Serdar 10.14.2014
Introduction
As
time passes by, the usage of social media is getting more common among people.
Although some people might think that they are harmful for everyday
communication, they are indispensable communication tools for the recent
generation. Cherie Burbach states that the social media have changed the way
people communicate with each other in a negative way; on the contrary, social
media helps us to keep in touch with family members or old friends more easily
compared to the past (Burbach, n.d.). Facebook,
Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+, YouTube, Snapchat, Vine, and Tumblr are
only some of the popular ones among the college students’ huge variety of
social media tools. Some of them are getting more popular; some of them might
lose their popularity over time. According to John McDermott, some of the
usages of the social media among college students, as of November 2013, are
Facebook 88.6%, Instagram 51.5%, Twitter 43.7%, Tumblr 35.5%, Snapchat 25.9%
and Vine 25%; in addition, while the usage of Facebook is decreasing, other
social media sites are getting more popular among college students (McDermott, 2014) .
Also, college students use different social media web pages
for different reasons. As McDermott stated, for example, while Facebook users
are tending more to keep in touch with their old friends or family members,
Twitter users are using Twitter more for expressing themselves easily; on the
other hand, college students prefer Snapchat due to the feeling of keeping safe
what they shared (McDermott, 2014). Molly McHugh explains the usage of Facebook
and Twitter as: “Facebook is a
repository of someone’s life, where Twitter is like a thought-stream, at least
in terms of usage” (McHugh, 2013, p. 6).
In the Fall 2014 semester, the class of ESL 5301 will
conduct research about Texas Tech student’s are use of social media. Since
social media are enormously popular, it would be useful and interesting to
study how Texas Tech students are using social media. In this research, each
student will conduct different research about some topics, for example, the
reasons students use the social media, how frequently they use them, which
social media they prefer for different purposes, whether social media affect
their success and other topics, by making surveys with the contribution of
Texas Tech students. Each individual in the class will state hypotheses and try
to find out whether it is true or not. I will provide information in the
methods section about how this research will be conducted.
Literature Review
There are many different statements and questions
about social media. The most general questions about social media are about how
many people are using them, and what are the different usages between different
age groups, genders and races. Mislove et al. conducted research to find out
how many Twitter users there are in United States and how gender, race and
geography affects the usage of Twitter (Mislove et al., 2011). They found out
that Twitter users are mostly represented by male users; however, their
research represents a non-random sample (Mislove et al., 2011). It is very
difficult to find out the number of users of social media; we can, however, get
an approximate percentage of Texas Tech social media users. In addition to
that, Fink et al. found out in their research that male and female users have
different reasons to use social media (Fink et al., 2012). According to the
Thiago Guimaraes, the numbers of social media users are increasing and Facebook
is the most popular one. He indicates that more than 84% of the web users in
North America have Facebook accounts and females are using Facebook a lot more
than males (Guimaraes, 2014). In our
survey, we can simply ask both male and female Texas Tech students which social
media they prefer and how they use social media.
Another claim about social media is that social media
might be harmful for its users in many ways. Eric Moore, for example,
introduces research conducted by Marc Eric Dyken in his article; according to
that research, teenagers spend time on social media at bedtime and it causes
many problems like sleep disorders and fatigue during the day (Moore, 2011). We
want to know if this is true for Texas Tech students. In our survey, we can ask
Texas Tech students whether they check social media at bedtime or not and
whether they believe checking social media at bedtime causes them sleeping disorders
or not. I believe that Texas Tech students check their social media at bedtime,
but they will not believe that checking social media at bedtime is causing
sleeping disorders. We can also try to find out whether Texas Tech students
believe the social media affect their college success or not. Mary Bart
introduced a study in her article and the study found out that there is no
relationship between grades and social media usage (Bart, 2010). In our study,
we may verify that Texas Tech students believe that there is no relationship
between grades and social media usage; however, I believe that the students
will admit social media disrupts them while they are studying.
A different
claim is Kylie Burchart’s statement that the usage of social media has negative
effects on communication; social media are making people more introverted and
people have stopped communicating with their friends face to face because of
the instant messaging ability (Burchart, 2013). Ryan Masin and John D. Faubert
also support this claim by stating “Those who use Facebook more intensely
report a lower quality of interpersonal relationships than those who do not use
Facebook as intensely” (Masin & Faubert , 2013, p. 55). We can ask Texas
Tech students if they use the instant message feature of social media web pages
and we can ask them whether they prefer communicating with their friends on
messenger or face to face. In my opinion, Texas Tech students will state that
they more likely to prefer sending messages than doing face to face
communication.
According to the Ryan Lytle, social media encourages
people to make donations, and it has become easier to create fundraising than
before (Lytle, 2014). According to his research, 64% of the social media users
donated more than $100 last year (Lytle, 2014). In summer, there was a very
popular fundraiser among social media users called “ice bucket challenge” for
ALS research. Briefly, social media users poured a bucket of ice on their heads,
and donated $10 to the ALS Foundation, and challenged their friends to do the
same through social media. If they did not pour the ice and challenge other
friends in 24 hours, they would have to donate $100 to the ALS Foundation. It
became very popular in a very short time and many people, including celebrities,
got involved in the challenge. It would
be very interesting to check how many Texas Tech students participated in the
ice bucket challenge, and how much they have donated. I believe a large number
of Texas Tech students were challenged by their social media friends and
participated in ice bucket challenge.
Some Hypothesis Ideas
§ Most Texas Tech students will admit that they are
checking their social media account at bedtime.
§ Texas Tech students believe that checking the social
media in bedtime will not cause sleeping disorder.
§ Female students check their social media at bedtime
more than male students.
§ Texas Tech students will state that they do not
believe social media affect their success in a negative way.
§ Texas Tech students will admit that social media
interrupts them while they are studying.
§ Most of the Texas Tech students have participated in
the ice bucket challenge and donated to the ALS Foundation.
References
Bart, M. (2009,
December 30). Do college student spend too much time on Facebook, YouTube and
other social networking sites? Faculty Focus. Retrieved (October 2,
2014) http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/edtech-news-and-trends/do-college-students-spend-too-much-time-on-facebook-youtube-and-other-social-networking-sites/
Burbach, C. (n.d.). Ways Social
Networking Ruins Friendship. About Relationships.
Retrieved (September 25, 2014) http://friendship.about.com/od/Social_Networking/tp/Ways-Social-Networking-Ruins-Friendship.htm
Burchart, K. (2013, March 13).
Social media: changing communication forever. The Argus.
Retrieved (September 11, 2014)
http://www.theargus.ca/articles/opinion/op-ed/2013/03/social-media-changing-communication-forever
Fink, C. E. (2012, June 4-7).
Inferring Gender from the Content of Tweets: A Region Specific Example. Proceedings
of the Sixth International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media. Retrieved (October 2, 2014) http://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/ICWSM/ICWSM12/paper/viewFile/4644%26lt%3B/5031
Guimaraes, T. (2014, September 12)
7 New Statistics About Facebook Users That Reveal Why It's Such a Powerful
Marketing Platform. Business Insider. Retrieved
(October 9,2014)
Lytle, R. (2014, September 18).
Social Media Users Are More Charitable Than You Might Think. Mashable.
Retrieved (October 2, 2014) http://mashable.com/2014/09/18/social-media-charity/
Masin, R. & Faubert, J. D.
(2013). Effect of gender and Facebook use on the development of mature
interpersonal relationships. Journal of
Student Affairs, Vol. XXIII. Retrieved
(October 2, 2014) http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1101&context=john_foubert
McDermott, J. (2014, January 21).
Facebook losing its edge among college-aged adults. Digiday. Retrieved
(September 25, 2014) http://digiday.com/platforms/social-platforms-college-kids-now-prefer/
McHugh, M. (2013, September 5). Why
do we hate Facebook hashtags? Digital Trends.
Retrieved (September 25, 2014) http://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/why-do-we-hate-facebook-hashtags/#!bNSzV7.
Mislove, A. E. (2011, July 17-21).
Understanding the Democraphics of Twitter Users. Proceedings of the Fifth
International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media.
Retrieved (October 2, 2014) http://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/ICWSM/ICWSM11/paper/viewFile/2816/3234
Moore, E. (2011, August 19).
Texting, social media affecting teen sleeping patterns. The Daily Iowan.
Retrieved (October 2, 2014) http://www.dailyiowan.com/2011/08/19/Metro/24431.html
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