Online Social Networking - Essay Example

Your full July 25, Online Socialization Causes Social Isolation Introduction Man is a social animal. But as lives have become busier, one gets little time to meet face-to-face with relatives, old friends, classmates and even neighbors. Online social networking saves time as one can always catch up with others whenever one wants. People find new friends who share common interests. They learn about different cultures and languages, share photo albums, let others view their videos and have a chat session. Companies use online social networks for advertisements. Lisa Mullins (2009) regards online social networking as “an important marketing tool for many businesses”. An online social network is a website that functions like an online community of people who use the internet. There are a lot of online social websites which allow the internet users to take their membership for free and socialize with other members regarding hobbies, career, religion, fashion, politics etcetera. The users read the profile pages of other members, share views and ideas, give comments and contact them via their profiles. In short, a social networking website is a great means of bringing people of same wave length together and socializing with the outside world. However, along with all these advantages, there are some drawbacks attached with the use of these social networks the most important of which is social isolation, loneliness, anxiety (Brown). They also damage our interpersonal skills when encountering people in person. The negatives of the Internet are often hidden and indirect. Taking a closer look at the effects of the Internet on our lives, we can easily discover and agree on one drawback for sure. This essay will primarily focus on how our modern technology, the internet, sites like Facebook or Twitter, and our overall digital lives decrease the need for personal interaction and the skills that come with it. Depression and Social Isolation Social isolation is a condition in which an individual lacks human interaction through avoiding social contact. When there is too little interaction with people, man tends to get socially isolated and becomes depressed. This gives rise to anxiety and stress which is not manageable by the person himself. Hampton, Sessions and Her assert in their study that “Evidence from the US General Social Surveys (GSS) suggests that during the past 20 years, people have become increasingly socially isolated and their core discussion networks have become smaller and less diverse.” When a person spends hours and hours in front of the computer screen behind the objective of staying connected to the people online, he does not know that to stay connected online, he is getting disconnected from the world around him and is getting oblivious of those living around him who need him and can make him happier than the online community. The social isolation creates adverse effects on the family relationships because online socializing works “by divorcing social relationships from physical reality and moving them beyond our local community” (Robins, qtd. in Straubhaar, LaRose and Davenport 437). This adds to more depression but the person is able to point out the reason why his relationships are getting into a mess. Depression makes him lose interest in life. He seems no meaning in staying happy and in making effort to make others happy. Hence, we can say that social isolation, anxiety, depression and loneliness are linked with each other, and the root cause is the epidemic of online socializing. Straubhaar, LaRose and Davenport (437) discuss a research by Kreut et al. in 1998 who found out that after incorporating internet and introducing social networks into the homes of teenagers, the heavy users were found to be more depressed, lonely and socially isolated that light users. They concluded that “weak social ties formed on the Internet displaced real relationships, with harmful side effects on psychological well-being” (437). Why users regard online socializing as preferable over physically socializing is that they can form shallow relationships which have fewer chances of getting disrupted through negative events that occur with real relationships. Literature Review Roberts et al. state in their research that when a child uses a computer alone in his room without the presence of another family member, this is the time parents should be concerned about his being socially isolated and should worry about his social and moral development (qtd. in Lee 509). Iacovelli and Valenti discuss the Internet Paradox in their research and assert that “the increase in communications brought about by Internet usage actually had negative effects on user’s psychological well-being and social involvement” (439). They found that when people sit and talk to each other face-to-face, this helps them develop good socially responsible personalities. Those who use internet socializing excessively may lack the interpersonal skills that are necessary to socialize in the physical world, and are more likely to become “depressed and socially inhibited… having a lower level of rapport and likeability” (Icovelli and Valenti). Strunk states that depression caused by online socialization causes negative emotions in the person that cause “negative automatic thoughts, more dysfunctional attitudes, more hopelessness, and a more pessimistic explanatory style” (861). These negative cognitive elements result in pessimistic view about the world and future life. He asserts that although internet socializing may seem a way out from negativity for a short period of time, yet it results in depressive symptoms. Chen states in his research that when a person is using internet for socializing and other purposes, he gets in such a flow that merge together his mental state and actions, thus bringing him away from his physical world (221). He asserts that when the user is in front of the computer screen, he forgets all his worries and associates himself with the keyboard and monitor, and the “clock time ceases to be consistent with experienced time” (221). He found in his research that the participants experienced a loss of self-consciousness and a loss of sense of time and place. This led to their being oblivious to their surroundings and relationships thus making them socially excluded from their friends and family. Mesch talks in his research about the displacement hypothesis and asserts that the social development of people especially children gets disrupted because when they spend time socializing online, that time displace the time they spend offline, and the ties formed online displace those formed by interacting with friends and family (1038). This has a negative effect on their psycho-social development and results in diminishing their interpersonal skills. There are some researchers that support that online socializing helps people build strong ties. For example, Amichai-Hamburger and Hayat discusses the prevalence or not of loneliness among internet users and asserts that online socialization actually enhances a person’s social skills (585). Also, Quan-Haase (671) studied how internet usage affects the life of university students and how the online modes of communication affect their social ties in the real world. He found out that online communication fills the gaps occurring between far-away friends and is a good way of socializing. This is also supported by researchers like Tingjung Wu et al. who studied how internet usage affects quality of life. They collected survey data from four Chinese cities: Hong Kong, Taipei, Beijing, and Wuhan to test their hypothesis. They found out that “the use of the Internet for interpersonal communication can improve quality of life among Internet users, just like face-to-face communication in everyday life” (375). However, the truth is that loneliness does prevail. Sangmoon states that internet usage has caused many problems during the last decade, and the main problems include an increase in digital divide, excessive use of e-mails, and online socializing that tend to make a person socially excluded (602). Odaci and Kalkan conducted a study to find out relation between problematic internet use and loneliness among participants, and found out through Pearson Correlation analysis test that there was “a significant positive correlation between problematic Internet use and loneliness (r = 0.194, p < 0.001)” (1091). Conclusion After reading this paper, we come to know that although today we are always connected to the people we know, whether we are sitting on our couch or we are out of town, yet we are suffering from depression, anxiety and loneliness. Today, we are all the time getting updates from our friends, relatives and classmates and we do not have to schedule face-to-face meetings in order to stay in each others’ lives. And all this has been possible thanks to the online social networking websites which offer great fun and mind-engaging applications in addition to letting us find people of our own interests and hobbies. However, this has resulted in people hesitating in interacting with others in the physical world. They are hiding from the bitter events that come with real relationships. They do not want to make commitments with physical world relationships. So, they find a way out in the form of online socializing. They are, however, unaware of the fact that this epidemic of online networking will make them socially excluded and time will come when they will become totally oblivious to real feelings and emotions. It is about time that people became aware of this harsh reality. In short, people must know that they will have to disconnect to connect. Works Cited Amichai-Hamburger, Yair, and Zack Hayat. "The Impact of the Internet on the Social Lives of Users: A Representative Sample from 13 Countries." Computers in Human Behavior 27.1 (2011): 585-589. Brown, Arnold. "Relationships, Community, and Identity in the New Virtual Society." Futurist 45.2 (2011): 29-34. Business Source Complete. EBSCO. Web. 11 July 2011. Chen, Hsiang. "Flow on the Net--Detecting Users Positive Affects and Their Flow States." Computers in Human Behavior 22.2 (2006): 221-33. Hampton, Keith N., Sessions, Lauren F., and Eun Ja Her. “Core Networks, Social Isolation, and New Media.” Information, Communication, and Society 14.1 (2011). Icovelli, Anthony, and Stavros Valenti. “Internet Addiction’s Effect on Likeability and Rapport.” Computers in Human Behavior 25.2 (2009): 439-443. Kim, Sangmoon. "The diffusion of the Internet: Trend and causes." Social Science Research 40.2 (2011): 602-13. Lee, Sook Jung. “Online Communication and Adolescent Social Ties: Who Benefits More From Internet Use?” Journal of Computer Mediated Communication 14.3 (2009): 509-531. Mesch, Gustavo S. “The Family and the Internet: The Israeli case.” Social Science Quarterly 84.4 (2003): 1038–1050. Mullins, Lisa. Stimulate Your Market. Ezinearticles.com, 2009. Web. 25 July 2011. . Odacı, Hatice, and Melek Kalkan. "Problematic Internet Use, Loneliness and Dating Anxiety Among Young Adult University Students." Computers & Education 55.3 (2010): 1091-1097. Quan-Haase, Anabel. "University Students Local and Distant Social Ties: Using and Integrating Modes of Communication on Campus." Information, Communication & Society 10.5 (2007): 671-693. Straubhaar, Joseph, LaRose, Robert, and Lucinda Davenport. Media Now: Understanding Media, Culture, and Technology. USA: Cengage Learning, 2008. Strunk, Daniel R., Howard Lopez, and Robert J. DeRubeis. "Depressive Symptoms Are Associated with Unrealistic Negative Predictions of Future Life Events." Behaviour Research and Therapy 44.6 (2006): 861-82. Tingjun Wu, et al. "Internet Communication Versus Face-to-face Interaction in Quality of Life." Social Indicators Research 100.3 (2011): 375-389. Read More