Social Media and Communication Skills Research

Today I found an essay/article online which I found interesting and relevant to the issue I am focusing on; the effects social media has on our self esteem and relationships with people. The essay focuses on 'The effects of Social Media on Communication Skills' this strongly links back to the effects social media has on our relationships with people.

https://academichelp.net/samples/academics/essays/cause-effect/the-effects-of-social-media.html

Social media has had massive impacts on our communication skills as social media has developed through the decades, and will definitely continue to do so over time. The article mentions that in particular, Facebook has played a big part towards this; allowing users to share the events of their lives through posting photos and status updates, to monitor the lives of their friends, and to communicate directly via a built-in messenger. Facebook has caused millions of people all over the world to share all kinds of information about themselves.

Even though social media can cause negative impacts on our communication skills, it also has its positives of course; 'According to surveys, 39% of respondents reported feeling closer to their friends because of social media, while 26% of the sample felt that they had more friends because of social media (NR Media).'

Social media also works to help strangers meet and enables initial communication between them—this is what social networks are definitely good for.

However, throughout the research I gathered from the article/essay, it showed that the negative impacts that social media has on communication skills definitely outweigh the positive:

• At the same time, numerous research studies prove that social media platforms negatively affect people’s social skills. Probably the most alarming phenomenon connected to the extensive use of social media services is the decrease in quality of interpersonal communication

• People begin to face lack of interest in face to face communication, research shows that many people (all ages) prefer to solve work or personal problems via social messaging systems

• The 'need for' and use of emojis- they were purely created because text does not convey the total palette of intonations or facial expressions. 

• It is difficult to understand the other person via messenger and this is how situations can become miss-understood (the classical “he/she did not insert smileys, so I thought he/she is mad at me”); or...in real life, it may become harder to differentiate and understand real emotions

• Studies show that about 11 percent of adults prefer to stay at home on weekends and make posts on Facebook about how much fun they are having, instead of going out and acquiring real-life experiences

• “People tend to want to show others that they are having fun than actually having fun themselves […] There’s a greater desire to share with other people you barely know, than actually hanging out with friends and making memories”- Mark Clennon

• 'Facebook depression'- the sense of inferiority occurring when people (teenagers, mostly) compare their real lives to the lives of their Facebook friends