Dazjanae DaileyApril 23, 2012

ENC 1102- 0109

Reflection LetterDear Mrs. Martinez,

This semester in ENC 1102, I have learned plenty of elements of research that I had no clue about. During research I learned that there are many parts to being able to effectively find what you are looking for. At first I had the impression that a research topic would just fall on me but after reviewing sources, we were asked to look at what those sources had not cover, which caused me to change my issue. I really enjoyed the pace that the class moved because it allowed me to make changes to certain errors and edit my papers the way that I wanted to. Research I found to be very difficult because I had to think of things that could be supplemented by each of the sources to come up with a common issue and actually make something out of a totally brand new subject. At moments, I became confused but my wonderful seatmate is such a wonderful writer and she helped me pull through by giving me advice during peer reviews. Because of the process that we’ve gone through this semester with this project, I have a new perception of research. In high school I did research papers that involved a topic and looking for as many sources that spoke completely on that topic, in this class it was taken to a more advanced level of being able to use related sources and compare them to get as close to answer as I could regarding my topic. I believe that having to go through this deep process has prepared me for any possible writing situation because we had two very important essays that we had write in order to get down to the final research paper.

When we began to write the papers, I was a little confused about each one but because you are such a wonderful professor, you gave us access to different examples that would assist us in being sure that our papers had all the elements that was required. In the annotated bibliography I was extremely lost when we started but eventually I got it, the first time around I didn’t spend much time on it but after peer reviews, I was able to read other people’s paper and get an idea of what was supposed to be included so that helped me a lot and allowed e to go back and correct many things that needed fixing. I definitely seen a progress in my writing after having to write that because it was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to write and it has taught me a lot about citation, making connections between sources, and explaining quotes. The literature review did the same thing for me but I was also able to put my topics in categories, allowing me to see what hadn’t been included in these sources that I was curious about.

I believe I’ve worked extremely hard in this course, it has definitely been a writing experience that I’ve never gone through until now and I’m thankful for it because I’m sure it will come in handy in the near future. I feel as if I deserve an A in this course because I always had my work turned in on time, I edited and drafted them the way that they needed to be, plus I actually learned a lot. Hopefully, my portfolio reflects that.

-Dazjanae Dailey

Table of Contents Thought Document

Annotated Bibliographyo Finalo Draft 2o Draft 1

Literature Reviewo Finalo Draft 1

Research Project Reflective Thought

For my research project I’d like to find out if social networks/internet does more or less harm to

our academic experience. I would like to find out because almost every student in this day in age must

use the internet for things that are done in classes. So, is this a benefit and if so, in what way? A lot of

assignments for different courses are even online. Is this making students use the internet more than

what they should?

I use the internet A LOT. I use it for personal, business, and school related things, mostly

personal though. I feel as if social networking does both good and bad to students. There are many

wonderful websites on the internet that I usually find through Google that are really good resources to

helping me find answers to questions that I had about academics. Many of my unanswered thoughts

from class can be answered or reviewed on the internet, which is great because my grade doesn’t have

to suffer just because I may have not asked a question or didn’t understand something. One thing about

that though, many students now seem to be ADD, not officially diagnosed but because many social

networks are addicting, they feel the need to get on facebook or twitter for a “break” while working and

that break turns into something much long, most of the time more time is put into the social networks

more than the work itself. I have proof of this because I do it quite often and I’ve seen a lot of people’s

facebook status talking about how facebook is so addicting especially when it’s time to do work for our

school courses. And even right now, I am back and forth on this reflective thought paper and

facebook/twitter. It really can be addicting. I’m interested in finding out the answer to the question

because it seems so hard for me to decide on my own and many people may have different outlooks. I

know that the articles we read in class have partially opposing thoughts about the entire social

networking thing. In some ways I do agree with Williams, because he says that literacy is changing in

modern society, which is true but I do notice some negative things that I don’t agree with. Roozen

believes that literacy activities that we don that may not necessarily be related to school can actually

help us academically, I believe that is true to a certain extent, as long as it doesn’t go to the pint of

spelling practices that take place on social networks. Bugeja had a lot of negative things to say in his

article but I noticed that majority of them were true, such as the thing about putting inappropriate

things on facebook that can be seen my school administrators or businesses.

I’d like to learn more on this question because I have mixed thoughts on this and other people’s

opinions may be able to point me towards the right direction better than my own thoughts.

The Role of Social Networking on Mental Health

Final

The purpose of my annotated bibliography is to explore how today social networking is

affecting a person’s emotionally capabilities and development. I have found many sources

relating to my topic that claim both that social networking can either damage or strengthen a

person’s mental development, how they think towards certain things, for example, changing

how they would have perceived someone if it weren’t for something on a social network.

(Ybarra, pg.248). My sources are different from one another in many aspects but they all relate

and can be compared to each other to help me research my topic a little more in depth, so I can

find an intellectual answer. Some of them explain how there are negative effects of using social

networks, while other glorify it. As a whole, I believe that these sources have introduced me to

the idea that certain views that a person already has on socializing can cause them to develop

differently mentally. By analyzing each of these sources, hopefully I can conduct a study to

conceive this issue within my ENC 1102 class.

Aubrey, Jennifer, and Sumana Chattopadhyay. “Are Facebook Friends Like Face-to-Face

Friends: Investigating Relations Between the Use of Social Networking Websites and

Social Capital.” International Communication Association Annual Meeting 2008.

Communication & Mass Media Complete 1977.5 (2008): 1-33. Print.

Aubrey, Professor and Chattopadhyay Assistant Professor of Broadcast and Electronic

Communication at the University of Missouri assert in their 2008 article “Are Facebook Friends

Like Face-to-Face Friends: Investigating Relations Between the Use of Social Networking

Websites and Social Capital” that the internet builds one’s social “knowing”, which some early

researchers thought would cause a decline. They support this assertion by the stats that

showed how online bridging cause offline bonding as. Because people met online it caused

them to build a relationship offline as well. The purpose for writing this article for sociologists

and earlier researchers was to show them that the internet can build knowing along with other

ways of socializing if not more.

This article is relevant to my topic because it’s shown that social activity can allow a

person to learn more, not just by face to face interactions but online as well. This could

stimulate people’s minds differently, mostly for the people that may be shy or introverts, they

may feel as if they have more opportunity, “we should expect to see people make many

connections that they might not otherwise make. This is particularly relevant to social

networking websites, where making connections with others is as simple as sending a “friend”

request” (18), which is saying how a shy person may be able to interact better online because

of having that type of interaction.

Cassidy, Erin Dorris, et al. “Higher Education and Emerging Technologies.” Reference and User

Services Quarterly 50. 4 (2011): 380-91.Print.

Cassidy, who is a Web Services Librarian, at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville,

Texas along with the other authors of this article, assert in their 2011 article “ Higher Education

and Emerging Technologies” that technology is essential to mostly everyone's daily lives today.

They support this assertion by giving numerical data on how many people use different social

networks and internet sources every day. Their purpose was to show that because this

generation has grown up with advanced technology, we use it for so many more things that

benefit us in ways that weren't available many years ago. Their intended audience is anybody

that is a part of this generation or anyone that is interested in finding out why so many people

use the internet. They target us by giving us familiar names such as Facebook, I.M., and other

popular websites.

Their article is relevant to my topic because it shows how much and how many of us use

the internet. It's more on the positive side of the argument but I definitely see things that they

described as positive that can also be flipped into a negative aspect. They say, “The percentage

of respondents who indicated interest in library services on Facebook was higher than

expected” (387), which means that they had more a positive view on how important the

internet is because of how essential it is to students but at the same time, I don’t believe that

they see that Facebook can also be distracting to them while they are in the library. It's almost

crazy how this statistical data involves such large numbers and nobody in this day in age find it

outrageously significant because it is viewed as normal to us since we have grown up with this

form of technology.

Clafferty, Elaine Margaret. “Facilitating social networking within the student experience.”

International Journal of Electrical Engineering Education 48. 3 (2011): 245-51. Print.

In Clafferty’s (Electrical Engineering Education Professor) 2011 article, “Facilitating social

networking within the student experience” she asserts that the internet is popular and teachers

and students can benefit by incorporating work assignments on it. She is able to support this

assertion by showing how the student’s grades went up by using Web Technologies 2.0. stating

that this can add plenty of flexibility for the student and professor, as well as peer help. Her

purpose was to show that with all the social networks available, there are so many things that

could be taken advantage of as far as academics. Her intended audience includes students,

professors, and school administrators, and she targets us by including interesting facts that we

as people in the modern world know about the internet.

Clafferty's article is relevant to my topic because she focuses on the things that the

students and professors could do that can benefit the both of them but can also save time. She

states, “The case study shows that peer support from student to student within an online social

networking environment is a valuable and effective method of student support”(250) meaning

that there was a better outcome from using the world wide web. They had better grades and

saved themselves time. Say for instance instead of having to meet up for a conference, the

internet and email is available to make everything easier. In different sections of the article she

addresses how and why these are good forms of technology to use in school environments. I

believe I will use her writing to describe how time is essential when it comes to assignments on

the internet, , since it allows readers to see how professors could make things a little less

mentally stressful on their students.

Costin, Dan, Maria Kalpidou and Jessica Morris. “The Relationship Between Facebook and the

Well-Being of Undergraduate College Students.” Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social

Networking 14.2 (2011): 183-89. Print.

In the article “The Relationship Between Facebook and the Well-Being of Undergraduate

College Students” Dan Costin, a Hermatologist and Oncologist in New York, Maria Kalpidou, a

Psychology Professor at Assumption College, and Jessica Morris, a Program Coordinator for the

Summer Institute for Training in Biostatistics (SIBS) with a concentration in Biostatistics

Research in Disease and Genetic Epidemiology (BRIDGE) at Washington University in St. Louis

School of Medicine give us a combined standpoint on the health effects that social networks

can leave on individuals. They assert that social networking has led to many negative outcomes

with many people. They support their assertion by giving us data regarding a study that found a

decline in family communication and higher depression. Her purpose of writing this article was

to show that non-communicative use of the internet has made a negative adjustment on

psychological wellbeing. The intended audience for this was college student, whom she said

this affected more than any other group of person and she targets us by giving us examples that

we can relate to being new to college.

Her article is relevant to my topic because she talks about how higher depression rates

are more popular because of this, it shows how time can be wasted thinking about negative

things as a result, which could waste even more of our time, “The relationship between

Internet use and loneliness was examined by other researchers too. Moody6 reported that high

levels of Internet use were associated with low levels of social loneliness and higher levels of

emotional loneliness, suggesting that online interactions fail to satisfy one’s need for emotional

connections in social interactions.”(183) In several sections, she addresses how different

amounts of time on the computer could affect others differently. The people that spent less

time on the computer had lower depression rates as a whole compared to those that spent

majority of their time on the internet.

Flanigin, Andrew. “IM Online: Instant Messaging Use among College Students.” Communication

Research Reports 22. 3 (2005): 175-87. Print.

Flanagin, who is a Communications professor at University of Caifornia Santa Barbara

asserts in his 2005 article “IM Online: Instant Messaging Use among College Students” that the

internet is used to fulfill many needs, such as keeping in touch with people of long distance or

fast, easy communication . He supports this assertion by conducting a study that shows what

people used I.M. for and how it affected them. His purpose of writing this article was to let

people know how much this form of technology could stimulate someone’s mind. His intended

audience is teenagers and young adults. He is able to target his audience by giving numerical

data on the exact things that students do on I.M. which many will find to be true.

His article is relevant to my topic because it shows both how much time we waste on

the internet but also how much time we save by "instant" messaging and getting a quick

answer back. He states, “ However, I.M. conversations also appear to exhibit an upper limit of

four or more simultaneously conversations, past which respondents reported significantly less

conversational satisfaction”(183), which means that I.M. is satisfying as long as a person isn’t

talking to more than four people at a time because it can be a hassle, simply because it begins

to get mentally stressful when you have to focus on more than one person. Flanagin is able to

argue that it makes it easier for us to communicate, have easily accessible entertainment, feel

less lonely and meet new people.

Forbus, Patricia, Sanjay Mehta and John Newbold. “A Study of Non Traditional and Traditional

Students in Terms of Their Time Management Behaviors, Stress Factors, and Coping

Strategies.” Academy of Educational Leadership Journal 15. Special Issue (2011): 109-25.

Print.

Forbus and Mehta, Management and Marketing Associate Professors at Sam Houston

State University College of Business, and Newbold, a professor of Microbiology and

Immunology at University of North Carolina School of Medicine assert in their 2011 article “A

Study of Non Traditional and Traditional Students in Terms of Their Time Management

Behaviors, Stress Factors, and Coping Strategies” that time management skills have allowed for

a person to have low anxiety, stress, and high performance levels. They support this assertion

by giving results of his experiment that relate time management to traditional and

nontraditional students and how they adapt to new experiences. Their purpose was to get

universities to understand different student needs to improve their satisfaction and total

college experience. The intended audience is university administrators and professors so they

can see how they can help their students manage stress and time. They target them by giving

them set differences between these two totally different types of students, which would allow

them to be more helpful to the students.

Their article is relevant to my topic because it explains how stress and apprehension are

caused by poor instruction and time management of work and school. Some of the students in

this study were traditional (came to college right out of high school) and others were non-

traditional (came after having a family or job). In the article they say, “Non-traditional students

are less likely to participate in social activities” (121) mostly because they have more important

things to focus on such as family, jobs, and finance. The study allowed for the audience to see

how well certain directions work for these two types of students.

Konetes, George, and Matthew McKeague. " The Effects of Social Networking Sites on the

Acquistion of Social Capital Among College Students: A Pilot Study". Global Media

Journal 11.18 (2011): 1-10. Print.

Both Konetes and McKeague are Electronic Media and Communications professor at

Indiana University of Pennsylvania. In their 2011 article titled “The Effects of Social Networking

Sites on the Acquistion of Social Capital Among College Students: A Pilot Study” they assert that

students are using social networking sites to advance social capital and furthering common

interests. They support this assertion by showing that there is a greater importance placed on

social capital while networking, which are basically the things that we learn and become

beneficial to us. The intended audience for this article is mainly sociologist and maybe

professors. He wants them to know that social networking can help with social capital because

many of the things online will help them.

This article is relevant to my topic because it compares a form of socializing to a way

that people can understand things better; in this case it’s social capital which helps us develop

things better because it comes to be helpful to us. It is stated, “Small clusters of network

connections begin to form around common ideals, attitudes and beliefs where people feel

secure going to one another for advice, counsel and comfort” (3), basically saying that these

people learn from these small groups of people that they communicate with, so they feel as if

they know more than before. This article will help me because socializing does benefit us

because we learn new information from it which gives us higher levels of social capital.

Liguori, Gary, Arupendra Mozumdar, and John Schuna. “Sleep-wake cycle; College students --

Mental health.” College Student Journals 45. 3 (2011): 481-92. Print.

Ligouri, an assistant professor in Health, Nutrition and Exercise Sciences, along with

Mozumdar and Schuna who are pre-doctoral researchers in the Dept. of Health, Nutrition, and

Exercise Sciences at North Dakota State University assert that a student can be stressed out

depending on what their social life looks like. They support this assertion by going into detail

about how social and logical adjustments affect their mental and academic responsibilities. The

audience for this article is students that may be dealing with this, they want them know why

they may be feeling a certain way.

Their article is relevant to my topic because he clearly states that people have mental

changes because of their ways of socializing, “All college students face a number of social and

logistical adjustments at the start of each school year, including new living quarters,

roommate(s), dietary choices, academic expectations, jobs, and more. “ (484) I feel like I could

use a good amount of information from this article. The authors speak a lot about sleep

duration and disturbances as well, so I could possibly include that since it has a mental effect on

us.

Liu, Xin-An. "Social Networking & Virtual Community." Proteus 27 .1 (2011): 51-55. Print.

Liu who is a Computer Science assistant professor at the University of California asserts

in his 2011 article “Social Networking & Virtual Community” that social networking online has

changed people’s perception of social interaction. He supports this assertion by showing how

families communicate over social networking more now instead of through the phone. He is

targeting people that have accounts on social networking sites and he wants them to know that

their views are slowly being altered, not necessarily negatively though.

This article is relevant to my topic since it shows how our minds get used to something

after we’ve been doing it for awhile. In the article it says, “Our face-to-face and computer-

based identities and social networks are increasingly merging” (53) meaning that we are more

likely to use social network communications more than face to face communications now.

Luo, Lili. “Social Networking Websites: An Exploratory Study of Student Peer Socializing in an

Online LIS Program.” Journal of Education for Library and Information Science 51.2

(2010): 86- 102. Print.

In Lou’s ( Library Science Professor at San Jose State University) 2010 article “Social

Networking Websites: An Exploratory Study of Student Peer Socializing in an Online LIS

Program” she asserts that social networking websites are student’s 2nd most popular venue for

peer socializing and can cause people to feel isolated. She supports this assertion by explaining

why students may feel this way. Her purpose was to show their audience, professors, that there

are many ways that these graduate students could communicate with other peers online

instead of dealing with peer isolation.

This article is relevant to my topic because it’s explaining how the internet is important

to a person’s well being while they are in graduate school, which contrasts with a lot of my

other sources so I will be able to compare and contrast. In the article, she quotes a student who

says, “I do not feel connected in a personal way unless I have met the person in a 'live'

situation” (91), which means that the internet doesn’t make people feel as if they know

someone because they haven’t truly interacted in person. This statement really allows Lou to

support her entire argument right there.

McDonald, Betty. "Self Assessment for Socializing." (2011): 1-9. Online Submission.

McDonald who is the coordinator of The Centre for Assessment and Learning at The

University of Trinidad and Tobago asserts that in today’s society it’s essential to us to socialize

with peers and be relaxed while doing so. She supports this assertion by first off asking teachers

if they liked a class that didn’t socialize or that socialized too much, then she went to ask

students if they enjoyed a class where they didn’t socialize and have friends, and of course their

answers were no. The purpose of this article was to let people know that it’s important that we

socialize because it affects self assessment. She wants the intended audience to look and see

what they can change about their pattern of socialization to better themselves as well as

understand those around them better.

McDonald’s article is relevant to my topic because she is comparing how socializing with

others impacts your thoughts. In her articles, she says, “Additionally, the kinds of teaching and

learning formats necessary for the new century require students to operate in a relaxed

environment where proper socialization is encouraged and nurtured” (2) which means that

students must be able to socialize if they want to be able to easier understand the things in our

society. I feel as though her article can help my research a lot because she gives good examples

that show that things are easier when we have somebody to help us, which make things more

understanding and less stressful to us.

Rains, Stephen, and Robert Tokunga. "An Evaluation of Two Characterizations of the

Relationships Between Problematic Internet Use, Time Spent Using the Internet, and

Psychosocial Problems." Human Communication Research 36.4 (2010): 512–45. Print.

Rains, an Associate Professor in The Department of Communications at the University of

Arizona and Tokunaga, a graduate teaching assistant for The Department of Communications at

The University of Arizona assert in their 2010 article “An Evaluation of Two Characterizations of

the Relationships Between Problematic Internet Use, Time Spent Using the Internet, and

Psychosocial Problems” that over usage of social networking can cause psychological problems

within an individual. They support this assertion by using a diagram to show how one event

leads to another which eventually leads to an unhappy person. Their purpose was to show their

audience, people that may use the internet too much, that they shouldn’t because it can cause

them to have problems with themselves or be ultimately unhappy about something.

This article is relevant to my topic because it shows how social networking online can

affect a person’s feelings and attitudes. It’s stated in the article that, “Social anxiety refers to an

apprehension of being negatively evaluated by others…Technologies supported by the Internet

may be an attractive resource for individuals with social anxiety” (514) meaning that they may

find it easier to communicate online but when it all comes down to speaking in person they

seem like totally different people, making them upset about not having good socializing skills.

Schellens, Tammy, et al. Long-term study of safe Internet use of young children: Computers and

Education 57.1 (2011): 1292-305. Print.

Schellens et al. who are all Educational Studies professors at Ghent University assert

that the internet can be very dangerous for younger kids. He supports this assertion by stating

all the things children can get into by being on the internet, especially without supervision. His

purpose of this article was to educate parents on all the things out there that they may have

not known about, that their kids could get into. His intended audiences are parents and

guardians of small children, he tries to target them by giving them helpful information on how

to keep their little ones safe from the harmful internet.

Their article is relevant to my topic because being that parents now know these things,

it makes them worried about letting their kids get on the internet. In a certain part of the article

Schellen et al. states, "Online contact can result in a variety of risk situations, such as cyber-

bullying, sexual solicitation, and threats to privacy"(1292) which could really worry a parent and

cause them to spend lots of time and money on blocking certain things on the internet from

their child.

Szwedo, David E., Amori Mikami, Joseph Allen. "Qualities of Peer Relations on Social

Networking Websites: Predictions from Negative Mother-Teen Interactions." Journal of

Research on Adolescence 21.3 (2011):595-607. Print

Szwedo, Mikami, and Allen who are all Psychologist at University of Virginia assert in

their 2011 article “Qualities of Peer Relations on Social Networking Websites: Predictions from

Negative Mother-Teen Interactions” that a youth’s family interactions during early teenhood

can be predictors of future online behavior and interaction with peers. They support this

assertion by showing contrasting results between a child and parent based on how the parent

treated the child early on in their teenage years. The audience they targeted this to is parents.

The purpose was to show them how their attitudes towards their children can lead to a certain

outcome.

This article is relevant to my topic because it shows another way how mental thoughts

and socializing are related to one another. In the article it is stated, “We found that youth

whose mothers undermined their autonomy and relatedness at age 13 had an increased

preference for online communication over face-to-face communication at age 20” (603),which

means that parents caused their children to be less sociable because of how they felt they

weren’t ready for certain things at a young age. I believe this would be good to use in my

research project but I can relate to this as a younger teenager compared to now.

Ybarra et al. “Mental exercising through simple socializing: social interaction promotes general

cognitive functioning.” Pers. Soc Psychology Bulletin 34.2 (2008): 248-59.Print.

Ybara et al. who are located in the department of psychology at different universities

assert that social interaction can affect mental functioning. They support this assertion by doing

a study that is between younger people and older people by using their socializing style and see

how they interpret things. The audience for this article is probably student or psychologist. The

authors want them to know how your socializing factors may impact your mind frame.

Their article is relevant to my topic because it will allow me to see how regular social

interaction differs from other types, such as internet socializing. In the article it is stated, “The

results indicated that low levels of social engagement were related to an increased risk of

developing dementia” (250), this shows that socializing is valuable to our psychological

thoughts. It is important that we are able to socialize to keep our brains engaged and active.

But at the same time it shows how our physiological thoughts affect of socializing patterns.

2 DRAFTS TO ADD IN

Social Networking Effects Relationships

Social networking whether it’s online or offline has many different effects on people’s

mind and the way they think things out. Some sources explain how there are negative

outcomes to using social networks, kind of giving off the impression that too much of anything

can hurt a person, which I found to be true in the situation of people having higher levels of

depression due to excessive internet usage(Costin, Pg. 184). Sources such as Cassidy and

Clafferty believe that it does help with other areas of life, such as academics, parenting, as well

as peer relationships. I have been able to find some research information that allows me to see

how different social instances affect someone’s mental thought, as far as how they begin to

process things in an optimistic light or in a bad way. To clarify, think of a person that uses social

networks to get in touch with friends, how would her mental thought about that person change

if she didn’t use it. I would like to research a little more about how social networks could

possible affect relationships between people.

Online/Offline Peer DifferencesBeing in different environments seems to affect people’s personality in different

situations. A number of my sources believe that the use of social networks effect shy and

introvert people in numerous ways (Aubrey; Chattapadhyay; Rains; Tokunga). Jennifer Aubrey

and Sumana Chattapadhyay’s, who are professors and assistant professors of Broadcast and

Electronic Communication at the University of Missouri, performed a study to see how online

relations affect offline bonding for their 2008 article, “Are Facebook Friends Like Face-to-Face

Friends: Investigating Relations Between the Use of Social Networking Websites and Social

Capital.” They explain that introverted people have more opportunity online to get to know

people that they otherwise wouldn’t (18). Contrarily, Stephen Rains and Robert Tokunga,

professor and graduate teaching assistant in The Department of Communications at the

University of Arizona, suggest that these shy people find it easy to talk online but when it comes

to real life communication, they seem like totally different people. Furthermore, it is suggested

that there could be either an advantage or disadvantage for these individuals (Aubrey;

Chattapadhyay, pg. 25). While both are able to explain the effects of online chatting with offline

peer relationships, they both are contrasting of one another. As Aubrey and Chattapadhyay

make it clear that relationships that are built online make offline relationships better, Rains and

Tokunga state almost the exact opposite, saying that they still find it difficult to communicate

being offline and gain no relationship. But just because these sources say this, doesn’t mean

that it’ completely accurate because the study only used a sample of the population, meaning

that just because it was found that most of the people in their research reacted this way,

doesn’t mean that it’s true for the majority because they could have simply just had shy

individuals that they used within their study.

Internet Use in Our Generation’s AcademicsIn today’s world students use the internet and social networking to enhance their

learning experience a lot more than a few years back, which is starting to change their

perspective on learning styles. It has been suggested that students learn better with certain

techniques, some online and others offline. Some researchers have found that social

networking benefit students by giving them flexibility and peer help that wouldn’t be available

to them without the World Wide Web (Cassidy et al.; Clafferty). More specifically, Erin Cassidy

et al., who hold various librarian positions at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas

argue that many students use Facebook to get information for classes more than was suspected

(387). According to Elaine Clafferty, in her Electrical Engineering Education Professor’s 2011

article, “Facilitating social networking within the student experience,” where she conducts a

study to find learning differences between students in just a classroom setting and those that

have involvement on an online learning program has shown that online social networks are

valuable and effective to receive student support, which showed an increase in GPAs.

Furthermore it is suggested that with the popular use of the internet in academics, more things

are available to the student so they have a higher level of usage on these networks. While both

are capable of seeing how this resource is essential to students, Clafferty sees Web

Technologies 2.0 (program involved in study) in the light, while Cassidy is more on the side of

being able to use online library sources and other social networking sites (SNS). What we really

don’t know, is if the students mentality changed about doing work more efficiently, maybe the

work load could have gotten easier. In all of the studies that were related to academics, they

didn’t focus on something that has a great deal on students, which are their parents. Parents

have a lot to do with their child’s education along with the social networks that the children

use. With the missing whole of parenting effects on the way students think about things, I went

on a search for how parents have an effect on their child’s actions and thought.

Parenting VS. SNSAlthough social networking can improve education, parents focus on their child’s safety

form being online. As a parent, it is their duty to ensure that their child is safe, even when it

comes to online performance and behavior. A few researchers have found that social network

sites stresses parents out especially if it’s not for academic purposes. Tammy Schellens et al.,

who are all Educational Studies professors at Ghent University made the remark that parents

tend to stress out over their children’s online activity simply because of the harmful things that

are accessible to them (1292). However, it’s not always the children that cause the chaos about

SNS. According to David Szwedo, Amori Mikam, and Joseph Allen, all who are psychologists at

University of Virginia, explain in their research study how parents affect their child’s online

behavior based on how much they undermined their child’s autonomy and relatedness. In a

situation like that it can be a continuous rotating reaction because if the parent treats them in a

certain way they will exert a certain behavior online, which may worry the parent about the

dangers of being online. I find this hard to believe because I feel as if my mother undermined

my ability and I wasn’t one of those teenagers that went crazy on the internet, although she did

check what I posted on my MySpace ™ when I was younger.

Negative Health EffectsWho would have ever known that using the internet could cause psychological problems

for an individual? Many researchers have found that the use of the internet can have many

unwanted negative health effects which many people don’t even know about. More

specifically, Dan Costin, a Hermatologist and Oncologist in New York, Maria Kalpidou, a

Psychology Professor at Assumption College, and Jessica Morris, a Program Coordinator for the

Summer Institute for Training in Biostatistics (SIBS) with a concentration in Biostatistics

Research in Disease and Genetic Epidemiology (BRIDGE) at Washington University in St. Louis

School of Medicine say that a higher depression rates could be because of the excessive use of

the internet, which they stated in their 2011 article by giving us data regarding a study that

found a decline in family communication and higher depression (183). According to Patricia

Forbus, Sanjay Mehta, Management and Marketing Associate Professors at Sam Houston State

University College of Business, and John Newbold, a professor of Microbiology and Immunology

at University of North Carolina School of Medicine, poor time management skills have allowed

for a person to have high anxiety, stress, and low performance levels (121). Based on another

view by Ligouri, says that because of the way a person socializes, they can have mental changes

that can affect sleep duration and disturbances. Rains and Tokunga reported that technologies

supported by the Internet may be an attractive resource for individuals with social anxiety. So in

this case, it’s more of the reverse role where the mental health problem leads to the use of the

technology. But based on the other sources, too much internet use has many negative effects

so by that person having social anxiety it could lead to other things such as depression, stress,

low performance levels, and a few other things. In Ybarra’s article, he speaks on how low levels

of social interaction are in correlation with dementia, which makes a lot of sense. While all of

these researchers support how social networking can cause these negative health effects, they

don’t really know what other things could be causing it.

Social/Logical AdjustmentsThere are many things in people’s social lives that can affect their logical thinking and

vice versa. A few researchers give off the idea that socializing with others can determine if you

are more of an optimistic thinker or not good off at thinking. More specifically, Betty McDonald

who noticed that her students learned better when they had some type of peer connectedness,

emphasizes that students are best off operating in a relaxed environment where proper

socialization is encouraged and nurtured. She believes that the learning/ logical process will

come easier in this process (McDonald, pg.2). According to Xin Lou, a computer science

assistant professor at the University of California, there were instances where students said

that they don’t feel any connectedness unless they interact with a person live and in person ,

which plays a role in the brain because if they had spoken in person it would be the opposite

(53). Gary Ligouri et al. an assistant professor in Health, Nutrition and Exercise Sciences, along

with Arupendra Mozumdar and John Schuna, who are pre-doctoral researchers in the Dept. of

Health, Nutrition, and Exercise Sciences at North Dakota State University, on the other hand

explained how social and logical adjustments affect mental and academic responsibilities. While

all of them show that certain social situations can cause a person to look at a situation a certain

way McDonald and Lou thinks individual’s interaction make thinking easier, while Ligouri

doesn’t speak on interaction but more on living quarters, roommate(s), dietary choices,

academic expectations, jobs, and more. They speak mostly on how interaction with people

allow for our logical thinking to progress faster but not everyone is the same so it could turn out

differently for others.

Mental health effects from the use of social networking have been studied by multiple

perspectives. Although these sources have discussed how people mentally think about things or

situations such as online/offline relationships, academics, social/logical adjustments, negative

health effects, parenting and social networking, none of them explained to me why the brain

reacts so differently to online socializing in comparison to “live” socializing. I will be focusing on

a more specific area from this research area, how social networks affect relationships and

friendships.

2 DRAFTS TO ADD

FINAL