Factors Affecting Skewed SNS Use Among the Adolescents - Article Example

SUMMARY THE ARTICLE Summary the article Article one The video game industry has evolved from the previous bulky home systems that offered a few games to the diverse games that can be hosted on a variety of platforms including console systems, computers and even cell phones. With such popularity, the game has found its way into the lives and schedules of many youth. However, the impacts of these games have been evaluated to have a negative effect on the outcome of youth in society. Often, these games depict scenes of violence and aggression that are proven to be one of the leading factors for youth orientation towards violence. It has been established that over 85% of all video games contain scenes of violence and aggression which are popularly market tot children. Exposure to such violent material has been lined with violence among youth in the period preceding the use of the video game. The situation is such that the effects of exposure to such violence has been determined to produce worse consequences in society as compared to abusive parents and exposure to anti-social peers. Engaging in such violent video games has been shown to increase aggressive behavior, aggression and physiological arousal to violence. An interesting effect of these violent video games is also emerging that postulates that they also have the effect of desensitizing the player. Little research has been done in terms of the capacity of video games to desensitize the player. Desensitization can refer to the process where there is an increase in aggressive behavior and violence. Of interest and importance however is the desensitization aspect that looks into the reduction in physiological arousal of the player to real life violence. It has been realized that some individuals experience a reduction in sympathy for the violence victim with prolonged engagement in these games. The likelihood that they will help a real life victim in the same situation is greatly reduced thereby flattening the afflictive reactions of the player to violence. Desensitization has been used in various therapeutic conditions to reduce a persons reaction to various stimuli as seen in treatment of fear and anxiety. Whether the act of desensitization is intentional or accidental, the result is often complete ignorance of individuals towards certain stimuli that they consider irrelevant. Desensitization to essential stimuli like pity can be detrimental to society. Over time, there has been a gray area as relates to desensitization owing to the limited research that has been undertaken in the field. Some of the research studies that came close include studies carried out on individuals through the use of a violent and a non-violent movie. It was realized that participants who had watched a violent movie had lower heart rates when shown an additional violent movie as compared to their counterparts who had viewed a non-violent film first. This is just an example of some of the studies that have been conducted. It should be noted that while these research studies are insightful, none has been designed to explore the issue of whether exposure to violent media physiologically sensitizes individuals to real life violence. This issue is of social importance not because of the presence of violent video games but because their effects of desensitizing participants against real life violence can be detrimental. According to the General Aggression Model, aggressive behavior is based on learning, activation and application of aggression related knowledge structures stored in memory. Such learning takes place through encounters with the physical and social world much of which is seen in violent video games. Desensitization in this case occurs as a series of steps initiated by exposure to the initially violent stimuli. This exposure is accompanies by humorous content and cartoonish characters that are meant to reduce the tension in the player. There are also rewards that are offered for participating in such violent games and winning thereby increasing the motivation of the player to continue participating in the game. In addition, there are levels within the game that represent different levels of violence with one seemingly more violent than the previous one. This allows the player to perceive that the previous levels of violence are okay to participate in. as such, the player builds a level of tolerance towards the violence depicted in the game. Their initial emotions of fear and anxiety are suppressed thereby decreasing heart rate activity. This presents various cognitive outcomes characterized by a decreased sympathy for violence victims, decreased attention to violent events and a decreased perception of injury severity. The result is a behavioral outcome characterized by decreased likelihood of intervening and an increased likelihood towards aggression. In order to complete this study, participants were initially requested to complete questionnaires involving game preferences and trait aggressiveness. After this, they were divided into two groups and offered either the violent or the non-violent video game for 20 minutes. On completion, they were provided with a 10 minute film to watch depicting various violent scenes. The participants heart rates and galvanic skin response was measured throughout the entire exercise. Finally, participants were allowed to provide their own rating of the video game that they had just watched. In this study, it was predicted that violent game players would show less physiological arousal (lower HR and GSR) in response to real life violence than would non-violent game players. From this study, it was realized that engaging in the violent video game for even just 20 minutes is enough to arouse emotions of real violence in players. Those participants who had been offered to play the video game had relatively lower heart rate and galvanic skin response while watching actual footage of people being beaten, stabbed and shot. Those who did not play the violent video game had a relatively higher heart rate and galvanic skin response when given actual footage of people being beaten, stabbed and shot. These results were significant because there was no interaction between the individual difference variables such as gender, violent video game preference and trait aggressiveness. This study did not measure aggressive or helping behaviors therefore GAM can only be applied in this case by extension. It is postulated that desensitization to violence can increase aggression in a manner of ways as seen when children develop strong negative reactions towards violent scripts. These children are less likely to use these scripts as compared to children who have had a positive reaction towards it. As such, exposure to violent games can increase aggression in a manner of ways other than the stipulated theory of desensitization. This reason has made research into this aspect complicated. Clear lines can be drawn between desensitization and helping. That people help because they want to and as a function of tension reduction. In the case involving the murder to Kitty Genovese in New York in 1964, it was reported that witnesses watched the lady being assaulted for over 30 minutes and did nothing about it. Desensitization of the observers may have been lacking in this case because of a reduced attention to violent incidents involving other people. Observers did not feel personally responsible to help and there was no sympathy for the victim. People are only more likely to help when they are aroused. In addition, witnessing a victim being attacked often invokes feelings of aversive tension that motivates helping behavior in the observer. Desensitization is a delicate subject that must be investigated further in order to understand the various dynamics that govern its presentation. Future research should be engaged to determine whether video games invoke an increased level of desensitization as compared to Television violence among other media. In addition, the duration of exposure to the violent material is yet to be investigated, the duration it takes for one to become desensitized after watching or playing a violent video game can be an interesting subject for future research. This will allow professionals to ascertain appropriate levels and times in which individuals can engage in these games without producing detrimental effects in society. Age group is a factor that also requires a considerable level of research to determine the effects it may have on the level of desensitization. Whether it occurs faster in younger children as compared to adults or vice versa presents great challenges to the field of research. This research presents good evidence that violent game players are less physiologically aroused by real life violence compared to non-violent video game players. Article two Social networking sites (SNSs) have increased in number and diversity over the years to capture the attention of millions of youth all over the world. The popularity of these sites depicts an interesting trend that must be investigates because they appear to bear great relevance to these young peoples lives. Apart from being used for the basic function of communication, young people have turned these sites into essential places for development of different types of relationships. In order to understand this phenomenon, it is essential to understand the characteristics of young people, examine their personality traits and self-esteem to determine the exact nature with which these sites have gained such popularity among young people. According to the five factors mode, personality contains five traits including openness to experience (pursuing and appreciating all types of experience), conscientiousness (control, regulation and direction of goals and impulses), and extraversion (amount and intensity of interpersonal interactions), agreeableness (the type of interactions a person prefers to have with others), and neuroticism (degree of emotional adjustment and instability). Self-esteem involves subjective evaluation that a person makes to maintain their significance or self-worth in society. Previous research has suggested that people with various personality traits behave in a certain manner towards these sites. Those considered to possess features of extraversion had lower levels of SNSs use suggesting that introverts had more time to engage in activities over the internet. People possessing qualities of agreeableness also spent a considerably lower amount of time over the internet because it was believed that those lacking this quality sought to form relationships over the internet that did not require this factor in real life. The internets use of limited rules and structured policies also favors those with lower scores on conscientiousness. The anonymous and virtual environment created by the internet provides a feeling of safety and security for individuals considered to be introverted and neurotic. These sites provide users with various entertainment functions some of which are hilarious and fascinating. An openness to experience such activities is a possible driving force for some individuals. Extraverted people however exhibited less use of the internet for social networking and preferred the more conventional means of socializing. Their use of the internet was focused more on research thereby reducing their engagement in SNSs. Self-esteem also provided some insight into the nature of involvement of young people in these sites. Those with a low self-esteem showed a greater preference for email communication and instant messaging over the more conventional face to face means of communication. These findings have been instrumental in concluding that the internet has got some potential in relieving certain types and levels of social anxiety that people with various types of personality and low self-esteem often experience. There are negative consequences that have been associated with overuse of SNSs. They have the potential to induce addictive tendencies in the users. This leads to high levels of emotional loneliness, social anxiety, neuroticism and low levels of extraversion. This type of anti-social behavior has got effects on a persons interaction with others in society making it a great subject of concern. The study therefore aims to study the role of personality and self-esteem in the context of young adults and their level of SNS use. It will be used to determine whether people with various types of personalities and certain levels of self-esteem are likely to engage in these sites as compared to others. In order to fulfill the objectives of this research, 201 students (46 males and 153 females) were recruited from a major Australian University. These participants were aged between 17 to 24 years and already had a personal page on a SNS site. In order to measure responses, the NEO five-factor inventory was used to measure participants agreement levels. In order to measure self-esteem levels, the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory was used to evaluate participants attitudes towards themselves with regards to academics, social, family and personal experience. Time spent using these social sites was also monitored to determine the average number of hours they spend over the internet in these SNS. Addictive tendencies were measured using the Addictive tendencies scale to measure levels of salience, loss of control and withdrawal. According to this study, it was realized that participants scoring higher on extraversion spent more time using SNS. This finding was in contradiction to other research findings that concluded that extraverts were less likely to view the internet as a suitable replacement for face to face conversations. However, it could be established that these SNS offer something unique and much more interesting than the internet which makes them more appealing to extraverts. This is because SNS provide a large social network with numerous functional abilities which makes them more appealing for use when one needs to create an unlimited contact of friends and interact with them frequently. Participants who scored low of conscientiousness were also found to spend and increased amount of time over the internet. This was believed to be as a result of their use of SNS to occupy their time while procrastinating about completing other tasks such as study. Openness to experience did not seem to have a significant impact on SNS use which is inconsistent with other research findings. It is believed that individuals will use SNS because they seek newer experiences that are exciting and captivating. In this case however, it can be implied that SNS have been in existence for a while and may no longer be considered a new experience by young people. Agreeableness was also found to be a factor that did not predict SNS use. It is common to find that people who are less agreeable are the ones to have a higher use of SNS. In this case however, it was argued that the reason for the increase in non-agreeable people using SNS was perhaps not because of their need to interact with people but with their need to form essential business relations. According to this study, neuroticism was not associated with increased levels of SNS use. This was contrary to previous research because it is believed that neuroticism is positively linked with SNS use. It can be implied that because neurotic people are generally anxious and fearful, they may not wish to post their photos and information on-line therefore preferring to use the internet for other purposes. In this study, self-esteem did not have a significant effect on SNS use. This is also in contradiction with popular research that states that people with low self-esteem are more likely to engage in SNS. Interpersonal characteristics accounted for a small portion of variance depicting the presence of underlying factors to peoples SNS usage. The results of this study are relevant to website developers who may use this information to design websites that are able to appeal to the younger generation more. This involves the use of more stimulating and interactive features. The results of this study have however got some level of limitations. The study was carried out predominantly on females thereby making the results a little skewed. Future research should seek to include a more balanced age group with a balanced gender ration. Further research is essential in determining more reliable measures for addictive tendencies. It is essential that other factors affecting SNS use among the youth be evaluated as well to create a holistic picture of the matter. References Carnagey, N. L., Anderson, C. A., & Bushman, B. J. (2007). The effect of video game violence on physiological desensitization to real-life violence. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43, 489-496. Wilson, K., Fornasier, S., & White, K. M. (2010). Psychological predictors of young adults’ use of social networking sites. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 13, 173-177. Read More