How social media effects the socialization of humans.
What makes us unique
Each of us are formed and molded by the environment we are found in, which in turn creates paths through our
brains which makes "connections" uniquely ours. Historically, this has been our physical environment where
entire cultures can be traced through similar belief systems and function. Today, society has moved on to social
media as their environment of choice and for the first time researchers are saying this may an unprecedented
change which may have unplanned effects. Essentially, social media causes us to live in only two dimensions of a
three dimensional world. Listen to full audio:
Facebook:
'Environment influences connections in brain'
[Greenfield]
Research of individuals between the ages of eight and eighteen were discovered that many of them were spending,
on average, fifty-three hours per week using social media. This equates to almost an entire work day being
invested into their virtual worlds.
[Kaiser Family
Foundation]
With this amount of emotional investment compounded with the hours spent at school and doing homework, very little time is left for family or real life relationships involving interaction, touch, or the development of any meaningful content.
The situation is not limited to younger generations. Recent surveys discovered: 95% of participants, ranging a
multitude of age groups, utilized some form of technology before bed, 38% confess to using social media before
retiring for the night, and 36% had some form of computer in bed with them before they slept.
[Everyday Health]
[LiveScience]More than 89 percent of Millennial Moms describe time spent on Facebook as "me" time.
Individuals who find themselves dependent on social media will typically explore other online mediums to take advantage of, such as: gaming, chat rooms, experimentation, and retrieving sexual or illegal content. As many of these dependent users are getting "their needs" met online, they will typically experience lower levels of satisfaction in interpersonal relationships.
Individuals who minimize the role of social media in their lives typically have better relationships.
[Lloyd, Dean,& Cooper., p. 485].
[Lloyd, Dean,& Cooper., pp. 488, 490].Therefore, it is not simply the use of technology in general, but rather the purpose for which technology is used, that has consequences...
With hundreds of millions of people joining social networks every year, the assumption might be made that as a society, we are increasingly heading in the direction to where we may be loosing the simple skills of deciphering vocal inflection, responding to nuances of body language, and simply understanding facial expression.
We are rapidly approaching the day where we may never meet coworkers or our "closest" friends. It could even be
possible to have marriages entirely in cyberspace with no intimacy, sex, or "alone time."
[O’Donoghue.
pp. 4-6]
Researchers are beginning to take note of the existence of a direct proportionate relationship between technology use by students and their psychosocial development.
The greater the amount of time spent by students:- using technology for entertainment
- playing Gameboy
- watching DVDs
- listening to an iPod
- academic life
- two-way communication
- relational interaction
- productive personal contact
In a few short years the subjects of this study will grow up to be the new statistics and possibly the new "norm". For years, science fiction movies have been made where the people seem so distant from each other on an emotional level. It is not overly difficult to see those days coming to pass, even within our lifetimes - if not sooner.
Somehow social media has perverted socialization from "who I am as an individual" to a mouse click on a computer screen with ambiguous terms, such as "Like", Plus", "Digg", and a multitude of others which rarely discuss the site as the subject, but usually the one doing the clicking: "I like, etc."
Socialization has began its transformation to a Borg-like collective as seen in recent years on Star Trek.
