#12- Final Summary/Reaction

Here's my survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ruebvl4tNkUWzkOmsk3JyPf7NYWxSO8lpZtpX6uyBiI/edit

      In doing my research, I found that my results were very interesting. The questions in the survey hit all the topics I discussed in my blog posts. I had so many responses to my online survey and I found the results varying throughout. Some outcomes were what I expected and others surprised me. For each age category, the results differed. In the teenage age group (12-20), 22& said they spend 1-2 hours a day on Social Media, 22% said they spend 2-3, and 19% said they spend 3-4. What actually surprised me was that 35% of people said that the probably spend more than 4 hours a day on social media and What didn't surprise me at all was that 0% said they spend 0 to 1 hour a day on social media because what teenager doesn't check their accounts at least once a day? These results proved my research and my blog post about teenagers being addicted to social media. Spending more than 4 hours a day on social media is a lot of time out of one's day, especially someone who is already busy with a million other things. Social Media consumes so much time specifically teenagers as my results found. I also found that Twitter was the number one used social media site among teenagers. 48% said they used twitter the most, 36% said Instagram, 6% said Facebook, 6% said Snapchat, 3% said tumblr and 3% said Pintrest. The results supported my hypothesis that Twitter would be the number one social media site used among teens. I found myself that Twitter is extremely addicted and this could be an issue among teens for many reasons. In the 21-30 age group, I found that 67% of people said they spend 1-2 hours a day on social media and 33% said they spend 3-4. I predicted that this would be the result because people 21-30 have less time to go on social media between college and work and people 21-30 are grown up and know that social media shouldn't be controlling their whole lives. I also found that Facebook was the number one used social media site, then twitter, then Instagram, among that age group.

      I asked people if they knew all of their followers on any of their social media sites because usually they don't. A majority of people accept friend requests they don't know or let people follow them that they don't know simply because they want more followers. In the teen age group, 70% of people said they didn't know all of them. I predicted that more people would say no because I know myself that I don't know all of my followers on any of social media accounts. These results are concerning because you never know who could be viewing your pictures or information and they could be predators or sick people. On another hand, I asked people if they had posted anything on the internet that they have regretted. 55% said yes and this was concerning because there are many things to be careful of when posting things on the internet like ruining your reputation or harming someone. The number one reasons teenagers said that the number one reason they go on social media is because they're bored and then the second number one reason was to see what others were doing. This result was interesting to me because there are so many people why we use social media and it was funny to me that being bored was the number one reason because even when I'm not bored and I'm actually really busy, I still manage to use social media. I'm sure this is the case for others too. The number one reason in the 21-30 age group category was to see what others were doing. 

     Out of everyone that took the survey, 98% of people said that they think social media is controlling the world. This could either be a good or a bad thing. it could be a good thing because it is improving the world and making things easier by delivering news faster, and communicating. On the other hand, it could be a bad thing because it could be too addicting and controlling. For example, I asked what people thought of social media addiction. 37% of teens said that it is seen all the time and is a serious issue, 27% said it is seen all the time, 23% said it is a serious issue, and 13 percent said it is seen all the time but isn't a big issue. It was good to discover that many people are aware of social media addiction and know that it is an issue but the thing is can we stop it? the age group 21-30 said that social media addiction is a serious issue. Another con about social media controlling the world is that it is taking away from real life communication with people. I asked if social media was a primary way of keeping touch with friends and family and 61% of teens said yes and 67% of people ages 21-30 said yes. Thats more than half of the people from each age group that would only know what's going on with their friends and family if it wasn't for social media.

     Cyber bullying is another issue typically displayed with social media. 78% of teens said they were victims of cyber bullying or have known someone who was and 100% of people ages 21-30 said they did also. This is a large amount of people but it wasn't shocking to me because we see it go on all of the time. I also asked for people's views on cyber bullying. 93% of teen said it should be stopped, 6% said it wasn't a big issue, and then one person said it is unfortunate but inevitable. In the 21-30 age group, everyone said it should be stopped except one person who said that it is a small fraction of a much larger issue which I think was very interesting. Cyber bullying should be stopped and it is seen more often than it should.

     The other age groups I asked was people 31+. Almost everyone said that they only spend 0-1 hours a day which makes sense because adults really aren't addicted to their phones or the internet. Facebook was also the most common social media site among them and they knew who all of their followers were. This was the result I was expecting. 75% said that social media wasn't the primary way to keep in touch with family and 100% said that they see social media controlling the world. All of the results in this category were what I expected accept for 90% of them saying that they have never been a victim or have know somebody who has been a victim of cyber bullying because I figured that maybe if they had kids, their kids would have? All in all, this survey was very interesting and a fun way to learn about the pros and cons of social media in our world around us today.

#11- Revised Plan, Summary, Update

I haven't gotten too many survey responses yet. I have gotten 5 so far but I am seeing the responses I thought I would. All of the 5 people that turned in the survey were teenagers ages 16 and 17. 3 of them said they spend 3-4 hours on social media a day and 2 said they spend 1-2. 4 of them said they have been cyber bullied at some point in their life or have known someone who has. I also found that Twitter was the most used social media site so far. The results have been going in the direction in which I had predicted but I haven't gotten surveys back from the older people yet.

#10- Strategy/Plan for Research

For my research I plan to do an online survey. I will give this survey to about 30 people of varying ages, from 13-16 and it will consist of about 10 questions. I think this is the best way to get collective data about social media users. I think I will find that out of all age groups, teenagers will be the ones who spend the most time on social media and adults will obviously not use it as much. I think that i will also find that the most used social media site will be Instagram or twitter for the younger generations and Facebook will be the most used for older generations.

#9 Suggested Research Method/Why

For my method of research I plan to do a survey. I will ask about 20 people of different age ranges, questions about their use of social media. I will ask questions about each aspect of my blog posts. Such as, How long do you spend on social media a day? Whats the main reason you go on social media? have you or anyone you know ever been a victim of cyber bullying? and more questions. I feel that a survey is easiest because it's a good way to gather research from social media users and those of different ages, then compare results.

#8- Summary of Research

     Throughout the course of my research, I found out a lot of information about the different aspects of social media. I mostly focused on the cons of social media because they seem to be controversial topics in society today. Even though social media has a lot of benefits, it has even more downsides to it. Through my research, I found out what makes social media so addicting, how teenagers are the most consumed in social media, and how some people use social media as a front to make up a false identity for themselves online. I also researched more grave topics like cyber bullying and how it is such a terrible occurrence among teens. In addition, I researched about the matter of social media taking over the world and how it is destroying real life/face-to-face communication.
     Social Media can be very beneficial, but I found that it is also hurting our generation and causing our society to fall in a negative direction. Social Media is such a huge part of our lives and its good to be aware of the consequences on social media. The research I did had a lot of good information about the cons of one of the biggest influences in our daily lives.

#7- Social Media Sabotaging Real Communication

     While looking for a topic for my blog this week, I wasn't sure what I should do. Then I came across this article online (click here to view). It really caught my attention because it actually made me really considering the affects of social media on physical interaction and communication. I can't remember the last time I picked up the phone and called someone other than  my parents or close friends unless I had no other choice. I also thought about how I can never tell when someone I'm texting is really thinking or feeling and even if I see someone's tweet about something I can't tell if they're joking or not.
     In the article I was reading started off with a story about a woman who was texting her daughter and the daughter was saying how good she was doing and sending smiley faces and everything; but that night the daughter attempted suicide. A story similar to this is that of Madison Holleran the night she committed suicide. She was texting her parents and sisters before like nothing was wrong and she even posted an Instagram an hour before she jumped that night. People put up false fronts on the internet or over mobile devices and the only way to tell how someone is really doing is by interacting with people in person, and even then it's hard to tell what's actually wrong.
     The article was from Forbes magazine so it related social media to business but it made a lot of a sense. Business should be done face to face not over technology. In the world today we try to avoid person contact by sticking to our mobile devices to communicate instead but it is hurting us. Social media is actually making our world a less social place which is ironic. We need more emotional connections instead of technological ones. We use social media as a crutch to hide behind and put up a front for everyone to see what we want them to.

#6- Social Media Taking Over the World

     All around the world, billions of people use some form of social media network. Whether it's for news, keeping in touch with friends, shopping, sharing ideas, or just to have it, everyone uses some sort of media in their daily lives. When news strikes somewhere, the live updates from an event instantly are updated to twitter around the world with pictures, videos, and opinions. News gets around faster online, then they can broadcast it over the television.
     People all over the world are connected through the Network of Social Media. People with similar interests, thoughts, and ideas are able to share and speak out about different views. One of the government's biggest fears is social media because so much negativity is displayed online about political viewpoints. Countries like China, Iraq, and Pakistan, took to actually banning social media networks such as twitter, facebook, and even google. These sites were banned over fears of opposition movements plotting against the governments.
     On this website I found, they talked about why Social Media rules the world. It gave statistics of media users and other facts. The website mostly talked about the affect social media has on journalism and how social media is interrelated to almost every website on the internet. Is there anyway to avoid some kind of Social Networking these days?

#5- The Cyberbullying Virus

     Cyberbullying is more common in today's society than you may think. About forty-two percent of teens are bullied online. This video below talks about cyber bullying as a virus which I think is a great analogy. Cyber bullying is like a virus that continues to spread and it is very harmful. Some teens are bullied so badly online that it causes them to commit suicide and there has been many cases of it.
     We heard the story back in October about Rebecca Sedwick, who killed herself because she was being tormented both on line and in person by two other classmates who were later arrested, ages 12 and 14. One of them later even took to facebook and posted "Yes IK I bullied REBECCA nd she killed her self but IDGAF." This is what goes on in our society today. People think they can just hide behind computers and bully people but they don't know the total effect it will cause the person. When people post mean things online, even if they're joking, it can be harmful.
      Like this video below says, we can do things to stop cyberbullying. Most younger kids aren't even aware that this goes on. We can step up and do our best to stop cyberbullying but fighting it off and make social media a nicer environment. The virus has to be stopped before it affects any more teens.

#4- Social Media Esteem

Do you know those people who in person are very quiet, shy, and insecure, but then online they seem to have a totally different personality? This is actually a common thing. People with low self esteem, use the internet as a place where they can recreate themselves by posting pictures of themselves that they make sure they look perfect in, or by posting statuses/tweeting things to make them feel cooler or by even talking to people they normally wouldn't talk to in person. Online you are able to control what people think of you by what you say and what pictures you upload.

On the other hand, people with high self esteem even use social media to gain more esteem. People are so concerned about how many likes they receive, and we can admit we all do this. Knowing that over 100 people liked your photo on instagram wouldn't make your self esteem lower right? It's not a bad thing and sometimes social media can actually reflect your identity. Sometimes social media can actually hurt your self esteem too. The comparison to other people, is what hurts us or not getting enough likes can make someone feel conscience. 

In this article I found here: http://www.medicaldaily.com/facebook-and-social-media-activity-reflects-self-esteem-study-finds-256832, they talk about how social media actually reflects one's self esteem in either a positive or negative way. Since everyone has the power to present themselves to the world online, what they post can explain a lot about them.

#3- Teens and Social Media

       I found this video online and I thought it was very interesting. It gave a lot of different information and statistics about teens and social media. It talked about how much time teenagers spend online and on social media websites. Teens waste too much time online and its a distraction from homework and other activities. I admit that I waste a lot of time checking social media sites and it take away a lot of my time that I could be doing other stuff. Also, the video discusses how much information teenagers post online. They post: their school, their town, their age, their pictures, etc. Their whole lives are just all over the internet. I personally think that we trust social media networks too much. We just assume that only our friends want to see our posts and all our information is safe but occasionally that isn't the case. the video shows that 42 percent of teens accept request from people they don't know. This is dangerous because they don't know these people and they could just be online predators who now have all your information and it's easy to track you down. Also, teens don't think about that all the stuff they post online can be looked up by colleges or possible jobs in the future and this can affect you. We can't let social media control our life as it seems it does in some cases. It's there to help us communicate with friends and get up  to date on whats going on and even to show our friends what we're doing but sometimes people take it too far by deciding to post their who lives all over the internet. We need to be careful about how much time we spend online and how what we post can affect us and even others.

#2- Whats so addicting?

The one question I wonder all the time about social media is, why is it so addicting? What is it about social media that makes millions of people check their phones every 5 minutes? Why are we so intrigued in other people's lives on the internet and why do we feel the need to post our own lives all over the internet? Those are tough questions to answer and psychiatrists and academic researchers have been trying to figure out what it is about social media that is so addicting.

In this article I found online, The author talks about some of the answers to these questions. The main answer is that it's human nature. Dr. pamela rutledge talks about the importance of social validation and popularity on media websites regarding how many likes or favorites a person receives. The author says that, "What drives us to use social media in the way we use it has less to do with social media platforms and more to do with psychology." It's true that people are so concerned with what they post on social media and care so much about how many likes they get. We think too much about what we post and take it too seriously like it controls us.

The article gives 5 reasons that we may find social media so addicting and I couldn't agree more with them. One of the reasons is "Fear of Missing out" which is probably one of the biggest reasons because social media makes it so much easier to keep in touch with people and to constantly follow what people are doing by pictures and tweets. Another one is self esteem which goes along with another reason which is control. People 100% control what they post online and they can make sure they look as perfect as they can. Some people's self esteem relies on the pictures they post online and the amount of comments and likes they receive. The other reasons in the article make a lot of sense too. There is so many answers to the questions about the addiction of social media and every one can personally answer those themselves as well.

#1- Intro

I chose the topic of Social Media because obviously it's a big part of my life and I'm sure many others as well. I want to find out what it is about social media that is so addicting to many people. It interests me how social media affects people lives and even gives some other people a whole new life on the internet. Social Media is a big part of society and the world today and I think it's a great topic to research all the little things about.