Mobile Social Networking - Essay Example

? Mobile social networking Grade (7th, May. Mobile social networking Introduction The relationship between mobile phones and the social media is a modern day concept that has seen an exponential growth of the social media. While mobile phones were initially developed for the sake of communication, through voice and text, the advancement in technology has made it possible for the mobile phones to be used for social networking (Hjorth& Lim, 2012). The use of social media through the mobile phone does not seem to end any time soon, with recent statistics indicating that use of social media is more active through the use of mobile phones, as opposed to the use of computers and other non-mobile phone platforms. According to a report by consumer analysts Nielsen, 47% of the world’s social networking is being done through the mobile phones (State of the Media, 2). The recent report on facebook use indicated that 250 million of facebook users are accessing the social network site through mobile phones, and they were found to be more active than the non-mobile users. The social networking trend has increased especially in the last 5 years; with every 4 out of 5 active internet users visiting social network sites (State of the Media, 3).The social networking applications were found to be the third most used applications among the USA smart phone users. This transition of the mobile phone usage from the initial communication to the Mobile social networking trend has elicited a lot of interest, especially regarding the relationship between the social media and mobile phones that has seen this exponential growth in Mobile social networking. The purpose of this study is to investigate the negative implications of the growth of mobile phone use for social networking. Literature review Mobile phones and the social media have changed communication in the world. While communication was traditionally done through expensive, time consuming and inefficient ways, the case is different in the modern world, with the technological advancement that has made possible for communication to occur through voice, short messages and even real-time chats (Tsai, Han, Xu & Chua, 2009). Studies have indicated that the individuals using their mobile phones to access and use social networks are two times more active than the non-mobile users. Statistics further indicate that 47% of the web browsers visit the social networking sites, and 62% of all users with social network accounts are involved in instant messaging and chatting with their friends, relations and even strangers they meet on the social networks (Killackey, Anda, Gibbs, Alvarez-Jimenez, Thompson, Sun, & Baksheev, 2011). The implication of these statistics is to send a message to the society that; should the internet or the social media platforms collapse one day, then, the world would have more distressed people, than would be caused by any other tragedy. The change in the social media trend can be accounted for by the development of the mobile technology, with the focus of the mobile developers and other operating system software manufactures focusing on the production of mobile devices and software that are compatible with the social networking features (Tsai, Han, Xu & Chua, 2009). Social media marketing is yet another concept that has arisen, considering that it is now possible for different people to access the social networks from anywhere and anytime, as opposed to when individuals were limited to accessing social networks through the computers (Mills, Egglestone, Rashid, & Vaataja, 2012). A study published regarding the analysis of application features usage for the smart phone indicated that 43% of the owners of the smart phones have engaged in games applications usage, while 26% of the owners are using the social networking applications (Pachler, Ranieri, Manca & Cook, 2012). This simply indicates that the growth of mobile social networking is high, compared to any other mobile application, since the games applications were the most specialized features of mobile phone technology, which have now been overtaken by the social networking application features. The report by consumer analysts Nielsen indicated that social networks and blogs reach over 75% of active internet users, pointing to the reason behind the high specialization of brand promotion and advertisement through the social media in the current marketing strategies, as opposed to any other form of promotion (Yao-Jen, & Tsen-Yung, 2010). Social media advertising and promotion has overcome the combination of both print, radio and television commercials, considering that the ability of the social media to reach the targeted customers is considered to be high, as opposed to other forms of mainstream media, such as radio, television and print. While the data from the US bureau of statistics indicates that 98% of all households had at least one television set by 2012, the percentage of the USA population reached by the advertisements through social media is higher than the one reached through television advertising. Social network, and blogs command the USA internet time, with 23% of internet time being consumed in accessing social network and social blogs (Okazaki, S., & Yague, 2012). The increase in the social networking applications on the mobile phones has increased by a 30% margin in the period 2010 to 2012, making the mobile device application development shift towards enhancing the social network features, from the initial internet, games, camera and GPRS applications, which were previously the top mobile device applications generated. Further statistics from the report by Nielsen consumer analysts have indicated that while 48% of the social networks visitors are male, 52% of the social network traffic is accounted for by the females (State of the Media, 5). While this turns out to be a stunning revelation owing to the domestic and other family duties that women are responsible for in the society, a further surprising revelation from the statistics is that 20% of the social network users are between the age of 18-34 (State of the Media, 2). The reason why the statistics are interesting is the fact that, the individuals between the age of 18-35 are at their prime age of education; either in colleges or other tertiary institutions as well as the institutions of higher learning or in their prime years of work. This then begs the questions; is the high involvement of females in social networking detrimental to their family and domestic responsibilities? Does the high involvement of the individuals between the ages of 18-34 years have a negative implication on their productivity both in education and work? These considerations lead to our research question: RQ1: How does the growth of mobile phone use for social networking negatively affect the society? Methodology Data Collection & Sample The data collection will be undertaken through a survey questionnaire, where information regarding the mobile phone use for social networking will be collected. The sampling method will be the random sampling of students, workers and housewives, where a sample of 100 participants from each category will be targeted for the study. The survey questionnaires will be distributed to the participants, who will fill in the details of the survey questions and send them back. An authority letter from the institution will be attached, to inform the participants the purpose of the study, while also confirming the confidentiality of the informationgiven. Instrumentation A Likert scale is a psychometric scale that has wide application in research studies that applies questionnaires (Jamieson, 2004). It is most common in studies applying the survey research methodology, because it is a form of rating scale, which helps to differentiate the collective responses obtained from the respondents, to give a clear degree of accuracy in the level of phenomena evaluation (Jamieson, 2004). Thus, this study will apply a 4-point Likert scale, which will assess the responses from the participants based on a rating of strongly disagree, disagree, agree, and strongly agree. This will effectively help in gauging the implications of the responses, through assessing responses for example (I strongly agree that the time I spent in social media hinders my effective accomplishment of domestic responsibility), which implies a high degree of conviction on the negative implication on domestic roles, than (I agree that the time I spent in social media hinders my effective accomplishment of domestic responsibility). Data analysis Frequency distribution tabulation will be done to establish the frequency of occurrence of various responses from the different category of respondents. Then, both regression and correlation analysis will be undertaken on the data generated, to help analyze the data and establish the existing relationship between the growth of mobile phone use for social networking and the performance and achievement of different individual roles both in education and work. References Hjorth, L., & Lim, S. (2012). Mobile intimacy in an age of affective mobile media. Feminist Media Studies, 12(4), 477-484. Jamieson, S. (2004). Likert Scales: How to (Ab)use Them. Medical Education, 38(12), 1217-1218. Killackey, E., Anda, A., Gibbs, M., Alvarez-Jimenez, M., Thompson, A., Sun, P., & Baksheev, G. N. (2011). Using internet enabled mobile devices and social networking technologies to promote exercise as an intervention for young first episode psychosis patients. BMC Psychiatry, 11(1), 80-85. Mills, J., Egglestone, P., Rashid, O., & Vaataja, H. (2012). MoJo in action: The use of mobiles in conflict, community, and cross-platform journalism. Continuum: Journal Of Media & Cultural Studies, 26(5), 669-683. Morris, M. E., & Aguilera, A. (2012). Mobile, Social, and Wearable Computing and the Evolution of Psychological Practice. Professional Psychology: Research & Practice, 43(6), 622-626. Okazaki, S., & Yague, M. (2012). Responses to an advergaming campaign on a mobile social networking site: An initial research report. Computers In Human Behavior, 28(1), 78-86. Pachler, N., Ranieri, M., Manca, S., & Cook, J. (2012). Editorial: Social Networking and Mobile Learning. British Journal Of Educational Technology, 43(5), 707-710. State of the Media: The social media Q3 report. (2011). Nielsen McKinsey Company. Tsai, F. S., Han, W., Xu, J., & Chua, H. (2009). Design and development of a mobile peer-to-peer social networking application. Expert Systems With Applications, 36(8), 11077-11087. Yao-Jen, C., & Tsen-Yung, W. (2010). Mobile location-based social networking in supported employment for people with cognitive impairments. Cybernetics & Systems, 41(3), 245-261. Read More