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The I mpact of Social Media Use on Relationships

Jess Gabl, Olivia Mancino, Chris Newman,
Ashley Taylor, Seth Leverenz, Ryan Garfield












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Introduction
As social media continue to find ways to expand and appeal to a more broad audience, its
impact is growing dramatically. It has only been since more recent years that researchers have
begun studying the different roles social media play in our lives as well as the overall effect that
they have on us. However, as these media expand and new networks and applications continue to
rise in popularity, social media is becoming a dominant channel of communication that people
around the world are becoming more dependable on.
Not only are social media a common communication outlet across countries and
continents, but they are also channels that have changed the way that people communicate. These
applications and websites have made it incredibly easy to keep in touch with old friends or meet
new friends that are thousands of miles away. It can be argued that this is a great breakthrough
for communication technology, or it can also be disputed that these things have cheapened the
quality of the communication that takes place. Although we can now partake in a video call with
someone on the opposite side of the globe, researchers are beginning to wonder the impact that
this level and convenience of technology is having on the quality of relationships in comparison
with more traditional, face-to-face communication tactics.
Due to its newness, there is not a very long history or background to this area of
study, but it is important to take all of the recent questions that have been analyzed and either
build on them or break them into more specific topics of research. Previous studies have included
experiments attempting to find the growing popularity and preference of online communication,
the demographics that are most effected by social media, and the effects that media have on
individuals. This study hopes to expand on some of the theories that focused more on the social
aspect of these media and find an answer to a proposed problem: does participation in social
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media directly affect the quality of real-world relationships? If so, is that effect a positive or
negative one? The specific problem that this study aims to investigate is whether or not social
media involvement has a significant effect on ones perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors toward
his or her various types of relationships.
The answers we expected to get was that a person may have more positive perceptions
and attitudes toward the maintenance of various types of relationships due to the convenience of
social media, but that attitudes and behavior may also indicate that those who are more involved
with social media dont have as close and meaningful connections with their relationships or that
they spend more time communicating through channels other than face-to-face.
Rationale
The inception of Facebook and other social media sites have made it easier for its users
to intangibly connect themselves to their friends, family, romantic partners and even strangers.
These social networking sites have been used as platforms and even scapegoats for controversy
between peers. It is interesting to study whether the former and/or ladder causes significant strain
on real-life relationships.
Social media technology is a relatively new platform for people to interact, and it has
changed the communication process for corporations, celebrities and political elites alike. The
media has made social networking sites, namely Facebook and Twitter, highly salient in a variety
of purposes; it as used as a tool by outlets to connect with its viewership, unofficially poll its
viewership, and even obtain news itself from its viewers. Businesses use social networking sites
to connect with customers, offer deals on their services, and provide customers with up-to-date
information on their products. Celebrities and political elites use social networking sites to
promote themselves as personal entities and the causes and movements they are apart of and
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sponsor. With all these opportunities and changes in communication, it is highly plausible that
social networking sites have changed the way average citizens connect with each other now in
comparison to before the advent of the aforementioned websites, hence justifying the reason for
our research.
With this knowledge, we posed the question: does social media involvement have an
effect on perceptions, behaviors, and attitudes in various types of relationships?
This research aided in studying the communication process through the social media
channel and the significance of it. Because online communication is indeed intangible, there is
far greater room for communication error. It is important to explore how significant of a stress
this puts on offline relationships.
Literature Review
There are many previous studies conducted that show common trends over how various
relationships work online. Experimenters observed various personalities online and came up with
two competing hypotheses. The first is, Individuals with pre-existing social structures and
socially adaptive personalities will reap larger social benefits from Internet use and will use the
Internet more for social communication than will individuals who are less socially adept,
(Gosling et al., 2011, p. 484). Contra to this, individuals who struggle to make social
connections in face-to-face interactions will use the Internet as a place to enhance their
interpersonal lives by forging social relationships online, (Gosling et al., 2011, p. 484).
The first study examines the personality correlates of self-reported Facebook usage and
ways in which personality traits are expressed in terms of observable information on Facebook
profiles. The second study examines the extent to which observers are sensitive to the ways in
which personality is manifested on profiles, (Gosling et al., 2011, p. 484).
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In study one, participants were handed out questionnaires that posed statements based on
the Likert Scale. The results suggest that personality traits are manifested in Facebook behaviors.
The study also shows that extroverted individuals use online social networks as a medium to
exercise their need for socialization. Since these results were based off of self-reported Facebook
use, they could have reflected self-views rather than actual behavior, so the results can be
somewhat skewed (Gosling, et al., 2011, p. 485).
In study two, there was more of an objective drive to the experiment. It assessed
observable information found on Facebook pages and correlated the results with personality
traits. In order to conduct this study, Facebook profiles were saved before mentioning to the
participants how the study would be conducted. The researchers were only allowed to use their
main page as a study subject. Undergraduate research assistants assessed the profiles. Consistent
with the first study, extraversion was strongly correlated with the number of friends overall and
the number of friends in the local network. While the research assistants were technically
unbiased because they did not know the subjects they were assessing. Room for intrinsic bias is
completely unavoidable in these types of studies (Gosling et al., 2011, p. 486).
These next studies discuss attachment styles as predictors of Facebook jealousy and
surveillance in romantic relationships. Lee used the attachment theory as basis for her study. The
attachment theory outlines that Anxious attachment develops when caregivers are
inconsistently available and responsive (Lee, 2013, p. 2) and avoidant attachment develops
from a history of interactions where caregivers who are completely unavailable and
unresponsive, (Lee, 2013, p. 2).
Lee uses 255 participants for her study, 201 being women and 54 being men. She
administered an online survey with 80 statements that use the Likert scale. Items measured
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anxious and avoidance attachment tendencies, Facebook jealousy, self-esteem, and time spent on
Facebook. It was confirmed that attachment anxiety and avoidance were significantly related to
Facebook jealousy and surveillance (Lee, 2013 p. 3).
Some issues did occur within this study. The ratio of men to women was extremely
uneven, and could have yielded a significant survey error. Furthermore, administering the survey
through surveymonkey.com linked from a psychology website could have skewed responses,
considering the Internet provides other distractions (such as social media), (Lee, 2013, p. 3).
Study two looked at data from both members of a heterosexual romantic relationship over
a one-week period. The data for this study was collected from a larger survey administered in the
United Kingdom. Participants responded to the same survey administered in the first study as
well as kept an online journal that maintained their Facebook use. This study also concluded that
anxious attachment is positively associated with Facebook jealousy and surveillance (Lee, 2013,
p. 3).
There were also some issues with study two. Since the data was collected from a larger
survey, it could have yielded different responses than if the survey was conducted independently
for this research. Furthermore, the demographic is significantly different compared to the first
study, as the majority of the respondents in the first study were North American (Lee, 2013, p.
4).
Going along with the previous studies is another experiment over technology use,
attachment styles, and gender roles in relationship dissolution. Individuals who experience
relationship dissolution via technology may differ in their attachment pattern and gender roles
attitudes from those who have not had that experience (Weisskirch, Delevi, 2012, p. 486). More
than a quarter of the sample had experienced relationship dissolution via technology
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(Weisskirch, Delevi, 2012, p. 486). Romantic love has been postulated as an attachment process
where an individual bonds to a romantic partner in a similar fashion as an infant attaches to his or
her caregiver (Weisskirch, Delevi, 2012, p. 486). Twenty-eight percent of participants (105
participants) said they had experienced technology-mediated relationship dissolution
(Weisskirch, Delevi, 2012, p. 488). Fifteen percent said they would be likely to use technology to
break up with a romantic partner. Traditional view of womens gender roles (women in the
kitchen) predicts attitudes of acceptability towards technology as acceptable behavior to break up
with someone (Weisskirch, Delevi, 2012, p. 488).
This next study examines communication by means of the new social networks.
Communicating through multimedia is an interactive process; the user is able to request or
change what he or she receives (Morozan, Enache, & Purice, 2012, p. 856). People learn to
communicate better and faster through interactivity on the Internet to create virtual communities
to collaborate between organizations. Social networks are maps of relations between
individuals indicating ways in which they are linked from casual knowledge to strong family
ties (Morozan, Enache, & Purice, 2012, p. 857).
Next comes the discussion on explaining the use of text-based communication in media.
Social presence is defined as the feeling that other actors are jointly involved in communicative
interactions. Social presence model indicates that communication technologies vary in their
degree of total social presence perceived. Media Richness Theory also proposes that
technologies can be ranked from lean to rich based on transmission of multiple cues,
immediacy of feedback, language variety, and personal focus. Face-to-face interaction is
preferred for communicating more ambiguous messages, whereas electronic media is preferred
for more straightforward communication (Park, Chung, & Lee, 2012, p. 358). Looking over their
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work again, they found that the media richness theory is very true in cell phone texting and
Facebook wall posting (Park, Chung, & Lee, 2012, p. 361). All in all, attributes of various
technologies play the most influential role in an individuals decision-making process of how to
communicate a message in various situations (Park, Chung, & Lee, 2012, p. 362).
This next study explores the role of social media on social behavior. Through computer-
mediated communication, User Generated Content can be seen. This is the voluntary content
that users input onto the World Wide Web to be viewed by all users (Pezzolla, 2013, 1,056).
When a friend experiences a great tragedy or accomplishment, it is becoming increasingly
acceptable to address them through a wall post or a tweet rather than handling the situation in a
more personal manner. People with close relationships tend not to have a problem with deciding
which medium they are the most comfortable with using in these situations, but communication
between people with weaker ties tend to just use the most convenient medium, which could give
off a half-hearted impression (Pezzolla, 2013, p. 1,056). In the absence of social and physical
cues, people are able to get to know each other on the Internet on the basis of their
communication and decide later to broaden the relationship or move it off-line. Individuals are
able to preview a friendship or relationship before they commit to an interaction in person
(Pezzolla, 2013, p. 1,062). In conclusion, computer-mediated communication can produce many
more relationships than face-to-face communication, but they tend to be weak ties.
This article discusses social uses of interpersonal communication technologies in a
complex media environment. Proposed social uses of interpersonal communication technologies
include four main uses: Informational-cooperative, relational use, expressive use, and strategic
use. Informational-cooperative use includes giving and receiving information to transmit
knowledge and learning. Relational use is communication that creates social relationships, social
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norms, and other interpersonal elements through social activities in various types of personal
relationships. Expressive use deals with communication aimed at exposing ones identity to
intimately relate to the outside world. Lastly, strategic use is communication to attain personal
goals or with intended purposes and meaning (ex) scheduling, escape, deception, amusement,
surveillance and control). (Petric, Petrovcic, & Vehovar, 2011, p. 121).
In this study, they found that 77% of cell phone users use their phones for socializing,
compared to the 38% of them that use it in an informational nature. The chart shows that 28
percent use it for expressive messages, 82 percent use it for strategic use, and 67 percent use it
for socializing. In a short amount of time, cell phones have managed to almost become as
common as face-to-face interactions for all types of use, including socializing and self-
expressing more recently (Petric, Petrovcic, & Vehovar, 2011, p. 124).
This next article focuses on the social networking arena: Battle of the sexes. This
discusses how women are more active on Facebook, and how they spend more time on social
media and sending text messages. Clipson states, Social networking related to keeping up with
friends and family are typically dominated by females (Clipson, Wilson, & DeFrene, 2012, p.
64). Although men will initially be similarly involved in new technologies as women, they tend
to lose interest quickly and become more distant from these technologies over time. College
women tend to view people on social networks as being honest and reliable, while college men
had the opposite view. Females also seem to join social networks to be sociable and to keep in
touch with friends, while males joined from peer pressure or to make new friends. This last study
found that more than a quarter of surveyed college students experienced romantic relationship
issues as a result from social networks, and that 20% of the respondents also reported a lost or
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damaged friendship due to miscommunication within a social network (Clipson, Wilson, &
DeFrene, 2012, p. 65).
When investigating these articles, one can find some common trends. The first trend
deals with introverts and extroverts and how they communicate on social media sites. It has been
proved that the bigger your pre-existing social structure is, the larger your social connection will
be on the Internet. On the contrary, if you are an individual who already struggles with making
friends face-to-face, then you will not fully fill that social gap by use of the Internet. The study
did include though that introverts do become more outgoing via Internet.
The second trend discusses attachment issues within relationships on Facebook. Studies
mentioned above have concluded that anxious attachment is positively associated with Facebook
jealousy and surveillance, and that it mainly occurs in females. This will develop if their partners
are inconsistently available and responsive.
All in all, these studies have touched upon many different areas of online communication.
From these articles, one can gather that social media has made communication broader, faster
and easier. These sites have made it possible to attain various kinds of relationships, and made it
easy for individuals to stay updated with each other. Social media is also good for self-
expression. Everyone is able to express their opinions on all sorts of matters towards many
different kinds of people. Convenience is a key factor of why people are fond of these online
sites as well. The only negative thing about the new wave of communication technology is that it
leaves room for misinterpretation between messages. In this sense, face-to-face interaction is still
the leading type of communication because you can read visual cues and interpret mannerisms.


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Methodology
Sample
The sample we chose from was 100 college aged students in the Bloomington Normal
Area. The majority are students of Illinois State University. A self administered questionnaire
was completed by each student in the ten minutes or under that it took to complete. College
students were selected because of their use of social media, and because of their accessibility
here on campus. Areas in which this was filled out was within classrooms, on the quad, and in
other university buildings. Administrators were available for questions throughout the duration
of the study. The survey was voluntary. The sample consisted of 53% male and 47% female
students. Those at the time of the study in a romantic relationship consisted of 55% of the
sample, while 45% were not in a relationship. The average age of respondents was 21 years.
Independent Variables
The first independent variable that was chosen was media consumption. This helped to
analyze just how much media the respondents consumed on a regular basis. This was posed by
the question On the average day how much time do you spend... with continuous data used for
the following categories: watching television; playing video games; surfing internet; social
media; watching movies; studying.This is brought about in seeing how much media consumption
correlates with real world relationships.
The second independent variable is specifically how much they use social media. This
will be looked into in order to find if it is affecting how they are perceiving and interacting in
real life relationships. It asked : does use of Facebook and other social media sites affect your
day to day relations with others?. The answers lead to continuous data when researching on:
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Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Vine, Snapchat, Tumblr, Reddit, and blogs, amongst other social
media sites.
Demographics played a role in the questionnaire as well, as the subjects were asked to
record what their age, sex, completed semesters in college, amount of close friends, average
monthly income, political stance, and relationship status were.
Dependent Variables
The dependent variable that we looked to analyze while carrying out this survey is how a
person perceives his/her personal relationships with friends, family, and romantic relationships.
It was observed as to whether or not this is affected by media consumption and social media
usage. Response categories were five-point Likert scales ranging from strongly agree to
strongly disagree with no opinion as the middle. Two examples of these statements are I
spend a lot of time socializing and spending time with friends. and I prefer to have multiple
groups of friends as opposed to one group of friends.
Results
This studys main focus to find what kind of effect social media has ones perceptions of,
attitude toward, and behaviors within various types of relationships. Although there were no
significant findings dealing with how social media plays a role in a persons attitude toward
relationships, there were multiple findings in the perception and behavior categories.
For perception variables, there was a slight positive correlation found between how often
a person uses social media and whether or not they see technology as being something that
makes communication easier. There was also a low relationship that suggested that people who
are more involved with social media use prefer to have more than one group of friends. This
relationship was not significant with any other independent variable in the study.
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Demographic and Independent Variable Information
Mean Median Mode S.D. Variance
Age 21.27 21 21 1.687 2.846
Gender 1.47 1 1 0.502 0.252
Monthly Income 2.12 2 1 1.192 1.420
# of Social Networks 3.39 3 3 1.449 2.099
College Semesters 5.94 6 6 3.078 9.471
Political Orientation 3.34 3 3 0.807 0.651
# of Close Friends 7.07 5 5 5.234 27.399
Romantic Relation 1.45 1 1 0.500 0.250

Internet Use 2.002 1.25 1 1.648 2.715
TV Viewing 1.721 1.50 1 1.500 2.249
Social Media Use 2.029 2.00 1 1.607 2.583
Video Game Playing 0.949 0.00 0 1.719 2.954
Movie Watching 0.960 1.00 0 9.660 9.330
Studying/Homework 2.605 2.00 2 1.681 2.825
*Gender: 1 (Male), 2 (Female).
**Monthly Income: 1 ($0-$250), 2 ($251-$500), 3 ($501-$750), 4 ($751-$1,000), 5 ($1,000+).
***Self-reported political designation: 1 (Very Conservative), 5 (Very Liberal), with 3
(Moderate) as the midpoint.
****Current involvement in a romantic relationship: 1 (Yes), 2 (No).

Behaviorally, there were even stronger correlations found. There was, however, another
slight positive correlation between social media use and how much a person stated to enjoy
spending time socializing. There were two more correlations that could state with 99% certainty
that there is a low relationship between social media use and (1) how much a person likes to
participate in group activities and (2) how easily a person feels they can engage in conversations.
The three of these behavioral findings can lead one to believe that social media involvement has
a positive effect on the social skills and preferences of its users.
Aside from the findings related to social media, this study yielded other results that are
worth noting. There is a moderate correlation that suggests that the more time people spend
playing video games, the less they like meeting new people. Movies also resulted in two nearly
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Correlations With Media Use and Dependent Variable Questions
Internet TV Social Game Movie Study
(Perception)
Easier to communicate w/ technology .2491** 0.0634 0.1732* -0.0759 -0.0421 -0.0595
Distance effects relationships -0.0392 -.2479** -0345 -.1878* -.0566 -.0673
Only one group of friends -0.0710 -0.0899 -.2274* 0.0941 0.0353 0.0128
No secrets from friends -0.0993 -0.0926 -0.1414 0.0995 .1759* -.1985*
Open romantic communication .1688* 0.0785 0.0695 0.0118 -0.1386 -0.0934
Open stranger communication 0.1359 -0.1160 0.0050 -0.1627 -.2997*** -.2767**
(Attitude)
Communicating opinions 0.1280 0.0510 0.1177 -0.0106 0.0136 .2223*
Secrets from close relationships -.1919* -0.0073 -0.1502 0.0923 0.1149 0.1597
Prefer to be in a romantic relationship 0.0452 -0.1017 -0.1227 -0.1640 .1766* -0.0350
Romantic with only one person -0.0374 0.0238 -0.0140 -0.0186 .2090* 0.0024
Like meeting new people .1954* -0.0986 0.1489 -.3946*** -0.0522 0.0257
Friendship is most important .1881* 0.0471 -0.0473 .2177* -0.0972 -0.0262
Content with current friends .2220* 0.0060 0.0971 -0.1565 -0.0134 0.1484
(Behavior)
Spend time socializing -0.0396 0.0573 .1916* -.1667* -0.0964 -0.0618
Time away from social situations 0.0644 -0.1390 -0.1524 -0.1162 -.3032*** -0.1611
Taking part in group things .1970* 0.0535 .2427** -0.0544 -.1848* -0.0638
Time with same opinioned people -0.0695 -0.1106 -0.0452 -.2097* -0.0238 -0.1538
Stay up to date with people .2017* 0.1494 0.1212 -0.0073 0.0016 0.0940
Conversation comes easily 0.1082 0.1173 .2720** 0.0296 -0.0933 .1685*
Note: * p < .05
** p < .01
*** p < .001
perfectly significant low correlations: the more time a person spends watching movies, the less
they feel comfortable communicating openly with strangers, and the more they like to be a part
of social situations. There was also a low correlation that found that people who spend more time
doing homework and studying also feel less comfortable with open communication with a
stranger. The surfing the internet independent variable resulted in eight low correlational
relationships, watching television had one, playing video games had five, watching
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movies had six, time spent studying and doing homework had four, and time spent on social
media resulted in the five that were discussed previously.
Discussion
It was surprising to us that our findings yielded such low correlational relationships since
we expected that social media involvement would have a critical impact on peoples lives since
they are such a focal point of communication today. Since we were expecting some noticeable
associations between social media use and relationships, this study failed to reject the null
hypothesis since the findings, although several were statistically significant, were not strong
enough to draw much of a conclusion from.
There were several reasons that our hypothesis may have not been supported by stronger
correlational values. To begin with, our sample included a very narrow variety of participants,
most of whom are in their early twenties and attending college. For this demographic, social
networking is especially popular, so a majority of the surveys yielded very similar answers. If
this sample could have been extended to include a similar age group that is somehow less
dependent on social media, differences may have been more apparent and stronger associations
may have been found. Also, although we did the best that we could to be sure to check the
validity on our survey questions, many of them could have been improved or changed and more
questions could have been added to really target the more specific relationship that we were
trying to focus on throughout the study. Finally, the general topic that this study was trying to dig
deeper into was how the quality of relationships has changed as more communication
technologies have been introduced. This type of a research question was difficult to unravel
through a survey, and may lead to better results if it is handled through more qualitative methods,
or even through the content analysis of the various social networks that this study has mentioned.
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Additional Works Explored
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