Social media in this past decade has drastically impacted the way humans communicate with each other. People have now found a new outlet in sharing their personal opinions and what is important to them. Since the creation of Facebook, an immensely popular website used worldwide, communication has done a complete one-eighty when it comes to action and reaction. But what is the need for people today to stay updated on what is happening with other peoples’ lives? What does it do for the well being of humans when they log on to a social media-sharing site and post their thoughts and actions? Ethan Kross, the lead-author of “Facebook Use Predicts Declines in Subjective Well-Being in Young Adults,” a research article, investigated how Facebook impacts the moods and feelings of its users and how they respond after being on Facebook for a specific increment of time. Its authors concluded that Facebook makes its users feel less content than before they went on the site in that same day. However, there is a flaw in that conclusion. In his research, there were some ambiguities and essential conducive elements in arriving at such a conclusion that he did not include. It is arguable that Facebook itself is not the only culprit in lowering humans’ well being. The research cannot be conclusive because it does not have enough information to directly determine how Facebook makes students feel, such as how interaction differs on mobile devices versus computers and other social media website and how the use of their site effects its users.
In this extensive research, the authors explain the process of the research investigation. He introduces the elements of the project, which are the amount of test subjects (college students), the place the research was conducted, the qualifications of the test subjects, the prize that the test subjects would receive, and of course how the entire process went. The procedure consisted of the students answering questionnaires and getting text messages at random times of the day about their mood. Their answers were recorded on various different measuring scales that gave numerical representations of the data. The procedure also consisted of analyzing if the students felt worried or lonely after using Facebook, and would propose a small series of questions in a nested data structure. After this entire procedure had been completed, the analysts had concluded that the use of Facebook does diminish the well being of its users.
In regards to the analysts’ conclusion, however, it appears that there is a missed opportunity. First of all, the conclusion states that “Rather than enhancing well-being, … the current findings demonstrate that interacting with Facebook may predict the opposite result for young adults—it may undermine it” (Kross). There is a considerable amount of research that is neglected for this project. For instance, the procedure did not take into account the use of Facebook on mobile devices; the project only called for the use of Facebook on computers. In today’s day and age, the use of Facebook on a computer versus the use of Facebook on a mobile device can actually be significantly different. If the analysts are attempting to see if humans respond to their use of Facebook positively or negatively, they may need to include the use of Facebook on mobile devices to expose the distinction of communication. People that use this site on their phones or tablets may post or communicate to others in a more clipped fashion. Interaction on Facebook, after all, is a major element in investigating how the students feel afterwards because if one communicates with another with short, curt answers, the person receiving these messages may feel offended or let down because they may feel like the person talking to them does not want to talk to them. Browsing on Facebook on one’s computer may be different because there most likely isn’t as much of a rush, per se, of responding. The difference between clipped communication and more drawn out and thoughtful communication would obviously impact the overall well being of a person after they get off Facebook, whether it is by them or being given to them.
The other major flaw in this research project is the overall variety of social media itself. The experiment with these college students on their use of Facebook only addresses what happens when they use one certain type of social media site. But there are no points made about any other social media site. Twitter and Instagram are two profoundly popular sites on the web that follow the same basic concepts as Facebook. Twitter is a site for people to share what is happening in their lives within a certain amount of characters, and they can also post pictures and quote other users. Instagram, which can only be used on a mobile device, is a site along the same lines except it focuses primarily on photos and captioning them, along with still sharing what is going on in a person’s life. These two sites, like Facebook, are social media sites that allow users to express themselves, interact with other people, and draw their own conclusions about how they feel. The experiment that was conducted on these college students did not take into account that perhaps they had visited these sites as well as Facebook. It is a possibility that the use of other social media sites impacted the way the students felt before they went on Facebook, or maybe even after. The research does mention that a “related question concerns whether engaging in any Internet activity (e.g., email, web surfing) would likewise predict well-being declines” (Kross). But the analysts do not act on investigating if this idea may be true or not, but rather assume that it “depends on how you use it” (Kross). The researchers had investigated how college students “used” Facebook, so they should continue their research on other social media sites. Furthermore, perchance the use of other sites may make students feel a different way in the use of that particular site alone.
Social media has greatly impacted the lives of this decade as well as this past decade. Many analysts and researchers have drawn their own conclusions about how the use of social media has impacted society or individuals in general. Although if one may propose to conduct an experiment to answer an un-researched question about the “ways” of online social media, one must make sure they conduct a thorough experiment, taking in every factor and possibility of the experiment. The authors of this Facebook experiment research article entitled, “Facebook Use Predicts Declines in Subjective Well-Being in Young Adults,” did not accumulate all of the essential elements of his experiment, which was to conclude how Facebook made young-adult students feel in regards to their well being. There were more factors that needed to be brought to attention and further investigated. These researchers did not take into account some important factors such as the use of Facebook on mobile devices and on a computer and how they differ, and the other social media sites online as a whole. The authors only made one general assumption based off of one Internet site. Undoubtedly, the experiment should remain unconcluded.
Purpose: The purpose of this essay is to discuss the conclusions drawn from an experiment on Facebook users and to prove that these conclusions cannot be made without further research.
Audience: The audience of this essay is any Facebook user or Facebook analyst that has their personal speculations on the effects of the website.
Works Cited
Kross, Ethan, Philippe Verduyn, Emre Demiralp, Jiyoung Park, David Seungjae Lee, Natalie Lin, Holly Shablack, John Jonides, and Oscar Ybarra. Facebook Use Predicts Declines in Subjective Well-Being in Young Adults. Rep. PLOS ONE, 14 Aug. 2013. Web. 5 Sept. 2013.
Pamela Keating's FYS 100 blog 