Social Media Influences Interpersonal Communication

Interpersonal communication involves the exchange of information in a face to face format between two or more individuals. It is inescapable, complicated, irreversible and contextual involving psychological, relational, environmental and cultural components. Communication occurs every single moment in both verbal and non-verbal cues. It determines how we relate to everyone be it colleagues, children or spouses. Before the onset of technological formats of communication, all communication was done face to face or through letters. People had great communication skills and good social tendencies. With the advent of technology and social media, interpersonal communication is fading away as people prefer to chat than meet and talk on a face to face basis leading to a loss of the human contact touch in communication. This shift has been catalyzed by busy schedules that people have and the constant high demands that life and work bring upon.  Communication has become impersonal utilizing electronic medial instead, emails and status updates on various social media networks.

            Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are impacting the way we communicate and socialize. Communication through social media is easy, fast and does not require face to face meeting to get to know someone.  In an ever-changing world with busy schedules and limited time for socializing, social media has bridged the gap enabling an individual to continue with their lives and at the same time socialize. It can be argued that social media has increased contact between individuals since one can communicate with anyone regardless of the geographical location, however, social media has also lead to poor interpersonal communication skills and increase in low self-esteem and depression cases consequently leading to suicide. An analysis on communication trends, social media inputs to society and  the effects of social media on face-face interpersonal communication raises the question, has social media  helped individuals  have a life-work balance or has it destroyed interpersonal communication and lead to disastrous consequences affecting health and social nature of human beings

Methodology and Objectives

            The research paper aims at highlighting the strong influence that social media has on communication and outline the effects of social media on interpersonal communication and basic communication skills. The objectives of the paper are 

To determine if social media is a true tool for effective communication.

The impact of social media on communication, its advantages, and disadvantages

To assess the impact of social media on the human nature of interpersonal communication

            A critical review of literature material was employed in answering the research questions and analyzing the objectives of the paper

Review of Literature

            Baruah 2012 in the article; ‘Effectiveness of Social Media as a tool of communication and its potential for technology-enabled connections: A micro-level study’ postulates that social media is an effective and important form of communication especially in the 21 Century (Baruah 2012).  It offers a vast network in which we can communicate (Baruah 2012) and interact with one another. Email, for instance, has replaced the use of letters due to the fact that it is cheap, convenient and the response time is small. In business, emails are considered as an official means of communication and it is used to communicate with employees, investors, and customers. Social communication can also be conducted via email, including verbal and non-verbal cues which are communicated using emoji. Social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook allow direct messaging among people who are friends on the networks and also facilitate the spread of information in the form of news, advertisement and alerts (Baruah 2012). These social media platforms facilitate users to express themselves, through status updates, thus communicating their thoughts, likes location and interest with a large pool of individuals. The individuals then choose to reply or communicate back.  This exchange of information in an informal format allows people to connect thus bringing in a sense of friendship (Baruah 2012). Social media platforms go an extra mile to include “Following status” whereby individuals acquire a large following from other individuals just by the click of a button. This is dependent on the kind of information that one shares, be it videos, quotes or travel blogs.  

            In the study ‘The Impact of Social Media on Children, Adolescents, and Families’ by O’Keeffe & Clarke-Pearson 2011, they found out that the use of social media is the commonest activity of children and adolescents today (O’Keeffe & Clarke-Pearson, 2011).  Adolescents prefer to stay indoors and chat with their friends online than go out to have a face to face conversation (O’Keeffe & Clarke-Pearson 2011). In another research done by (Baym & Zhang, 2004), ‘Social Interactions across Media’ discovered that Face to face communication and online communication are on the same level (Baym & Zhang, 2004), i.e. people use both social media and Face-Face interpersonal communication. The advantages of social media attribute to their high use in communication however due to some disadvantages, social media has not replaced Interpersonal face to face communication.

            The ability to communicate with many people at once is a significant advantage that social media possesses (Osterrieder, 2013). People can communicate with anyone in any location around the world using social media and get instant/ quick responses. People are thus more connected online. People can share ideas, advertise their businesses, and interact with people from other cultures. Businesses have recognized the importance of social media as a communication tool to the potential customer since they can advertise to a large pool of individuals at once and reach people in other localities (Hanna, Rohm, & Crittenden, 2011). Privacy issues and potential of cyberbullying undermine benefits of social media. Cyberbullying can lead to low self-esteem, depression and eventually suicide. Peter K. Smith in his article ‘The nature of cyberbullying and what we can do about it’ states that cyberbullying is a type of aggression (Smith, 2015) that has psychological effects that are far worse than normal bullying.  Online content and sites can easily be hacked hence security and privacy of individuals is also a big challenge. Anyone can search for any individual on social media and access their basic profile. Despite privacy security features on most social networking platform, these privacy measures may be bypassed and give access to private information.

Discussion and Analysis

            A review of the literature has shown that social media is currently one of the biggest sources of information and communication platforms. This is attributed to the benefits of social media platforms, their ease of use and convenience. People communicate with two people or in a group to convey plans, discuss current trends, conduct business and make new friends. Social media is also being used as a tool for the first contact between potential spouses.  It has changed how communication takes place by removing the physical touch of communication and replaced it with a virtual format. It can be argued that this is a disadvantage since people are becoming distant with one another, for example, instead of enjoying the company of friends or family over dinner, people tend to indulge in social media to communicate with other people despite being in the presence of friends and family. This trend is impacting close relationships in favor of distant/online relationships.

 Cyberbullying and lack of privacy are the two main disadvantages of social media as a tool of communication. Cyberbullying can lead to depression thus impairing the quality of life of an individual (Smith 2015). An individual who has been cyberbullied can decide to take revenge through physical means such as physically attacking the offenders and this can lead to further consequences. Stalkers can access private data from social media accounts and use it to stalk a victim thus posing a danger to any social media user.

 In conclusion, Social media has improved communication among individuals by making the spread of information fast and convenient. People can balance their life and work and effectively communicate with each other. Face-face interpersonal communication has also been impaired but to a small extent since people still meet once in a while to socialize and go out.  Social media is now at the center of communication, and it is being used by individuals, companies, and governments. Further research is needed to come up with ways of reducing the negative effects that social media has since it is an excellent tool for communication. People should also set out time to physically socialize with their peers and family in order to form closer bonds.

References

Baruah, T. (2012). The effectiveness of Social Media as a tool for communication and its potential for technology-enabled connections: A micro-level study. International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications.

Baym, N., & Zhang, Y. (2004). Social Interactions across Media’ discovered that Face to face communication and online communication are on the same level. Sage Journals.

Hanna, R., Rohm, A., & Crittenden, V. L. (2011). We’re all connected: The power of the social media. ScienceDirect.

O’Keeffe, G., & Clarke-Pearson, K. (2011). The Impact of Social Media on Children, Adolescents, and Families. American Academy of Pediatrics.

Osterrieder, A. (2013). The value and use of social media as communication tool in the plant sciences. BioMed Central, 9-26.

Smith, P. K. (2015). The nature of cyberbullying and what we can do about it. Jorsen, 176-184.