How Social Media Contribute Ineffective Communication

Contents Page

Page

1. Introduction                                                                                2

1. How social media contribute ineffective communication?                        

1. Lack of engagement during face-to-face communication                        3
2. Creating an “ideal self” on social media                                        4
3. Keyboard warriors                                                                5

1. Conclusion                                                                                6

1. Reference List                                                                                7

1. Introduction

With the development of technology and electronic devices, excessive use of social media has become a trend among teens and adults. The term social media refers to websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking. For example, many people choose to look down on their mobile phone to update Facebook status or tweet instead of a face-to-face talk with their friends when they hang out. Another example would be commuters heading down on their devices with their earphone on. This makes the whole MRT or bus uncommunicative especially in the weekdays. It is important to discuss this issue because even the use of social media can broaden one’s knowledge and perspectives, it can still lead a person to become a poor communicator in terms of verbally and formally. This research will discuss three reasons how social media have made people ineffective communicators in the following paragraphs.

2.1. Lack of engagement during face-to-face communication

As the result of advanced technology and the ease of owning a mobile phone, more and more people are going to social media when they are spending their leisure time. According to researches made by internetworldstats(2016), there were only 110,000 internet users which are 0.2% of Myanmar population in 2010. After 5 years, the figure increases to 7,100,000 which is 12.6% of the whole population. Social media has grown unpredictably in these few years especially among teens and adults. This means that social media has become a primary gateway in which people communicate with their friends and relatives. Ironically, excess use of social media can destroy one’s interpersonal social skills. For example, in parties and events, many guests are attracted to their phone, while no one is truly engaged with the people around them (Fowlkes, 2012). Report from Wallace (2016) has shown that teens in the United States spent around 9 hours for their enjoyment on social media on any given day. The duration spent on social media is actually more than they spent on sleeping and more time they spent with their teachers and family. Most of the people prefer quick and frequent communication with instant updates on social media than a face-to-face talk and are finding new ways to communicate with their friends without leaving their comfort zone (Chahine, n.d.). The discussion above have shown that most teens and adults are sink in their world of social media, therefore, they find interpersonal communications dry and lack of engagement.