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A Psychological Evaluation of Social Networking and Texting

by Huda Zahid

In the modern world, one of the most popular and exponentially increasing social trends

is the use of texting and social networking as a means of communication and social interaction.

Surveys by Pew Research Centre show that teenagers and young adults exchange "an average

of 109.5 text messages every day"(Smith). 73% of the people using the internet are active on

social networking sites, with a large proportion of them using multiple social networking

platforms. The popularity of these ways of communication is evident by the overwhelming

statistics that such surveys have generated. They hold true for most countries, developed and

developing, for all major cultures of the world and for both collectivistic and individualistic

societies. Although the use of these technologies is inevitable, their increasingly dominant role

in the everyday lives of people raises many questions. How is this use affecting them at an

individual level and in terms of their social relationships? This has emerged as an area of great

interest for psychologists and sociologists, and remains a major concern even for the general

public. The past few years have witnessed a prominent global shift in trends, from phone calls

to texting, and from having actual face-to-face conversations to social networking. Although

these rapidly evolving modes of communication are considered to be very efficient means of

socialising and connecting with others, they are adversely affecting individuals and the overall

social fabric by giving illusions of friendship, by impairing the development of interpersonal

conversational skills among teenagers and by leading to a reduced capacity for enjoying

solitude.

Most people join social networking sites like Facebook in order to remain in contact

with old friends and acquaintances. They may also look for "friends" online, to combat

loneliness. However, the fact remains that real friendships cannot be sustained merely through

virtual socialization. One is inclined to use social networking to keep in contact with friends

rather than having a conversation with them on the phone, because it is much easier to do so,

and it requires less effort. Considering the busy lives that most people live nowadays, this may

be very convenient but it does not lead to the strengthening of friendships. In fact, it may cause

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friends to become more distant since real conversations are replaced by texting or a quick

"status update". From a psychological point of view, Turkle writes that digital connection

"offers the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship"( Alone Together 13).

The integration of social networking into people's lives has undermined their concept of

friendship; they are not ready to make effort to keep their friendships strong and they prefer to

keep connected in a way that does not involve much time and energy on their part. Even within

different components of social networking, they are likely to choose passive ways of connecting

over active communication. For example, Facebook users generally have a greater tendency

towards silently observing their friends posts or merely clicking "Like" instead of leaving

comments or having a chat with the friend. This may help them in being connected but it does

not satisfy the human need for companionship and emotional support.

In addition, the illusion of friendship offered by social networks renders people

incapable of making real friendships. For many people, social media becomes a tool for self-

projection instead of communication. They become more focused on maintaining their own

profiles and image on the network rather than interacting with their friends. Since they are able

to shape their profiles into whatever they want to project to the society, they prefer doing so.

In contrast, real-time friendship means accepting the other for who they are, and tolerating all

the flaws and short-comings of each other's personalities. The latter is much more difficult and

complicated to cope with, and hence there is a tendency to avoid it and instead replace real

relationships with virtual ones. Bates explains that "Over time, we begin to falsely equate

genuine, human-to-human relationship with the shallow connection and gratification offered by

social networks. We increasingly define ourselves in terms of our digital presence ...".

Therefore, long-term addiction to social networking may lead one to become more impatient

with others and be inclined towards retreat from active social events. This lack of profound

companionship gives way to loneliness and depression. A study conducted by Kraut et. al.,

found a positive correlation between how often people use the internet for socialising with how

lonely and depressed they felt. They found that the more people used social networking, the

more unhappy and stressed they felt.

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Preferring communication through texting and social media over face-to-face

conversation has adverse effects on interpersonal social skills. Digital communication allows the

user to control the way the interaction occurs; he/she can control the length of the

"conversation", the time at which it takes place and whether it takes place or not. Although this

remains a convenient and attractive feature of technology, it is not equivalent to a true

conversation, which is spontaneous, untailored and supported by facial cues and changes in the

tone and pitch of the voice. Turkle explains that "Face-to-face conversation unfolds slowly. It

teaches patience. When we communicate on our digital devices, we learn different habits. As

we ramp up the volume and velocity of online connections, we start to expect faster answers.

To get these, we ask one another simpler questions; we dumb down our communications, even

on the most important matters" ("The Flight From Conversation"). For adults, this is not a

problem because they have already developed their social and communication skills. However,

for children, it can be a serious threat to their personal and social development. Children and

teenagers are also the most active users of social networking and hence are the most

vulnerable to its detrimental effects. Children learn social skills by observing social interactions,

learning from adults about social responses, and by practicing the interaction with their social

environment(Osit 103). They develop the ability to read facial cues and understand other

people's emotions by face-to-face interactions. This also teaches them how to handle social

conflicts and respond in various situations. On the contrary, if they carry out most of their

communication through texting and social media, they are not exposed to real social

interaction. This can be a major obstacle in reaching developmental milestones psychologically.

Prolonged use of technology for socialising has caused children and teenagers to become

afraid of real conversations, which cannot be controlled and edited, unlike text messages. Their

tendency to avoid real human interaction makes them incapable of handling complex social

scenarios and confrontations.

A direct consequence of poorly-developed social skills of children is an increase in the

communication gap between children and their parents. The fact that children now spend most

of their time at home in texting and social networking means that they have less time to be

with their parents. According to Taylor, "One study found that when the working parent arrived

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home after work, his or her children were so immersed in technology that the parent was

greeted only 30 percent of the time and was totally ignored 50 percent of the time." Even if the

children do have time, they prefer to spend it in social networking, under the assumption that

their friends are more likely to understand their feelings rather than their parents. This gap in

parent-child communication is further widened by the fact that a lot of parents are not very

proficient in the use of modern technology compared to their children. Hence, they are less

likely to share those activities of their child which are associated with technology. Therefore,

the child becomes even more distant from the parents and the parents themselves are unable

to empathise with the child. Such parents feel frustrated with their child's obsession with

texting and social networking, and resort to harsh criticism against the technologies. This

results in deep-rooted tensions within the family life. Also, tech-savvy parents are equally

responsible for the lack of communication, due to their texting or catching up on emails at

home instead of spending time with their children.

Social networking sites are generally used by people to keep in contact with their friends

and hence maintain good relationships. However, they can sometimes be responsible for

tarnishing relationships and generating conflicts. Majority of users on these sites tend to cast

perfect, exaggerated profiles of themselves. Therefore, viewing each other's apparently perfect

lives leads to feelings of jealousy among peers. According to a psychological study by Krasnova

et. al., the envy is a result of social comparison, especially among friends sharing same careers

and institutions. The study identifies "passive following" as the primary cause of envy among

Facebook users, compared to active communication. Krasnova et. al. write, "According to our

findings, passive following triggers invidious emotions, with users mainly envying happiness of

others, the way others spend their vacations; and socialize. The spread and ubiquitous presence

of envy on SNSs[Social Networking Sites] is shown to undermine users’ life satisfaction"(12). In

addition, attempts at conflict resolution through texting and social media are unsuccessful most

of the times. People generally have an inclination towards discussing serious, emotional

conflicts via texting or instant messaging as it avoids direct confrontation. However, this poses a

great risk of misperception by the recipient because written words are often not able to convey

one's tone and emotions. In the absence of audio-visual cues, it becomes very hard to

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understand and interpret other person's feelings. Thus, these modes of communication can

worsen interpersonal relationships.

Excessive social networking may lead to depression due to the paradox of the presence

of hundreds of friends online but a simultaneous lack of emotional support and human contact.

In a two weeks long study, Kross et. al. found that the participants felt more lonely, depressed

and dissatisfied with life when they used more Facebook. The study took into account

variations of culture, race and gender. The participants who used Facebook more scored low on

both affective and cognitive well-being, when they completed a series of questionnaires. One of

the causes for this depression can be attributed to the loss of self-identity, as the user attempts

to display a profile that is acceptable and admired by the social circle, by arduously trimming

and altering his/her own personality. Marche states that "It’s a lonely business, wandering the

labyrinths of our friends’ and pseudo-friends’ projected identities, trying to figure out what part

of ourselves we ought to project, who will listen, and what they will hear." Contrary to the

popular view that social networking enhances self-esteem, psychologists have found that it

feeds narcissism by providing an effective platform for self-promotion. Frequent status updates

and excessive posting of photos especially selfies, are some of the indications of narcissism that

social media users exhibit. From his psychological study, Carpenter concludes that "for the

average narcissist, Facebook offers a gateway for hundreds of shallow relationships and

emotionally detached communication." He found that this occurs because social networking

enables the user to have a high degree of control over how he/she is presented to and

perceived by other users. At times social networking has the opposite effect on self esteem

which is nonetheless equally damaging. This can be seen especially in relation to women and

body image issues. It is suggested that it can exacerbate the prevailing tendency to compare

yourself physically to unrealistic ideals. Instead of relieving behavioral issues like narcissism and

personal insecurity, social networking intensifies them.

Digital communication at the price of real conversation is not only damaging the

intricate web of relationships that people are woven together in, but it is also depriving them of

the capacity to relish solitude. Most users find it very difficult to control the impulse to keep on

checking their phones for new texts and their social media profiles for updates. This occurs as a

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result of the "fear of missing out" on something that might happen. Consequently, they tend to

spend whatever leisure time they have in social networking or texting instead of enjoying

peaceful solitude and self-reflection. According to Turkle, technology "provide[s] three

powerful fantasies: that we will always be heard; that we can put our attention wherever we

want it to be; and that we never have to be alone. Indeed our new devices have turned being

alone into a problem that can be solved" ("The Flight From Conversation"). Hence, whatever

limited time people do get away from their gadgets, they are anxious and tense, and suffer

from an intense feeling of loneliness. In this paradoxical scenario, one's attempt to form

connections and combat loneliness, has in turn, made one even more lonely than ever.

According to a study by Mcpherson, Smith-Lovin, and Brashears, there has been a prominent

decrease in the number of close friends that Americans have since1985. The study finds that

"one quarter of all Americans do not have close confidants, and that the average total number

of confidants per person has decreased from four to two in the past years". This statistically

proven, overwhelming increase in loneliness may have something to do with the increasing use

of social networking.

With minimal time spent in solitude, most of the people in today's world are deprived of

the opportunity for self-reflection. In fact, being alone has now become an alien concept for

most of them. This means that very little time is spent in introspection and in the struggle to

achieve self-awareness. Deresiewicz explains that "solitude enables us to secure the integrity of

the self as well as to explore it." Being deprived of solitude thus leads to anxiety and suppresses

creativity. For example, in order to write poetry, the poet needs to be in a profound emotional

state that only solitude can provide. With constant interruptions of text messages and social

updates, how can one expect to enjoy tranquil solitude and spend time with oneself? For

children, lack of real conversation is also one of the causes for reduced self-reflection. During

their psychological and behavioural development, children learn to self-reflect by talking to

others and through their social interactions. For example, apologizing for their mistakes and

focusing on the subsequent reaction of the other person opens their way for introspection. The

replacement of face-to-face conversations with virtual socialisation has severely marred

teenagers' ability to develop self-awareness. Overall, the relation social networking has with

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narcissism and self-esteem, coupled with the way it limits introspection has nothing but dire

implications for the developing personalities of youth.

Although it is believed that in the globalised world, where families disperse over time

and friends move away in pursuit of careers and jobs, social media and texting serve as the best

modes of keeping in contact. However sacrificing genuine human interaction in order to be

simultaneously connected at multiple places is destroying the delicate social fabric that human

beings maintain. The idea that one should give precedence to those who are not present over

those who are actually there appears to be the fundamental social problem of today's

technological world. Is it worthwhile to forsake real conversations in order to live under the

delusion of controlled socialisation and 24/7 connections with everyone? In the desperate

attempt to be extensively connected, man is losing the ability to form and sustain profound

relationships. As explained by Turkle, "Our networked life allows us to hide from each other,

even as we are tethered to each other. We’d rather text than talk"(Alone Together 14). The

adverse effects of social media and texting on the social and conversational skills of children,

will in a few years time, manifest themselves fully. Their irreversibility is the primary concern of

child psychologists and therapists all over the world.

Conclusively, excessive use of texting and social networking sites has profound negative

influences on individuals, their relationships and the overall functioning of society. It is naive

and impractical to suggest complete avoidance of these technologies. But their impact on the

daily lives of people needs to be understood in detail. Their use must be regulated in such a

way that the everyday needs of communication are fulfilled without paying the price of

damaged relationships, personal anxiety and social dissatisfaction. For the time that has to be

spent on social networks, one should try to engage in active communication rather than passive

scanning of other people's posts. Some text messaging needs to be replaced by phone calls to

strengthen relationships and video calls should work even better. Serious effort has to be put in

to control the impulse of being constantly connected and the "fear of missing out" needs to be

overcome. In particular, parents need to understand how the social and behavioural

development of their children is being shaped by their use of social media. They should then try

to establish the right proportion of real social interaction and virtual communication that their

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child must be exposed to. Failure to do so will lead to the emergence of a generation which has

never been more well-connected and yet never more lonely.

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Works Cited

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