Social Media Usage and Social Skills

Overview

At the center of emerging research into the relationship between social media usage and the development and expression of social skills is the question of whether social media use itself is a socially isolating addiction or simply an engaging distraction. Over the first two decades of the twenty-first century, communicating through social media platforms has become routine for most demographics and age groups. People hunching over their tablets or typing into their smartphones has become commonplace and is tolerated, accepted, or encouraged in most social situations. Even in situations where Internet-based social interactions are a public nuisance (as in vigorous and even embarrassing exchanges with a mobile device in a public space) or a danger to the public (as in texting and driving), users often seem unable to draw their attention away from a screen and pay attention to the people around them. Social media has a unique ability to connect people in a comfortable mediated environment, but its compelling allure is blamed for deterring face-to-face interaction and the cultivation of non-mediated relationships.

Throughout the day (and often long into the night), online communication between family members and friends is easily achieved through social media groups like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. An ever-expanding array of file sharing and interactive messaging apps offer a variety of experiences and environments for every taste. In the United States 90 percent of teenagers have used social media; more than half are daily users. For this generation, online communication networks are often conducted between people who are actually within a short distance of each other, often in the same building, sometimes the same room, even at the same table—much like passing notes in class but without the intervening chain of desks. For most users, social media has evolved to become a parallel activity; that is, those who are on social media do so while they are engaged in something else.

For communications (other other) researchers, the easy immersion into a device-mediated social environment poses concerns. Many users find that immersion is compulsive and sustained beyond appropriate limits. Further, face-to-face social interaction requires the development of social skills that are learned and mastered through practice. In other words, it takes work, and for some people the work is harder and results in uncomfortable situations requiring advanced social skills such as tact, etiquette, and self-control. Rather than engage in conversation with those immediately around them, social media users often prefer to avoid such complex interactions and remain apart with their device, oblivious to the presence of others. A single social media user ignoring companions might be a sign of rudeness; however, a party of like-minded social media users, companionably ignoring one another, introduces a whole new paradigm.

Although the negative effects of social media on a variety of adolescent issues (e.g., cyberbullying, sexting or texting while driving, the health risks of the sedentary lifestyle of social media users) have been well-documented, little research has emerged on social media on the development of social skills, largely because that development takes time. Digital natives, that is, those raised entirely within the reach of social media, are only now approaching their mid-twenties, and most are still adolescents. Hard data has yet to be gathered as this generation is still undergoing the experience, still adjusting to the implications of social media communication. To this point, evidence is at best anecdotal, but questions are being raised by educators, parent groups, law enforcement agencies, counselors, physicians, psychologists, and sociologists.

Concerns raised include the adolescent development of complex emotional responses and analytical thought as expression is distilled to emojis; the potential decline of articulation and literacy skills as communication is defined by shorthand acronyms and character-limited tweets; the ability to construct and maintain confidential alliances and meaningful relationships as the definition of "friend" is extended and diminished by its specific usage on social media platforms. Given the cultural pressure to maintain a screen life, the excessive use of social media at a young age may come at the expense of developing basic, real-life social interaction skills. Over-reliance on social media is also suspected of exacerbating social awkwardness and mental health issues, leaving adolescents feeling disconnected, lonely, apart, even depressed.

Further Insights

Traditional communication models, that is, models developed across the two millennia before the digital revolution began in the early 1980s, defined communication between people as an event carried out in a shared space. Communication, thus, was a give and take dynamic, a complicated interaction that involved actual physical reactions. To communicate—even on the telephone—demanded an alert system response to in short a range of cues—voice inflection, eye contact, body language, gestures—that were an integral element of the communication process. To communicate, a person needed to both hear the message(s) and evaluate the messenger, then respond in real-time immediacy to indications of intent behind the message text (e.g., to detect irony, sarcasm, understatement, hyperbole). Non-verbal cues supplied important subtext—that is, an intended message delivered "between the lines" and detected only by evaluating the human factor. Indeed, a life spent in direct communication with others was seen as the sole way to develop that internal response mechanism, the only way to succeed in the environments of communication, most prominently the home and the workplace.

Engaging in communication has measurable biological impacts that are short- and long-term beneficial. Susan Pinker (1957–), a developmental psychologist who has emerged as one of the leading critics of the long-term impacts of social media on the development of social skills, describes conversation, casual (between and among acquaintances and even strangers) or committed (between and among family members and close friends), as nothing less than a "biological cascade of events." Communication, as it turns out, is a felt-event. As Pinker argues, "[Social media outlets] cannot compete with the human brain when it comes to expressing and understanding human emotion, both of which are key to establishing empathy and social cohesion" (Pinker, 2014). Conversations release a variety of hormones that increase the vitality and energy levels of those involved—to communicate, face to face, Pinker has argued, is to feel that binding, to register a range of entirely understandable emotions, depending on the topic, ranging from fear to anger to joy and even boredom. That emotional spectrum, Pinker argues, creates a social confidence in that person. Only by sharing a communication space can a person respond physically to that immediacy, that open sense of human interaction that compels people to step outside themselves and to engage with the presence of others. That kind of communication builds thinking skills, allows a full range of emotional responses, and creates a shared sense of a moment (basic to the construction of memories), all of which contributes, for Pinker, to a better quality of life.

When communication is done in physical isolation and conducted through an interaction with a screen, the human factor is largely eliminated. Social media messages use a limited set of cartoon icons to supply emotional indicators; users cannot respond without transmission delays and type-and-wait protocols hinder both immediacy and complexity of articulated thought; and the tight limits on the length of messages and texts prohibit exploration of feelings, ideas, opinions, or experiences being shared. Further, the communication environment itself is tightly restricted, even claustrophobic. The user is confined within a communication loop but physically apart. Indeed, social media users have started to deal with a nagging sense of loneliness and even a marked sense of depression the more they engage others in social media communication. The more enveloped users become in the world of social media communication, the deeper their sense of anxiety when it comes time, as it must inevitably, to engage real people in a real-time social situation.

Issues

In the United States alone, adolescents on average spend 4–5 hours every day engaging in some sort of online communication. The implications for individuals, many of whom are still developing socially and emotionally, can be staggering; after all, with a few keystrokes a person can communicate with thousands, even millions. That sense of range and reach can be intoxicating. But is it addictive? Studies are inconclusive and conclusions are at best conjectural. Studies have indicated that social media usage particularly in those under twenty-one is largely unmonitored and that long-time usage creates a personality profile of a person that will turn to social media reflexively, without evaluating the social situation or even the possibility of alternative actions. Using social media comes to justify itself. Users turn to social media when they are simply bored with their surroundings and crave the distractions of a screen; but escaping such oppressive conditions by a retreat into a virtual world, researchers have argued, is a sign of addiction—that is, negative behavior that justifies the escape and prevents the user from learning how to engage people and function in their immediate environment.

Social media users have indicated that even when they are not online they think about posting or think about messages they have read or messages that might be waiting. Compulsive behavior that comes to dominate one's waking life (indeed, blue screen light itself has been shown to negatively impact the body's sleep processes), at least resembles addiction. Further, like those with other addictions, when regular users are denied access to their social media sites (e.g., when communication networks go down or devices are broken or lost), many users evidence restlessness, irritability, and even anger and a distinct inability to adjust to the reality of not having that outlet immediately available—all symptomatic of addiction withdrawal.

If social media usage is, indeed, addictive, then the long-term impact of social media usage on the opportunity to develop social skills in adolescents is far more troubling. Traditionally, even as a child evolves through the experience of adolescence, that child creates a public persona able to negotiate and maneuver through the complicated world of social interactions with friends, with family, with coworkers, with authority figures. Going into adulthood, every child must develop an individual method for responding to others not only in relationships but at work. Indeed, psychologists have long documented what is termed "social intelligence" to define those necessary skills to successfully engage a typical workplace, skills not covered by an employee's education and/or expertise. Although social media might provide sufficient social life for an adolescent, that might prove problematic when it comes time to join a network.

In the adult world, the ability to conduct a conversation and correctly detect and interpret subtext is critical to success. Communication skills are crucial for workplace communication presentation and being able to hold up one end of a viable and effective social interaction is essential for romantic and familial relationships. The most basic social engagement elements of a successful interview—a self-assured walk, effective eye contact, a firm handshake, a confident sitting posture, a steady and clear response voice, full sentence responses—are not developed through social media use. Early data indicates just the opposite, but the results are still out. Anecdotal observations assume the worst, but that may be due to lack of insight by the older generation into the younger. Young adults, who have experienced most profoundly the impact of social media usage, are only now entering the workforce. As such, experts have performed extensive research into social media addiction and the effect it has on various aspects of life.

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