Assignment 3 – SNS Communication

Abby Perrin

T00685457

October 28, 2021

VISA1500 Assignment 3

Part A:

“There is an unknown scent of the future struggling and challenging both human communication and relationships in the presence of digital culture.” (Joo, Teng 2017). Social Networking Sites (SNS) have become a constant presence in our daily lives. They are the first things I check when I wake up, and the last before I go to sleep. These sites allow for communication opportunities like never before but have also completely changed the way we communicate as a society. (Pierce 2009) “Found a positive relationship between social anxiety and talking with others online and via text messaging” (Cyr, Berman, Smith 2015) which is becoming very apparent in both my life and of those around me. Many of my close friends and family struggle with real life social interactions and it makes sense considering how much of our daily communication is done through SNS.

The Social Networking Sites I use the most are Instagram, Snapchat and Tiktok. Instagram is used primarily for aesthetic purposes, showcasing the best the best version of myself. It is also used to send and share posts or memes amongst my friends. Instagram can be fun but can take a great toll on your mental health when you are constantly seeing everyone living supposedly perfect lives. My sister had to delete Instagram from her phone because of this toll. Snapchat is by far my most used form of interpersonal communication. It is how I talk to most of my friends on a day-to-day basis and it is ideal because we can send photos of ourselves while we talk. This creates a feeling of connection and eliminates a lot of the miscommunication that can be caused through text since facial expressions are added. However, a lot of my Snapchat is people sending me just their face with no text and I regularly find myself opening them all up at once and sending everyone the exact same picture of me just to keep up the “conversation” we are having. Tiktok is purely for entertainment purposes, I can easily spend hours watching these short videos without even realizing. They are super fun to make and due to the design of the app, almost everyone gets their shot at creating at least one viral Tiktok. I have one with 1.3 million views and despite the video being pointless and generally quite dumb, it gave me a lot of satisfaction to see those views.

I kept track of what I shared on all the SNS’s I use over the course of three days. In that time, I shared two videos to my private Snapchat story, one photo to my main Snapchat story and a post on Instagram. I have shown the Instagram post and main Snapchat story above which shows my friends and I at the pumpkin patch this past weekend. Throughout those three days I also easily shared hundreds of personal Snapchats and Instagram messages to my friends and family.  While we did go out together to the pumpkin patch, I have to say that most of that time was spent trying to capture the perfect Instagram photo than it was talking and enjoying our time with each other.

References:

Cyr, B. A., Berman, S. L., & Smith, M. L. (2014, July 11). The Role of Communication Technology in Adolescent Relationships and Identity Development. SpringerLink. Retrieved October 28, 2021, from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10566-014-9271-0

Joo, T. M., & Teng, C. E. (2017). Impacts of Social Media (Facebook) on Human Communication and Relationships: A View on Behavioral Change and Social Unity. International Journal of Knowledge Content Development & Technology, Vol. 7(No. 4), 1–2. https://www.koreascience.or.kr/article/JAKO201708733754534.pdf