Essay on Social Media Usage

A number of researches have been done with the main interest focused on the social media platform. Indeed, social media has become the main platform whereby many people in the United States are using to mingle, meet new friends as well as for communication purposes. The researches done have therefore helped to provide insight on how the always growing media platform has affected the lives of people in both the negative and the positive ways. The various modes of social media usage are unique to every person that is involved. Different people have their various perspectives of the media that is bound to their interests as well as the way of life. The Pew Research Center lately came out with the finding that Facebook is the most used social media platform applicable to the U.S the teenagers and adults.

  However, they discovered that within the population interviewed, the young adults of between 18 years and 24 years mainly depend in the use of Instagram and Twitter. Therefore, as the researcher duly suggests, there thus seems to be a social media trend that makes the need for more communication on who uses what and what should be done moving forward (Jamie et al. 32). This happens because every person has individual tastes and preferences thus this needs to be a talk that touches and involves on the population concerned. This study thus strives to draw the major relationship between the various users with their needs when social media is concerned. It also tries to find out if the use of social media is validated as a means of interaction and communication for them.

Summary

Over the years, social media has gained a lot of popularity among the youths and adolescents in the United States. Such statistical findings have been entirely attributed to the availability as well as the affordability of the smart phones and laptops. In the same manner, the price of accessing internet has greatly reduced making it easier for the individuals to access several social media sites that seem viable and appealing to the individuals’ concerned. The individuals have even gone to the extent of giving cyber café a back because they have devices that can enable them access the same information. This research therefore attempts to find the relationship between social media and its validity to the society and individuals that access social media sites. The researchers conducted the survey with eighty participants who were required to provide data after every one week in response to the three various hypotheses at hand.

The research conducted involved 80 students from Seton University that were clearly briefed on what to look for in order to provide answers through the Survey Monkey platform. Three hypotheses were put across to help the participants understand the scope of the study. Research results obtained showed that a lot of people using social media sites mainly do it for likes, comments and others for followers. The posts are aimed at attracting lots of attention from the members of the group concerned. The results from the participants also alluded that social media is mainly applied for knowledge and advocacy purposes, meaning that they mainly access the sites to get specific information about a given item in question. Therefore, the overall analysis made from the findings similarly suggest that the social media sites are used by the individuals as a way of life. We can comfortably conclude that the three hypotheses are fully satisfied as the findings fully support the question that the study aimed to answer.

Introduction

Social media is increasingly gaining popularity with time. A lot of people are finding it as interesting as they can share their experiences, meet new people, communication and so much more is enabled by the media. This has attracted mostly the youth and the young adults because most of the time they are less engaged and thus get more time at their disposal to share what they have and also interact with a lot of other individuals all over the world. There are so many types of social media sites available at the disposal of the contemporary society. All one needs in order to gain access to either of them is a mobile phone such as smartphone for that matter because it has so many applications that only need internet to enable the individual concerned to access the media site desired. Some of these sites include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat and many others.

Different people have their reasons for joining the various social media sites. This might be for entertainment purposes, for having fun, connecting with friends and relatives, for information reasons, meeting new people and socializing and many other reasons best known by the individual concerned (Burke et al. 76). It has been discovered that a number of people living in the United States are in more than one social media sites. Thus, the question of whether validation of social media is acceptable is something to ponder about and the research mainly aims to get responses from the primary sources themselves for clarity reasons.

The main objective of conducting this research is to find out if there is indeed a correlation between social validation and use of social media sites. It is very significant to get the relationship as the entire generation in the United States is on the Internet. Not having an account in either of the sites makes the individual feel out of place, not trendy because everyone is on the sites (Fine 45). Similarly, education nowadays is taking the same trend. Notes and handouts are shared via social media platforms and thus this makes it hard for one especially teenagers and young adults not to have a smartphone or access to the internet. This impact of the media cannot be underestimated or undermined thus the reason for the study.

 Background Information

Research done by Global Survey in February 2017 revealed that teenagers and young adults in the United States prefer to use Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest. This is the top five majorly preferred social media sites in the order from the top. The same Company did the same research in the year 2018 and came up with the following results in order from position one to five (Fujita et al. 62). These included Facebook, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, Twitter and lastly Pinterest. This is not to say the other media sites did not get ranked but were less voted for by the audience thus failed to make it in the top five list. Therefore, this research mainly aims to find out whether there is a relationship between these sites that are ranked so highly and the individual social validation for the individuals concerned.

NORC Center for public affairs performed another similar research. This research involved a variety of people from the United States and had a series of findings that stated that Instagram and Snap chat was the most popular social media sites for the teenagers at the time. The black teens were established to be mostly involved in the social media and most especially the messaging apps and video. They were found to get more preference in such sites because they like communicating, interacting and meeting new friends. The research further found out that most of the teenagers get involved in more than one social media platform (Gupta et al. 127). They explained that having accounts in more than one site seems to be so exciting and trendy at the same time. They also said that they get an encounter with colleagues or friends that have accounts in other sites different from theirs and so because they ought to feel that they belong, they open such accounts and thus this enhances their ability to interact and relate to them.

Other related findings from the research were that almost all of the teenagers that participated used normal texting and therefore had the messaging applications such as WhatsApp, kick and line. They also found out that the teenagers from the low income earning backgrounds in the United States are more likely to have the messaging applications in their phones as compared to those from well-off backgrounds (Gupta et al. 128). This could be attributed to the fact that these teenagers want to feel that they belong and can afford some luxuries that those from rich backgrounds can or cannot afford. The research further put across that than less than half a million of the American teenagers do live to stream of the videos by use of either computers or their phones.

Similarly, there was a research that was conducted by Pew Research Centre, in August 2017 that aimed to find out how much the people of the United States use the social media platform to find information or to clarify any news that they might have gotten second hand elsewhere. It also had the intention of finding out the most used media site that they preferred for verification purposes (Berkman et al. 94). Their findings were that almost 67% of the population in America rely on the social media sites for information (Hollebeek et al. 157). They said they used the media sites because most of the time they are normally engaged in one role or the other thus rarely find time to concentrate and full focus on the news during the time they are aired and thus social media played the major important role of informing them in a great way. The results obtained further brought out the various social media sites that they really relied upon and thus without the fear of contradiction, Twitter was ranked at position one. This implied that most of the citizens would visit twitter site any time for information. Other media sites include Reddit, Facebook, Tumblr and YouTube respectively in the order from position two to five.

Literature Review

Over time, a good number of researchers have tried to explain the meaning of social validation and what the term entails from the social media perspective. They have concurrently come defined social validation as the desire of people to form and become part of a specific group. The group might consist of colleagues working in the same firm or working in the same field, but different firms or could just be a group of people with common interests (Hollebeek et al. 158). The researchers further put to book that social validation does recognize that people do have different points of view to a given matter, different perceptions as well as behavior that may be consistent in the given groups’ accepted code of conducts and mode of behavior.

Realizing all these make the group members understand each other because they are prepared to learn that the life must move on in the best way possible even if they fail to agree with what is put across in the specific group concerned. All these conclusions from the researchers are based on the fact that social validation has rules as it is an art of social pressure (Perez-Vega et al. 343). Sean Parker, who is the president of Facebook had to describe the social platform as a social validation environment with both forward and reverse tied sequences. He evaluated the use of likes and comments as a means of entrapping the participants in a loop meaning that the user will like or comment on someone’s photo or status with the hope that the favor should be reciprocated ones they have uploaded theirs on Facebook sometimes later (Reinharz 31). His general description of the intentions behind them forming the largest social media site in the entire world currently properly puts a clear alignment with the meaning of social validation that is consistent with the scope of our research and generally the study.

Luchman et al. 1686 conducted a survey that majorly made use of the quadrant system to find out the various reasons for the huge use of social media among the young Americans that existed in 1686. The research mainly made use of the teenagers and the young adults that were at the colleges and university levels at the time (Reinharz 32). They then grouped the thirteen results they found on the usage motives into two broader categories such as for fun and pleasure based and the content-based results. Fun and pleasure based results involved people who use the several social media platforms for entertainment, refreshing their minds and relaxing when off their work or any daily duties.

In contrast, content-based involved people that use the media for information purposes. This could be using the media to get knowledge on the operation of given equipment, for mentorship programs offered, for research purposes, so that the user gets to benefit themselves and expand their understanding of a particular project in question (Reinharz 31). Interestingly, the contents specific group confirmed that the user is more likely to concentrate on the given unique content as the desire for the information need goes up. An example of such a user is the one that can subscribe in Twitter for consistency in getting updates about current trends and ideas in the world. Could also involve YouTube subscription that gives notification about the release of a given informative book or the use of particular new appliances in the market. The whole idea firmly does bring up social validation and its entire meaning to the whole population (Perrin 19). An example of fun and the pleasure-based category is someone posting photos and another post on Instagram and Facebook to get a lot of likes and comments. It enables such a person to feel good and thus get the general feeling of being accepted by the social media fraternity. Indeed, the general idea of social validation in terms of who really belongs is open and thus there is no particular answer as each and every one has their own perspective and thus really strive to make their view relevant to the others who have a different opinion (Kinsella et al. 130). The most convenient way of creating a balance is to find the initial intentions of the user and following up if they live up to what they perceive to be true and if they do then they are on their way to social validation.

Several studies and regular publications speak of social media on a number of several perspectives. Some of them are gender-based, education-based, business related and many other topics considered to be hot as they influence the societal matters in one way or another. Our study thus bases its argument on the personality concept to connect the various categories explained above.

To start with, personality refers to the unique characteristics of an individual that enable them to stand out. The social media really influence the concept of personality in all directions in the modern society. Julia Levitan, 2014 experimented to find out social media predicts the character of an individual based on extraversion, anxiety from the community and the engagement in the society as well (Silverman 21). The study involved 58 students who willingly and voluntarily offered to perform the online survey that was on course. She then found out that the people termed extroverts or those loving to party and outdoor activities make less use of social media for the communication reasons while those preferring to stay indoors would use social media a lot for communication and creating relationships. She also discovered that people that are often socially anxious find use of social media to be very stressing and thus would prefer a one on one talk as compared to use of applications and other media. Finally, she found out that social engagement is directly proportional to the social media. It is to mean that the more social an individual is, the more they would get involved with the social media and vice versa. The research was very eye-opening and thus successful in terms of the results found being accurate and easier analysis due to the small sample size involved (Shaughnessy et al. 47). However, the research was not homogenous as the study only consisted of individuals from a given region. Similarly, the sample size was very small. Compared to the large population in the United States, it was very unfair to use a small group of people to make conclusion for the very big group as different people have their own tastes and preferences and thus using a relatively bigger sample size will make the results a bit accurate as all the interests will be represented in the study.

The concept of social validation cannot be discussed without overlooking the impact it has contributed to the higher levels of addiction. Many people are really addicted to social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and many others. It is an excellent point of concern that deserves to be keenly analyzed as addiction attracts so many questions that are pressing and in dire need of getting answers.  In an attempt to find solutions to the much pressing question, Dr. Pampimol Wipulakorn, a psychologist from Thailand embarked on a study which specifically aimed at the issue on the table. He found out that if the individual posts on the social media and the outcome are few likes and comments, they will be forced to post another item to find out if it will fetch more likes and criticisms in terms of the comments (Fuchs 17). It will go on and on and thus the individual feels they need to do much in order for their presence as well as changes be felt by the group thus causing an addiction. It creates an argument to the fact that addiction to media platforms provides the basis for the user to gain validity despite either success or failure to all they do in the site. (Shaughnessy et al. 47). It further disapproves Julia Levitan’s idea that socially anxious people will tend to shy away from social media but explains that such people are only afraid of being wrong that they may not receive mockery and abuse from their colleagues.

A study was done by Kagan Kircaburun in 2017 and had the finding that those people that find it very difficult agreeing with others are frequent users of social media for such as Twitter. It is because they fear having a confrontation with anyone that might want to catch a fight with them and the named site indeed does amazingly well for the purported function as feedback is rarely given as individuals only tweet and retweet what is relevant to them thus only respond what tends to affect them in one way or the other (Etter et al. 63). Griffins and Kircaburuns research will be of great help to us as will help to explain whether those who frequently update their statuses and posts do this in the hope of being unique and aim at becoming easily identified by their peers.

Individual photography, excessive admiration of the individual self and self-esteem through the use of taking lots and selfies are thought to have an interdependence as Christopher Barry explains in his 2005 research. His research majorly discovered that the people with that cause a lot of traffic on social media sites because of having a greater number of followers tend to post so much information as well as selfies in their accounts. It brings forth a discussion on what really people do care about on social media (Siegel 45). Their priority is key, is it viewership, social interactions or likes, and comments that come after posting some item in the media? Though it seems to be a tough call it is very important for us as we focus on the main topic of social validation.

The relationship between people of different races on social media is similarly a big issue. It is evident from a variety of studies conducted that racism is even worse on social media than it appears in real life situations. This has contributed to the identity that is done by sites such as Facebook that brings forth to an individual people that they might know (Siegel 67). As such, their friends, relatives, and mutual friends are the ones that are brought in the hope of creating a connection with the user. Chan says that in as much as young people love to welcome the idea of expression and social interaction, the youths are very reluctant to such ideas most especially when people of different races are concerned.

Being the backbone of the research, validity becomes a contentious issue as to whether color in this scenario is the interest of the individual concerned. A study conducted in America failed to show any interaction between adolescents of white and black races. Mesch found out from his analysis that there were lots of networks created between individuals of Hispanics as compared to those from White and Black races. The networks are mainly developed from social interactions and encounters that people come across (Toubiana and Zietsma 932). This could be from schools where the students learn or workplaces where they meet the shared goals and objectives. Therefore, the question of whether social media is a place for social validation or normal interactions for the individuals involved is very vital in the study.

From a number of statistics, the women are seen to be very disadvantageous in many important ways. This varies from the wages they get from working and engaging in the same amount that men do engage in but get an upper hand and thus more wages compared to the women. Similarly, women also suffer from sexual discrimination. They get harassed in more peculiar ways than their men counterparts. An author tried to explain that women use platforms such as Twitter to help voice their grievances and experiences encountered in one way or another. It helps them get the strength through constant tweets and retweets that help them get them complains and cries heard by a \wide scope of people and thus in a way they get help (Shaughnessy et al. 47). The women in the United States recently made their demands for equal pay for both races be it Blacks, Whites or Hispanic. They complained that over time, they have been given the second priority after men and explained that some of them even performed way better than their male colleagues in the workplace but still got the peanuts. Lots of hashtags trended on social media as they aired their pleas. It is a bit hard to know whether White women had a different motive while the demonstrations were concerned (Carlson et al. 18).

Methodology

The research was conducted at Seton University which is a private institution in the United States. The participants were eighty in number aged between 18 years and 24 years because this is the age presumed to make the most of social media platforms greatly. The participants were well informed that the only mode of communication for feedback will be the use of Survey Monkey and the announcements were to be made with the use of emails as well as the announcements made in their respective classes. The research was based on three hypotheses that include:

H1_ to find out whether people use social media platforms for likes, comments and for followers.

H2- to find out whether people use social media sites for information and advocacy reasons,

H3- to find out whether social media is the vital component in people’s lives.

The participants were to exclusively take part in the research for a period of one month without opting out and thus their schedule was required to be updated and made in line with specifications. They were sent questionnaires through their emails to provide answers pertaining to the first hypothesis. The respondents were to keenly analyze their whole week involvement with the social media and thus make a report that was sent via the Survey Monkey to the board in charge for decision-making purposes based on the results obtained (Toubiana and Zietsma 941). Similarly, the second week entirely involved interviews with the participants. The board conducted the interview asking relevant questions that drove to bring feedback about the second hypothesis. This took some good time and enabled collection of right feedback for the team concerned. On the other hand, there was also engagement of the participants on the third hypothesis question.

The survey responses were adequately recorded and analyzed for the two weeks’ period. The responses were pretty good as all the participants were willing to open up and share their weekly experiences. Similarly, what they thought could be forgotten was recorded in the notebooks provided to them by the research team (Vermeulen et al. 214). To add to this, the feedback was excellent as the topic of social validation of social media affects the youth and the young adults interviewed in the biggest way possible.

Findings

The results obtained were overwhelmingly encouraging and thus helped to answer the hypotheses put across by the study. We can confidently say that the project was indeed a success. For the first hypothetical question, 97% of the entire population agreed that they indeed use social media majorly for likes while the remaining 3% said that they did not mind about the likes but the social interaction and integration was their major goal (Vermeulen et al. 216). They minority claimed that they obtained satisfaction from the fact that at least they feel they belong and have somewhere they can let down their daily frustrations as well as share in their friends’ timely moments. Similarly, a good 83% of the sample size agreed to use social media for followers. They claimed that have a huge crowd on their back makes them feel trendy and accepted by the larger society. Some of them claimed that the huge follower contributed to the many likes that accrue whenever they post anything which is a good thing for them. 10% alluded that although a good follower is good, it makes the individual concerned susceptible to lots of negative criticism that would make the self-esteem of the person go down whenever they post a controversial post and so they do not do social media for followers. The rest 7% did not know what to conclude because they did not even find the following as something of interest for them. For comment reasons, 98% of the participants agreed that they indeed use social media for comments. The rest said that they don’t care whether their posts get a comment or not so long as they have let their minds out to the group members involved.

Similarly, the second hypothesis question also received a good number of overwhelming reasons. 95% of the entire sample size was in agreement that they use social media for information purposes. The nature of their education system majorly contributes this and in an effort to expand knowledge, they consult the internet a lot. The other 5% admitted that through social media is a platform for sharing knowledge, they did not fully support the idea as some information on the media is misleading (Brown and Duguid 34). They claimed that such information lacked basis and could make someone have a wrong point of view concerning a given idea.

The third hypothesis question in a similar manner attracted a variety of views from the adults that partook in the research. 63% of the sample size agreed that social media was part and parcel of their lives. They unanimously decided that a day cannot end before they visit a number of social media sites. They confessed that addiction had contributed to this and thus the media is so inseparable from their daily activities. Actually, a good number of them opened up that they had been forced to come up with a schedule that would help then use the media only when it is necessary. 31% told the research body that they could indeed do without social media. Some of them confessed that they can even go for a week without visiting either of the sites unless triggered by their friends to view a given item in the site (Zafar, Bilal, Gummadi, and Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil 46). The remaining percentage had no idea whether social media was part of their life because others even lacked a smartphone with the social media applications. However, they confessed that being in touch with colleagues using the media in a way make them feel left out and thus opt to feel they belong but circumstances sometimes fail to allow.

Analysis

Following the results obtained for the research conducted, it is obvious that social media is taking root in aid of social validation. This is so because the three hypotheses of the study found positive results from the responses obtained. These were very much in line with Dr. Pampimol research that showed a number of teenagers and young adults in America surely engaged in social media platforms seeking for the ’likes and comments’. It is fairly paramount to the topic of research as the validity of social media is finally revealed. The results obtained further concurs with Luchman’s finding that revealed that some engage for information purposes (Boyd 12). This is very vital as information is power and therefore having a constant platform where one can for sure get regular updates and knowledge is very vital to the individual involved. As much as social media is concerned, the lives of a number of people’s lives get impacted by its use. The knowledge itself is something to boast about as the generation at hand is learning new relevant things for their progress in the academics and life in general. Similarly, the interaction through social media is an eye opener for the individuals concerned. Their minds and scope of doing things get widened through the negative criticisms they get from the group members.

Conclusion

In conclusion, due to the consistency of information that the participants claimed to rely on the internet for and the observations made from the results, it is clear that the objective of the research is achieved. Therefore, the subject of social media is the modern common way for social validation is therefore justified. The research has brought out reasons to cement this statement because all the hypothetical questions obtained positive responses from the individuals involved. This is not something that can be ignored as the trend currently is social media thus making the topic relevant to discussion and analysis as done.

Recommendations

Though the research came out to be very successful, a few things ought to do to make the outcome more reliable and convincing. One of them is that the sample size needs to be increased. A larger group will give more accurate results and thus more compelling to the users looking for such information. Also, the research should aim at individuals in the streets and those that are always at home. This might give a different perspective on the argument as most of them have a different schedule as compared to the student.

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