Abstract-
Purpose: The relationship between teenagers and social media use is very popular. However, this study is designed to show that social media affects teenagers’ social behaviour and relationships in the real world due to social media affecting their social communication skills in the real world.
Approach: A total of eight peered review research from year 2020 to 2023 was used to explain the main argument and to find the results.
Findings: Teenagers who uses social media on a regular basis to socialise with peers will experience depression, anxiety, ADHD, self-isolation and they will be unable to engage into meaningful real-life conversations. Thus, affecting their face-to-face social skills and relationships.
Keywords: social media, social skills, teenagers, face-to-face, communication, conversations.
Introduction:
Social connections are of extreme importance in influencing someone’s mental and physical health (Huang et al., 2022). As teenagers are growing up, communicating and socialising with their peers and friends are of great importance. During this period teenagers feel the urge to express themselves and manifest their presence in the society. As stated by Huang et al. (2022), as they approach puberty, children increasingly gain their freedom and make an effort to interact with more diverse members of society. However, due to the emergence of the internet and digital age, young people have shifted their need to express themselves from the real world to social media platforms. As argued by Huang et al. (2022), with the quick development of the internet world, adolescents’ social connections are heavily impacted by the Internet or other online platforms. Social change is the changing of a society’s social structure, which may involve adjustments to social institutions, social norms, or social connections. As a result, since teenagers are a big part of the society; social media affecting their social relationship and social behaviours in the real world will definitely cause social changers within their group in the society. Social media is an engaging computer-mediated technologies that enable the production or sharing of content through online networks and communities, including information, ideas, professions, interests, and other kinds of expression (Kitiş et al., 2022). For this study, researchers are mainly based on social media platforms with a texting and calling ability such as Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. The use of social media is adversely affecting the development of teenagers’ social skills in the real world. This is because, instead of developing and understanding social skills in the real world teenagers prefer spending more time socialising behind a screen, socialising online make them feel socially isolated and finally teenagers who heavily use social media to communicate experience a reduction in their attention span.
Spending more time to communicate on social media instead on face-to-face interactions is preventing teenagers from developing and understanding interpersonal skills in the real world. It is no secret that most teenagers nowadays are on some kind of social media platform. For example, according to Towner et al. (2022), in the UK, 83% of 12- to 15-year-olds have a smartphone, and between 2015 and 2019, over 70% had an online presence. However, the issue does not lie on having an online presence but instead is about replacing it with real life meaningful conversations. Teenagers’ physical and emotional health are significantly influenced by their interpersonal relationships (Yang et al., 2022). Moreover, to build an interpersonal relationship, teenagers have to go through self-disclosure. Relationships depend on ‘self-disclosure,’ which is when someone shares their personal information with another person (Towner et al., 2022). Behind a screen, it is very hard to emotionally connect with someone and to express self-disclosure. This is because online interactions make it hard for two or more individuals to capture each other’s emotions; that they are trying to convey. As argued by Towner et al. (2022), because computer-mediated communication lacks nonverbal clues, there may be less self-disclosure. When teenagers are exchanging messaging texts or comments on each other’s posts, they have no real clue about the emotional impact of their words, and they are also unaware of the expressions of their friends in the moment, as there is no involvement of voice tone and sight in real time. As stated by Lieberman and Schroeder (2020) engaging via text online can lessen people’s comprehension of others’ views and emotions compared to communicating through speech offline, thus leading to potential misunderstandings. Another point by Lieberman and Schroeder (2020) is that, there is a decrease in perceptions of social bonding as a result of losing access to vocal active listening skills. Therefore, it can be said that vocal and visual image, which are both important factors for real life communication are lacking when using texting as a mean to communicate. Due to the absence of these factors’ teenagers are missing out and not developing essential socialising skills. As social media allows teenagers to make friends online and chat online, their need to express themselves and communicate with other teenagers is fulfilled. Thus, they feel no need to interact with the real world. As stated by Choi and Sung, (2018, as cited in Al-Samarraie et al., 2022), users who are primarily teenagers and young adults might receive immediate feedback and affirmation from other social group members, which could give them the consolation and support necessary to boost their sense of contentment, happiness, and self-worth.
Using social networking platforms as a mean to communicate reduce teenagers’ real life social skills as they become more socially isolated. Even though social media allows its users to connect with an unlimited amount of individual worldwide, it can still cause the feeling of loneliness which decreases the motivation for teenagers step out from their screens and socialise in the real world. A survey of Facebook users showed that the number of important contact people reported is essentially same from before social media’s emergence; five faithful friends, fifteen close friends, fifty regular friends, and one hundred and fifty acquaintances (Lieberman & Schroeder, 2020). As a result, this shows that even if teenagers have a lot of friends or followers on social platforms, this does not mean that they are socialising with all of them and certainly not in a meaningful way. Several studies have revealed that online communication lacks the complexity and richness of face-to-face interpersonal interaction by its very nature, which leads to less fulfilling social interactions and, ultimately, increased risks for loneliness (Smith, Leonis, & Anandavalli, 2021). Therefore, due to the lack of meaningful and deep conversations, teenagers cannot open themselves and express their emotions, which lead them to feel lonely and depressed. According to Weiss (1973, as cited in Smith, Leonis, & Anandavalli, 2021), loneliness is a result of unfulfilled demands for attachment, social isolation, nurturing, a sense of trusted alliance, and support during trying times. There is a substantial and expanding body of evidence linking loneliness to personality traits including external locus of control, shyness, low self-esteem, and feelings of isolation, as well as to unfavourable emotional states like depression and life discontent (Smith, Leonis, & Anandavalli, 2021). Therefore, when teenagers feel lonely and depressed, this leads to social isolation and them being introverts which in return affects their social skills in the real world.
Teenagers who have being using social media for a long period of time to communicate are experiencing a decrease in their attention span which is preventing them to develop their interpersonal skills in the real life. Nowadays, social media is part of teenagers social live as they use them to socialise with their peers. However, spending too much time engaging with these platforms definitely come with adverse effects. For example, a sizable longitudinal research of teenagers without discernible ADHD symptoms discovered that higher participation in social or non-social digital media activities was linked to more self-reported ADHD signs two years later (Dekkers & van Hoorn, 2022). Therefore, this confirms the fact that teenagers who uses social media for a long period of time can develop ADHD and there is no need to mention that teenagers are the ones who use social networking sites the most. ADHD which means Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder can be defined as an extremely common psychiatric state which is identified by hyperactivity, inattention and impulsivity (Dekkers & van Hoorn, 2022). Moreover, teenagers don’t develop ADHD by only surfing on internet platforms, but they also experience these symptoms when they are used to instant messaging. As stated by Dekkers and van Hoorn (2022), a study that looked at teenagers at risk for psychopathology found a connection between self-reported ADHD and the daily amount of text messages exchanged and the daily reported time spent on digital media. Instant texting allows teenagers to communicate quicker compared to a face-to-face conversation. As a result, teenagers’ relationships and real-life social skills suffer because they cannot engage fully in face-to-face meaningful conversation. As argued by Dekkers and van Hoorn (2022), ADHD is frequently linked to a variety of social issues, such as issues managing personal friendships and peer relationships. This means that it is harder for these teenagers to develop their interpersonal skills. Dekkers and van Hoorn (2022) mentioned that, teenagers with ADHD exhibit a variety of social challenges that could lead to a difficulty with these shifting social dynamics; as a result, they need more sophisticated social skills to function effectively in these situations. Moreover, since teenagers with ADHD signs cannot socialise in real life situations, they prefer to use social media sites as a mean to communicate. For example, findings from studies on young females showed those with ADHD preferred online communication over face-to-face interaction (Dekkers & van Hoorn, 2022).
Conclusion
Teenagers are early consumers of social media, but there is little knowledge about whether online interactions can meet their social needs (Towner et al., 2022). The results have shown that teenagers’ face to face social skills do suffer but only if they are too dependent on social media as a mean of communication. Social media prevent them from developing interpersonal skills as they cannot express their emotions and engage in meaningful conversations, to create new or maintain relationships. This is because, through texting teenagers are not aware of voice tone, body language and facial expressions, which are very important factors when it comes to understanding and engaging with another individual. Another negative effect of social media on teenagers’ socialisation skills is that they affect their mental wellbeing, which in return make them socially isolated. The reason behind this, is that social media make teenagers feel lonely and depressed as they cannot fulfil their need to participate in a real and deep conversation. The final point is that teenagers attention span are affected due to heavy social media usage. This is due to the fact that teenagers who use social media to communicate with their peers have shown symptoms of ADHD. As a result, they prefer instant messaging instead of doing the effort of getting involved in deep conversations. All the above points, show that online networks are causing side effects on teenagers which is reducing their ability to communicate with the society and real world, which is causing social changes within the teenage group of the society, like changes in teenager’s social behaviours and social relationships.
References
Al-Samarraie, H., Bello, K. A., Alzahrani, A. I., Smith, A. P., & Emele, C. (2022). Young users’ social media addiction: causes, consequences and preventions. Information Technology and People, 35(7), 2314–2343. https://doi.org/10.1108/ITP-11-2020-0753
Dekkers, T. J., & van Hoorn, J. (2022). Understanding Problematic Social Media Use in Adolescents with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): A Narrative Review and Clinical Recommendations. In Brain Sciences (Vol. 12, Issue 12). MDPI. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci12121625
Huang, S., Lai, X., Zhao, X., Dai, X., Yao, Y., Zhang, C., & Wang, Y. (2022). Beyond Screen Time: Exploring the Associations between Types of Smartphone Use Content and Adolescents’ Social Relationships. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(15). https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19158940
Kitiş, Y., Dağci, B., Köse, N., & Geniş, Ç. (2022). The use of social media among high school students and its relationship with the perception of loneliness: A pilot study. Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing, 35(4), 341–348. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcap.12388
Lieberman, A., & Schroeder, J. (2020). Two social lives: How differences between online and offline interaction influence social outcomes. In Current Opinion in Psychology (Vol. 31, pp. 16–21). Elsevier B.V. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2019.06.022
Smith, D., Leonis, T., & Anandavalli, S. (2021). Belonging and loneliness in cyberspace: impacts of social media on adolescents’ well-being. Australian Journal of Psychology, 73(1), 12–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/00049530.2021.1898914
Towner, E., Grint, J., Levy, T., Blakemore, S. J., & Tomova, L. (2022). Revealing the self in a digital world: A systematic review of adolescent online and offline self-disclosure. In Current Opinion in Psychology (Vol. 45). Elsevier B.V. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2022.101309
Yang, S. Y., Wang, Y. C., Lee, Y. C., Lin, Y. L., Hsieh, P. L., & Lin, P. H. (2022). Does Smartphone Addiction, Social Media Addiction, and/or Internet Game Addiction Affect Adolescents’ Interpersonal Interactions? Healthcare (Switzerland), 10(5). https://doi.org/10.3390/HEALTHCARE10050963
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