Social media effects – Texila Connect

The average tween or teen consumes nearly 11 hours of media a day, according to research from the Kaiser Family Foundation, and scientists are raising concerns about how all that screen time is affecting young people.

That 11-hour average shows how multitasking has become routine for young people. For example, in the 2010 Kaiser study, one hour of watching videos while simultaneously texting would count as two hours of media consumption.

But even without factoring in multitasking, the screen-time numbers young people are racking up are astonishing. Surveys by market researcher Ipsos Mobility last fall show that on school days Canadian teens spend five hours a day just on their smartphones — texting, social networking, gaming, and watching videos.

Scientists worry it’s producing distracted kids who have a hard time focusing and thinking deeply or analytically.

Some educators and parents say anxiety is climbing in kids who spend so much time curating multiple online profiles, keeping up with hundreds of digital friends, and picking their way through the sometimes nasty world of social media and online bullying.

But experts say there are ways to counteract some of those effects, and ensure that kids have a healthier online life.

Source: CBC

Social media is affecting the way kids look at friendship and intimacy, according to researchers.

The typical teenager has 300 Facebook friends and 79 Twitter followers, the Pew Internet and American Life project found in its report, Teens, Social Media, and Privacy.

And some have many more.

The 2013 study also says the norms around privacy are changing, and the majority of teens post photos and personal information about themselves for all their on-line contacts to see.

More recent survey data released last week by the Canadian non-profit digital literacy group MediaSmarts shows Canadian youth do take some steps to protect their privacy – for example, by not posting their contact information on social media.

But the paper, Online Privacy, Online Publicity, also points out that most kids have only a limited understanding of things such as privacy policies, geo-location services and the implications of sharing their passwords.

The research contributes to an emerging picture of how teens’ ideas about friendship and intimacy have been influenced by their immersion in the on-line world, says Patricia Greenfield, a UCLA developmental psychologist and the director of the Children’s Digital Media Center @ Los Angeles.

In her own research, Greenfield has found that young people feel socially supported by having large networks of on-line friends, and these are not necessarily friends they ever see face-to-face.

“We found in our study that people, college students, are not getting a sense of social support from being on the phone. They’re getting social support through bigger networks and having a sense that their audience is large.”

The result is a decline in intimate friendships, Greenfield says. Instead, many young people now derive personal support and affirmation from “likes” and feedback to their postings.

“The whole idea behind intimacy is self-disclosure. Now they’re doing self-disclosure to an audience of hundreds.”

Other research at UCLA shows teens’ increasingly preferred mode of communication with their friends, texting, makes them feel less connected and bonded than face-to-face communication.

Graduate student Lauren Sherman studied various forms of communication between pairs of friends. She found the closer the experience was to in-person conversation, the more emotionally connected the friends felt. For example, video chat rated higher than a phone call, but the phone created a closer connection than texting.

“I don’t think digital communication in itself is a bad thing,” said Sherman, “but if we’re losing out on opportunities to connect with people as well as we can, that’s a problem.”

Studies have estimated teens typically send more than 3,000 texts a month.

Greenfield says that indicates kids are opting for efficiency of connection over intimacy.

Source: CBC news