Social media have been slowly changing everyday life and society for quite a long time. Modern people take them for granted, without noticing how they affect everyday life. However, social media are not a thing in itself — they constantly evolve and develop to better suit the users’ needs. New types emerge while the other decline in popularity or shift their focus towards a different user base. Therefore, social media affect society, but the feedback from it changes them as well.
The influence of social media on society can be explained through cultivation theory. Initially proposed by Gerbner and Gross in 1976, cultivation theory stated that television affects the beliefs and behavior of watchers (Shrum, 2017). This approach can be extrapolated on social media, which had developed into a widespread form of mass media and communications. As a result, it could be possible to reveal the influence of social media on society. In addition, the group socialization theory suggests that the impact of social media can vary within different groups since their members are primarily socialized by their peers (American Psychological Association [APA], 2021). Therefore, the best way to evaluate that change lies in contrast and comparison research.
Methodology
According to cultivation theory, social media should influence the beliefs and behavior of its users. Therefore, two focus groups of five participants were selected and interviewed to determine if there is any evidence of changing beliefs and behavior. Members of the first group used various social media over 2 hours a day on average. Participants of the second group used social media quite rarely. In addition, groups were separated by age parameter, which in theory should help grasp behavioral differences, possibly caused by social media. Each person was asked two questions: preferred social media and main reasons for using it.
Table 1. Group A: Social Media Used More Than 2 Hours a Day on Average.
Group A — 18-19 years old youth, was selected among the author’s friends and acquaintances, most of whom became college students after graduating from high school. There is an obvious pattern among the group — most participants use social media for daily entertainment and communication and prefer visual content of short duration. The only respondent different in that regard had to start working as a handyman due to personal circumstances, so he usually has little free time throughout the day. Instead, he watches longer portions of content from his favorite YouTube creators as a means of relaxation after the working day or engages in thematic discussions in Reddit format.
Table 2. Group B: Social Media Used Rarely.
Group B consists of the author’s acquaintances’ parents, who graciously volunteered to participate in this research. All of them are quite busy people, so they do not have much time for social media. Therefore, they mostly use them for professional needs, and on some occasions — to stay in touch with their friends and relatives. In general, the respondents from Group B consider more “modern” social media such as TikTok and Instagram quite meaningless.
Findings
To summarize, the interview of two focus group revealed the following patterns:
- The younger generation spends more time on social media;
- The younger generation enjoys shorter visual content, while their parents consider it meaningless;
- The older generation does not disregard social media as a whole; it uses them quite regularly, but in different ways and for a shorter amount of time
Overall, it can be stated that the cultivation theory works, and social media affected the younger generation of respondents. The change of attitude between the generations is evident and can be attributed to group socialization theory since youth is closely connected via social media. Youth shares new patterns of thinking and behavior, which are quite different from the previous generation.
Comparison to Other Researches
Research from the previous part revealed the difference in attitudes to social media between the representatives of two cohorts and the change of preferable social media formats. In his book Born Digital, Robert Wigley, the chairman of UK Finance, described the societal changes related to so-called “Gen Z” — people of roughly the same age as the respondents from Group A (Saran, 2021). According to Wigley, Gen Z people use social media as a primary form of interaction and communication, so they are less likely to see the direct impact of their words (Saran, 2021). He considers that a problem, a “crisis of distraction,” might potentially lead to harmful effects on Gen Z representatives’ mental health (Saran, 2021). This research has shown that Wigley is correct to some extent — Gen Z uses social media more actively. However, with the development of TikTok and Instagram, it became easy to communicate in video format, thus mitigating the negative impact of issues highlighted in Wigley’s book.
The societal effects of social media can have diverse nature. Adam Acar (2014) listed the main categories of positive and negative societal effects. The positive ones include cognitive surplus and improvement in political participation and activism. Cognitive surplus means that ordinary people can create news and content via social media or find interesting communities and join them (Acar, 2014). Regarding political participation, social media allowed people to organize quickly and express their collective opinion to get immediate results.
Fast mobilization through social media is not necessarily positive since it can theoretically be used for illegal activities. For example, Stuart (2019) revealed that gang-associated youth utilizes social media for violent resolution of conflicts. Moreover, social media allowed the assailants to gather intelligence about their victims and perform attacks with increased speed and violence (Stuart, 2019). This situation is harmful by itself; however, it can become even more damaging if the coordination of criminals would be used as an excuse for severe censorship of social media.
Overall, the sources mentioned above prove that social media have the potential to cause societal changes. The research in Part 1 followed that line and revealed changes on the behavioral level, which can be seen as confirmation of cultivation and group socialization theories. However, these changes should be viewed as a natural course of history rather than objective manifestations of good or evil. Older generations use social media and still benefit from them, while youth enjoys new communication and entertainment types.
References
Acar, A. (2014). Culture and social media: An elementary textbook. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
American Psychological Association. (n.d.). Group socialization theory. In APA Dictionary of Psychology. Web.
Saran, C. (2021). What it means to be born digital. Computer Weekly. Web.
Shrum, L. J. (2017). Cultivation theory: Effects and underlying processes. In P. Rössler, C.A. Hoffner & L. van Zoonen (Eds.), The international encyclopedia of media effects (pp. 1–12). John Wiley & Sons.
Stuart, F. (2020). Code of the tweet: Urban gang violence in the social media age. Social Problems, 67(2), 191-207. Web.