Psychosocial Implications of the New Media for Communication - Essay Example

Psychosocial implications of the new media for communication and emotional experience Name: Institution: Instructor: Course Code: Introduction New media, most notably the internet, has over the past few years grown into an indispensable part of both the social and work lives in the world today (Shen and Williams, 2011: 3), with users from Australia being 67.5% of the country population (Internet World Stats, 2012: 1). Although there have been a wide array of research studies over the past decade that have sought to study the impact of increased usage of new media on society and human psychology, this paper will mainly focus on the psychosocial implications that new media has had on communication and emotional experience. Social psychologists and communication experts have widely studied the psychosocial impacts that new media has had on communication and social interaction, this paper though seeks to focus mainly on the psychosocial impacts that new media has had on emotional communications and how it has changed the emotional experience. The paper uses research from previous conducted studies to support the discussion. Overview to new media and emotional communication New media are defined as communication media that enable interactive communication and user feedback, community formation, creative participation, and instant access to content anywhere and anytime via the internet (Galloway, 2011: 377). Such new media include social networking, virtual worlds, online gaming, wikis, RSS feeds, pod casts, text messaging, blogs, and many more that use the internet. New media technologies are important as they define newer ways in which people interact and communicate. They allow people to share, modify, manipulate, and create contents. They also enhance networking and interactions in newer ways enabling unregulated contents to be generated and easily distributed (Galloway, 2011). Parlea-Buzatu et al (2011) argues that new media has changed the very essence by which people socialize and share important information,, revolutionizing the building blocks of the social culture where different information is directly tied to the audiences to whom such contents is aimed at. For instance, people impacted by a crisis often find emotional solace and support in new social media such as blogs where they freely express their opinions, and self inform with less technical explanations in their messages (Stephens & Malone, 2009: 229). In addition, new media has enabled development of newer communication and emotional expressions where the younger generations are developing new communication cultures such as the use of initials, or shortened words such as OMG or FYI in their communication language (Kral, 2011). Therefore, new media are influencing the communication and the manner in which people emotionally express their views. Emotions are arguably a way in which persons imbue the social world with meaning. Understanding emotions is critical in understanding people social interaction, communications and behavior. Though most psychologists have tended to characterize emotions as preexisting innate biological bodily functions only internal to the individual person experiencing them, social psychology has expanded this view through social constructionism showing that emotions are integral to the social world (Gerben & Kleef, 2009; Parkinson, 1996). Clarke (2003: 149-150) indeed shows that emotions are communicative forms within a social interaction space, where emotional expression and experience is critical in affecting how people interact with each other. Apparently, people do not just feel emotions; they also express these emotions in social interaction and communication. These emotions establish and sustain social interactions. The rise of new forms of social interaction and communication media such as social networking sites or online gaming have had various implications on the emotional experiences that people face and the manner in which people are interacting. Psychosocial implications of the new media for communication and emotional experience One effect that new social media has had on the way that people emotionally communicate is lower emotional intelligence in communication. Emotional intelligence is a precursor to social intelligence and is critical in acting wisely in human relations. It is viewed as a critical component in that enhances feelings such as self awareness, control, confidence, awareness of other people’s feelings, empathy, enthusiasm and being able to understand what others feel (Ferrer, 2008: 279). Ferrer (2008: 287) argues that the culture of new technology has had adverse impact on the emotional intelligence of people in a manner that people emotional controls, or emotional skills in understanding other people’s feelings have grossly reduced with people tending to exhibit reduce communication skills. For instance, people who spend a lot of time interacting online, tend to have heightened self consciousness when in the presence of others and tend to be shy, thereby not being able to fully comprehend other people’s feelings (Bonetti, Campbell, & Gilmore, 2010). Indeed Scotts (2006) notes that shyness is increasingly becoming an epidemic as more people develop anti-social problems such as social phobia, avoidant personality, and social anxiety disorders. Shen and Williams (2011: 33) suggest that though new media has provided a platform through which shy people can freely express themselves assertively, it has worsened the shyness problem as they are not able to express themselves in offline social interaction, they tend to become emotionally detached, or have weak emotional contact or experience with other people. This implies therefore that the use of new media as a form of communication, has made people more detached in their emotional expressions and intelligence to comprehend others feelings. Online interactions and communication are also broader and shallower due to the lack of emotional interconnectedness found in offline relationships and due to lower costs of entering into such relationships (Galston, 1999). Galston (1999) implies in his work that that the strength of an emotional connection and communication is highly determined by the costs of entering into such relationships. Where there is low cost or no cost at all, the emotional communication tends to be limited. For example, taking part in online gaming allows individuals to take on numerous avatar representations each with different identities, while those who communicate through blog posts or even facebook profiles may develop a certain personality through their profiles that is reflective of their true personalities or identities (Rutledge, 2012). Communications built on such grounds have lesser emotional connections. In addition, new social media has impacted emotional communication is a way that people may tend to have over-imaginative in their interactions, or may tend to have a different world view from what is. Though over-imaginative minds are fine as they can tend to be creative, those that spin out of control and do not view things realistically can be a potential breeding ground of dangerous thoughts. De Gortari (2009:6) acknowledges that in online gaming, a person’s emotional experience is strongly involved as they either experience excitement or frustrations in the way they perform with player’s expressions or movements in such online environments most likely to be manifested in the emotional states of the gamers or even physically. The essence of power mastering and control that users derive from multiplayer online games translates into their real lives and impacts the way they perceive or view other people. For instance gaming often takes place in a dangerous environment, this may impact a person’s view of the world and the way they interact in real life, and in essence therefore probably demonise some people. For instance, in a study looking at online game player’s mental and physical health Anderson (2004: 118) contends that most of the players tended to have aggressive behaviours due to the violent nature of the online gaming, while Williams (2006a: 685) suggests that while individuals tended to develop a wider world view, their existing offline social lives and friendships tended to erode. Moreover, new media has resulted to looser social ties. Unlike yester-years where people had close-knit groups with a stronger emotional connection, people now have a much distant emotional connection and experience as most choose to interact online. Hochschild (2003) acknowledges that the traditional sense in which people cared for each other in close-knit relationships has been eroded with rise of consumerism in society. This has been made possible through the rise of new social media such as the use online networking sites or the use of text messaging, which have reduced human contact in communication. For instance, computer mediated environment as a tool for delivery of complex emotionally laden information and developing a sense of ‘being there’ is highly limited (Haythornthwaite, 2001). This implies that the media cannot support certain kinds of exchanges, especially those that seek emotional and non-verbal richness in communication. However, those who already have strong social ties, and have even higher motivations to communicate and to include more intimate details in communication tend to enhance the online media in meeting their emotional communicative needs. Shen and Williams (2011: 33) contends that using new media to communicate based on social ties that already exist enhances the social engagement of all those involved. Individuals interacting through social media with already established relationships offline tend to derive higher emotional experience from these interactions, while those who for the first time seek to develop relationships through new media derive less emotional experience and interconnected. This is because strengthening already existing relationships using online means results to stronger bonding social capital that was already there using bridging social capital. For instance, the inclusion of acronyms and emoticons in online communication among people who already understand what such words or symbols would, are mainly targeted at enhancing an emotional aspect and connection with the words communicated (Haythornthwaite, 2001: 2). Although in this sense emotions can be communicated across the new media, it is not sufficient enough to get the full grasp of the emotional climate of the other person. On the other hand, the new media though has enhanced a stronger permanent online community of users where various social networks created and social statuses achieved are recognised and preserved. This enables formation of emotional bonds as increasingly people share issues online which important in enabling people have a sense of belonging and a place to self express. Moreno et al (2011:451) found in their research that social media has increased the tendencies of depressed people speaking out about their problems online thereby providing an enabling emotional environment within which a person can receive help. For instance, social media may provide a channel through which individuals channel their frustrations and depressions, or share with friends their frustrations to lower the psychological depression of such issues. On a larger scale, new media has increased people power with the masses being able to unitedly express opinions without fear or even to feel stronger connections to those with similar ideologies. The sense of collective identity enabled by the new media often provides the emotional motivations for social protests; where within these interactional contexts different emotions are by a sense of togetherness and power (Goodwin & Jasper, 2006). A key notable example is the 2011 Arab revolutions and uprisings which were propagated by the social media through a feeling of oneness (Ghannam, 2011), or the recent Occupy Wall Street movement. In this sense, and on a much larger scale, new media enhances strong social capital and emotional interconnectedness as people are bound by what they passionately believe in. Most of the above arguments note that new media usage has resulted to lower social capital as most people tend to spend time on their own a lot, thereby impacting negatively emotional communication. These researches point to negative psychosocial impacts of new media on emotional communication. Some other scholars though do not view it in the same light. For instance Williams (2006b: 620) does not agree that the internet reduces social capital, as it is also a strong medium through which significant social interactions and communication take place. In fact Wellman (2001: 2031) shows that the internet is a critical venue through which a person’s social network is enlarged and expanded. Despite these conflicting results from the study, the overall agreement in these researches is that indeed new media usage has more negative impacts on the emotional communication of people than positive. Conclusion In conclusion, this paper sought to discuss the various psychosocial implications of the new media on communication and emotional experience. As noted from the discussion, a number of psychosocial implications have been discussed. These are: aggressive behaviours due to the violent nature of the online gaming, erosion of offline friendships, enabling people to belong and be part of a group and to receive attention and acknowledgements, and also enable them to adopt various identities online that best describes them. In addition online relationships have been found to be broader and shallower due to the lack of emotional interconnectedness, even though they increase social capital as more people are able to connect online. Using it to connect with already existing relationships though helps make such relationships stronger than when one is seeking to start a relationship online. New media such as gaming gives the player a sense of power, control and mastery in the online environment, which also impacts their perceptions in real life and mostly in a negative way. New media though has enabled freer communication with no fear of reparations and has also increased the tendencies people speaking out about their problems online which also translated in real life, where people have reduced their sense of privacy. It has also enhanced a stronger permanent online community of users where various social networks created and social statuses achieved are recognized and preserved. This enables formation of emotional bonds as increasingly people share issues online which important in enabling people have a sense of belonging and a place to self express. References Anderson, C A 2004, “An update on the effects of playing violent video games,” Journal of Adolescence, 27, 1, pp. 113-122. 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