learn, and enrich yourself, the result of the mental exposure is positive. Like many things in life it seems as though you get out of it what you put into it, and every person determines the effect it has on them based on how they look at it. Overall there needs to be more research done to resolve the question of whether it’s beneficial or detrimental.

6 References Berry, N., Emsley, R., Lobban, A. F., & Bucci, S. (2018). Social media and its relationship with mood, self-esteem and paranoia in psychosis. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica , 558-570. Lyngdoh, T., El-Manstrly, D., & Jeesha, K. (2022). Social isolation and social anxiety as drivers of generation Z's willingness to share personal information on social media. Psychology & Marketing , 5-26. Pyszczynski, T., Greenberg, J., & Solomon, S. (2009, November 19). Why Do We Need What We Need? A Terror Management Perspective on the Roots of Human Social Motivation . Retrieved from Taylor & Francis Online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15327965pli0801_1 Wong, A., Ho, S., Olusanya, O., Antonini, M. V., & Lyness, D. (2020). The use of social media and online communications in times of pandemic COVID-19. The Journal of the Intensive Care Society .

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