Executive Summary
The emerging technologies have transformed the communication process in our modern society, especially among the youth. Facebook, Tweeter, and other social media platforms have become very popular. However, some stakeholders argue that Facebook has a negative impact on the social and academic well-being of the students. They spend most of their time on Facebook instead of concentrating on their academic work. This has affected not only their grades but also their moral standards. In this proposal, the researcher outlines the steps that will be taken to collect and compile data in order to verify these claims.
Background of the Problem
In the modern world, emerging technologies have completely revolutionized communication. The Smartphone, iPads, personal computers, and other communication gadgets have made it easy to share information irrespective of one’s geographic location. According to Thuseethan and Kuhanesan (2014), in the modern world, gadgets such as smartphones and personal computers are becoming basic needs.
Events taking place around the world, such as politics, natural calamities, among others, can now be shared in real-time because of these gadgets. It is through these communication gadgets that some of the world’s most popular communication platforms, such as Facebook and Tweeter, have emerged. In this study, the researcher will investigate the influence of new media on the way of communication
Facebook is currently the most popular social media platform, with an estimated 1.3 billion users across the world. According to Schurgin and Pearson (2011), the majority of Facebook users are youths, most of who are in colleges. At college, these youths find it necessary to share information on different issues. Facebook offers them the best platform to share information in different contexts. However, the research by Thuseethan and Kuhanesan (2014) revealed that Facebook has a serious impact on the lives of young adults. According to Tong, Heide, and Langwell (2008), most of the young adults spend over eight hours on Facebook.
Some of them ignore fundamental issues, such as taking time to study in order to chat on Facebook. Some go as far as chatting with other friends through Facebook while lectures are on, ignoring the need to listen to the concepts being passed across. Sebasti, Namsu, and Kerk (2009) say that many students are getting poor grades in colleges not because they are stupid, but because they have decided to spend most of their time on Facebook. They do not pay attention while the tutor is in class. They do not take time to address assignments given to them by their teachers because most of their time is spent on social media. This makes it difficult for them to grasp the concepts on various topics.
Thuseethan and Kuhanesan (2014) say that other than time wastage, Facebook contributes to the erosion of moral and ethical practices among the youths. Most parents always assume that their children will learn the way of life from schools. However, Tong, Heide, and Langwell (2008) warn that our curriculum does not effectively cover issues about social life. This gap of knowledge is always filled by social media.
As Schurgin and Pearson (2011) note, the problem is that it is rare for social media to offer insightful information that can be used by these college students to guide them through life. What they get is information that is misleading and sometimes very dangerous. Through these platforms, they get lured to vices such as drug trafficking and abuse, irresponsible relationships that expose them to bodily and psychological harm, among other practices that may be of harm to them.
Sebasti, Namsu, and Kerk (2009) observe that Facebook also has positive impacts on college students, which are worth noting. This platform offers these students a unique opportunity to share knowledge irrespective of their physical locations. This means that the students can share their research findings, share a problem so that a common solution can be found, or encourage one another when faced with complex academic assignments.
The college students are also using this platform to fight vices that may threaten the moral fabric of the college community. Tong, Heide, and Langwell (2008) say that in many colleges around Europe, Asia-Pacific, and North America, Facebook has been used to fight vices such as pimping, drug peddling, prostitution, and drug abuse. According to Thuseethan and Kuhanesan (2014), Facebook also offers college students a unique opportunity to share issues of common interest.
It may be a communal, national, or international issue that has either direct or indirect impacts on them as students. Sometimes the students use the platform to register dissatisfaction over an issue ignored by the administrations of their schools. Instead of resorting to physical riots that involve vandalism and destruction of property, the platform offers them an opportunity to address their issues to the relevant authorities so that actions can be taken before it is too late to act.
The tweeter is another common social media platform that is used by many people around the world (Sebasti, Namsu & Kerk 2009, p. 890). However, Schurgin and Pearson (2011) say that its usage has not been as popular as that of Facebook because of the perception that it is complex to use. This makes it necessary to conduct a review of the communication patterns on Tweeter. This will explain why many young adults and adolescents have either reduced or avoided their usage in their daily lives.
According to Schurgin and Pearson (2011), social media platforms were sold to the global society as easy to use and cheap ways of communicating without the need to follow complex processes that existed before, such as the use of direct phone calls or short message services. When a given social media platform is viewed as complex to use, then Tong, Heide, and Langwell (2008) say that it defeats the very essence of its existence. It is, therefore, necessary to ensure that the wrong beliefs about complexity in using this media platform are demystified in order to popularize its use.
Problem Definition
Facebook and Tweeter are the major social media platforms that are in active use in our modern society. Their popularity among young adults and adolescents around the world is undisputed. As Vogt (2007) says, technology is meant to improve our way of life. However, it is worrying that social media platform such as Facebook is used negatively by many people who have ill intentions. College students sometimes get involved in various malpractices because of the knowledge they get from the internet. Some get their lives completely ruined because of the influence of Facebook. Time wastage is another issue that has been identified when it comes to the usage of Facebook.
It is worrying that many students waste most of their study time chatting with friends in different parts of the world. In most of the cases, they engage in irrelevant discussions that do not add value to their lives. This has resulted in situations where they underperform in their academics, not because they are stupid, but because they are not spending enough time in their academics. These issues should be addressed in order to avoid the negative influences of Facebook on college students.
They need to know how to be responsible when using social media platforms. Given that these new forms of communication can improve their academic and social well-being when used correctly, it is necessary to promote the use of other platforms in the communication process. This research only focuses on how to promote the use of Tweeter alongside Facebook. To do this, the research will focus on how to use Tweeter to share information or contribute to debates in various social settings.
Research objectives
When conducting a study, it is always important to come up with clear research objectives that will help define what the research seeks to achieve. Research objectives give a study a sense of direction towards specific goals. The following are the specific research objectives set for the study.
- To determine the influence of new media on communication.
- To determine the impact of Facebook on university students’ media habits.
- To define communication patterns on Tweeter.
Research questions
The above research objectives will help in developing research questions. According to Vogt (2007), research questions help in defining the specific data that should be collected from the field. In many cases, a researcher may sway off the specific topic area. This is highly probable given our area of research. There are a number of other interesting facts about Facebook, Tweeter, and social media platform in general. However, our area of research is very narrow, and in order to collect the relevant data, it is necessary that the right questions are asked. These research questions do not just help in collecting primary data from the field, but also secondary sources of information during the review of literatures. The following are the specific questions that formed the basis of the questionnaire used in the study.
- What is the influence of new media on communication?
- What is the impact of Facebook on university students’ media habits?
- How can communication patterns on Tweeter be defined?
In order to respond to these research questions, the researcher will use both primary and secondary sources of data.
Research Methodology
Approach to the problem
When conducting research, it is important to define the appropriate research methodology that will be used in order to help in determining the validity of the study. In this study, the researcher will use both the primary and secondary sources of data. The secondary data will be conducted through a review of relevant literature. There are two articles that will be of primary importance in collecting the secondary data for the study.
The first article is titled “Quantitative Approaches to Comparing Communication Patterns on Twitter,” written by Brunsa and Stieglitz (2012), published in the Journal of Technology in Human Services, which will be used to help in defining the usage of Tweeter. The second article is titled “Facebook influence on university students’ media habits: qualitative results from field research,” written by Costa et al. (2011). This article will help in determining the influence of Facebook on college students’ media habits. It will also help in responding to the question about the impact of new media on communication.
Primary data will be collected from a sample population, as discussed in the section below. The researcher will analyze the primary data and compare the results found through this process and the information presented from the review of the literature. The primary data analysis will be used to confirm or reject the findings from the review of the literature.
The rationale supporting the choice of methodology
The researcher considered it necessary to have both primary and secondary data analysis. The rationale for collecting secondary data was to provide a basis upon which this research will be done. According to Vogt (2007), it is always illogical for a researcher to ignore the studies conducted by other scholars. The essence of any research is to expand the body of knowledge in a given area. This can only happen when a researcher conducts an investigation on the existing body of knowledge to determine the gaps that need to be addressed.
However, Vogt (2007) says that sometimes the existing bodies of knowledge may be contradictory in nature. For instance, some scholars argue that social media, especially Facebook, has had an overall negative impact on students’ media behavior.
On the other hand, others argue that although there are some negative influences, the overall impact is positive. When a researcher is faced with such contradictions, it becomes challenging to determine which of the two paradigms presents the truth. It is at such moments that the primary data from the field play an important role in clarifying the issue. Primary data also helps in confirming theories and concepts suggested by the previous scholars. It is because of these reasons that the researcher considered it necessary to use both the primary and secondary data analysis when coming up with the conclusion.
Research Methods and Data Collection Plan
According to Vogt (2007), when collecting primary data, it is always critical that the sample population is defined in very clear terms. In many cases, it may not be possible to collect data from the entire population. For instance, in this study, the sample population maybe hundreds of millions of students all over the world in various colleges. It is practically impossible to collect data from such a large population.
That makes it necessary to select a sample that will be a representation of the entire population. The researcher chose to sample one hundred participants. Fifty of the participants were students at various levels at the University of Queensland. Another 25 respondents were teachers who have monitored the behavioral patterns of their students in colleges. The last 25 respondents were parents who have been keen enough to monitor their children’s behavior when it comes to social media.
These three strata will help in providing an all-round data that respond to the questions from three different perspectives. There will be the perspective of the students- which is given greater weight- who are the focus of the study, teachers who understand how social media affects the students, and the parents who are concerned about the impact of social media on their children. In order to have respondents in these three strata, a stratified sampling method will be used. Stratified sampling makes it possible to identify the number of respondents in each stratum and the weight they will be given. As evident in the assigned weights, responses from the students were given more weight than that from teachers and parents.
Data Analysis Plan
The researcher will use qualitative methods to analyze the primary data collected from the field. The decision to use qualitative data was arrived at because of the need to describe how to use Tweeter and the impact of Facebook on the university students’ media behavior. Descriptive statistics was considered more appropriate in coming up with the right data. That is why the researcher used open-ended questions in order to allow for explanations. A few structured questions were used in order to determine the prevalence of some views among the respondents. This was meant to help in validating the findings from the literature review.
Timeline for the Project
It is important to clearly define the timeline for this research project in order to plan for the time available for various activities. This project has to be completed within the next six weeks. The Gantt chart below shows important activities in this project and their timeline.
Timeline of the Activities in Project
As shown in the Gantt chart above, the entire process is expected to take six weeks to be completed. Each of the activities has a set timeline, but some of them may be completed within a shorter period. It is important to note that all weekends have not been considered as working days. It means that a week has only five working days, from Monday to Friday. In the first week, the main activity will be the development and approval of the proposal. In the second week, the researcher will review the relevant literature. The third week will be for data collection. Data analysis will be done on the fourth week, while writing of the report will be done on the fifth and sixth weeks.
List of References
Bruns, A & Stieglitz, S 2012, Quantitative Approaches to Comparing Communication Patterns on Twitter, Journal of Technology in Human Services, vol. 30, no. 3, pp. 160-185.
Costa, E, Cavalli, N, Ferri, P, Mangiatordi, A, Scenini, F & Serenelli, F 2011, Facebook influence on university students media habits: qualitative results from a field research. Conference paper: Media in Transition – unstable platforms: the promise and peril of transition. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2011.
Schurgin, G & Pearson, K 2011, Clinical Report: The Impact of Social Media on Children, Adolescents and Families, Guidance for the Clinician in, American Academy of Pediatrics, vol. 10, no. 4, pp. 800-802.
Sebasti, V, Namsu, P & Kerk, K 2009, Is There Social Capital in a Social Network Site: Facebook Use and College Students’ Life Satisfaction, Trust, and Participation, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 875–901.
Thuseethan, S & Kuhanesan, S 2014, Influence of Facebook in Academic Performance of Sri Lankan University Students, University of Jaffna, Vavuniya.
Tong, S, Heide, B & Langwell, L 2008, Too Much of a Good Thing: The Relationship between Number of Friends and Interpersonal Impressions on Facebook, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, vol. 13, no. 31, pp. 531-549.
Vogt, P 2007, Quantitative Research Methods for Professionals Author, Pearson, New York.