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1…its technological advancement. (p.79) (proper citation)
2…beneficial to their friends and loved ones who is (check agreement) scattered around the planet.
3. Social Network is commonly applied by many as personal use (Lenhart, 2007). She (who?) also cited
4. Using the perspective of Weiss’ (Weiss only no ’)
5. he Internet made “social contacts” with other people more easily (Namsu, 2010). He (who?)also said
6. In an article by Michael Bugeja (2006), he (who?) testified (the article of…testified..)
7. ites over important informative medias (medium or media-plural already)
8. and family members. (Bessiere, Kiesler, Kraut, & Boneva, 2004). (check period)
9. Namsu (2010) cited Kraut’s study which found that high use if Internet use is speak about the decline..(check construction)
10. hich could help them cope up effectively with (cope with.. no up)
11. with administrative staffs, (staff)
12. Teenagers are concern (ed) whether they are cool in the social network aspect.
13. Social Network sites are already been used my many people in the world. It (what?your subject in the previous sentence is plural) play an important role on the social development of the people, especially teenagers. (check grammar)
possible effects of Social Networking to (on) the user.
14. These studies doesn’t (grammar check) describe how


CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

This chapter reviews related literature to the research questions anticipated for this study which is about the actual interactive skill of active social network users of UP Cebu students. First, an overview of Internet widespread and its usage worldwide will be presented. Second, Social Networking will be defined, along with its nature and features that it offers to the users. Third, found reasons by some researchers on why people use social networks will be enumerated. Fourth, social network usage will be presented. In this section, statistics from different surveys and researches regarding the usage of Internet will be shown. Fifth, social displacement hypothesis will be discussed. Together with the discussion are studies regarding the positive and negative influences of the Internet to social relationships. Sixth, studies and views of different researchers about the effects of social networking to the user’s offline behavior and personality will be presented. Seventh, social factors that could affect the personality development of teenagers will be discussed. This chapter concludes with thoughts on how the collected literatures relate to the current study and what the current study could contribute.

“Human-computer interaction (HCI) study is the region of intersection between psychology and the social sciences, on one hand, and computer science and technology, on the other” (Caroll, 1997). HCI progressed and improved systems for human beings to use. Caroll cited Simon’s “The Science of the Artificial” which was about the technical products of human beings that affect how humans act and behave. There are many factors that could affect the structure social relationships. It is not only social science but also the computer science with its technological advancement. (p.79)

Internet and its Usage

The Internet is the latest in the sequence of technological breakthroughs in interpersonal communication. It combines innovative features of its forerunners. However, the Internet has novel features as well. One of these is the affordability of users to meet other users whom they share the same values and interests.

Internet can be interactive. It limits the borderline of social communication, compared to traditional face-to-face communication. People can overcome great distances to communicate with others almost instantaneously. It can also be a mass medium. Content and advertising can reach millions of people at the same time. However, it can also be a powerful new tool for the devil. It can result depression and loneliness to its users.

Although some might see it as a remedy while others fear it as a curse, all would agree that it is quite capable of transforming the society. It can change almost every aspect of people’s lives because it deals with the most essential factor of the human society- the communication between people.

The Internet is fast becoming a natural, background part of everyday life. It has been a central important element in the lives of American teens and young adults (Lenhart, Purcell, Smith, & Zickuhr, 2010). People routinely turn to the Internet to quickly find needed information, such as about health conditions and remedies, as well as weather forecasts, sports scores, and stock prices.

Internet affords a new and different avenue of s­ocial interaction that enables groups and relationships to form that otherwise would not be able to. Tapscott (1998) said that the Internet and other digital gadgets today have afflicted the developmental process of a person which provides venue for the teenagers to communicate, learn, play and create and maintain social relations with others. He also discussed that the Internet creates segregation between different identities which brings us to the real effect of Internet – to increase conformity to those local group norms. Thus, it increase and enhance social connectivity.

Internet has been very useful to people. It was as helpful as face-to-face interactions and it had been beneficial to their friends and loved ones who is scattered around the planet.

Another important use of Internet in the corporate world has been to conduct negotiations between parties who are separated by distance. However, there is a downside to this; it creates time delays in hearing back from their partners. Due to this, it negatively affects the trust, credibility and motivations of both parties. Lenhart, Purcell, Smith, &Zickuhr, 2010)

Social Networking: Definition and Nature

Social networking is still relatively young in the technological world but it already becomes a global phenomenon. Boyd and Ellisson (2007) defined Social Network Sites as web-based services with a wide variety of technical features. First, Social Network Sites allows individuals to create a public or semi-public profile within an enclosed system (Boyd and Ellisson, 2007). This profile shows personal information, email addresses, contacts, pictures, notes and posts that you have posted. The visibility of a profile varies by site and according to user discretion. By default, profiles on some Social Networking Sites are crawled by search engines, making them visible to anyone, regardless of whether or not the viewer has an account. Some allow users to choose whether they want their profile to be public or “friends only.” Few sites take a different approach—users who are part of the same “network” can view each other’s profiles, unless a profile owner has decided to deny permission to those in their network.

Second, Social Network Sites can articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection and navigate it as well (Boyd and Ellisson, 2007). This list can be made by the users through sending “friend requests”. The label for these relationships differs depending on the site. Most Social Network Sites require a confirmation for friendship, but some do. Third, the users can interact online through chatting, posting comments and sending messages.

Beyond profiles, friends, comments, and private messaging, Social Networking Sites vary greatly in their features and user base. According to Boyd and Ellisson (2007), some have photo-sharing or video-sharing capabilities; others have built-in blogging and instant messaging technology.

Boyd and Ellisson (2007) also said that these structural variations around visibility and access are one of the primary ways that Social Network Sites differentiate themselves from each other.

Although the term “Social Network Site” is used to describe this occurrence, the term “Social Networking Site” also appears in public communication, making the two terms interchangeable.

Why Use Social Networks

Social network sites are still relatively young in the technological world but they already become global phenomena. Social Network is commonly applied by many as personal use (Lenhart, 2007). She also cited one of the reasons why adults engage themselves in these social network sites which are the using of application that the site offers. The major point of social network which is to connect with people they already knew and already part of their extended social network is always one of the reasons why people engage themselves into these kinds of sites (Metz, 2006; Boyd and Ellisson, 2007).

The attraction of the Internet and Social network for teenagers may also be Milner (2004) thought in which teenagers have a power to exercise – the power to create their own social system. According to Greenfield (2004), teenagers create their own “cybercultures” when they go online. Internet is an integral component of adolescents and also a way to insulate adolescent activities from parents and adults. (Grinter & Palen, 2002). However, Internet as a way of insulating the “adolescent world” doesn’t work because in survey by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project it found 40% of adults who engage themselves into social network sites.

Morahan-Martin (1999) reported that lonely people prefer using social networking sites than face-to-face interactions to seek emotional support online. These people more likely open-up and share secrets online. Leung (2002) found that lonelier teenagers are less honest and less revealing online.

Weiss (1973) hypothesized that there are social and emotional type of loneliness. The social types of loneliness are those who have a feeling of being marginalized. They lack friends and community connections which would cause them boring idle moments. The emotional type of loneliness lacks intimate relationship which would make them feel empty. Using the perspective of Weiss’ about the types of loneliness, Moody (2001) reported in his study that Internet use of a sample of college students in Washington had a significant correlation to emotional loneliness and a negative correlation to social loneliness. Social network sites may be beneficial to the socially lonely for its activities may tend to match their offline approach (Windham, 2008).

Social Network Usage

As computers and internet flourished and affected the everyday living of people, communicating using Internet connection is engaged by Internet users engage (Haptom, 2007 as cited in Namsu, 2010). The Internet made “social contacts” with other people more easily (Namsu, 2010). He also said that the possible connection enable users to negotiate to others with “real-life socializing”. It is said that the spreading of social networks aided the communication of online and offline relationships through online interacting.

In an article by Michael Bugeja (2006), he testified that there was a journalism professor Michael Tracey at the University of Colorado who asked his students who among of them have read the newspapers. Only a few hands rose out of 140 students. However, when one student asked him to ask whether they were using Facebook, everybody lifted their hands. The testimony in the article shows student’s interest are already taken by these social network sites over important informative medias like newspapers and news programs (“Facing Facebook”).

Windham (2008) cited that, in 2003, Social Networking Sites began to attract attention with the debut of Friendster. However, the Social Networking concept gained widespread popularity in 2004 when MySpace was created. MySpace became the most popular Social Networking Site in 2005, claiming more than 70 million active users (Boyd and Ellisson, 2007). The success of MySpace spawned a number of similar sites, including Facebook and Xanga, as well as sites such as YouTube and Flickr, which focus on video and photo sharing, respectively. According to Boyd and Ellisson (2007), Facebook was originally designed to be used exclusively by college students, who were linked together by their university e-mail addresses. The site was made available to high school students in the fall of 2005 and it quickly built a large following among adolescents. Facebook is now open to everyone. The same authors said that it currently has more than 35 million active users and is growing at the rate of about a million users a week.

With the popularity growth, bloggers in the Internet decreases its number while social network users continually increase in 2006 (Lenhart, 2007). The decrease is attributable with shifting of teens’ interest into social networks. In a survey by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project (2009), 73% of teens, 72% of young adults and some 40% of adults above the age of 30 engage themselves into social network sites.

Morgan and Cotten (2003) surveyed college freshmen at a mid-sized university in United States and divided online time into communication use and non-communication use. After measuring the respondent’s depression scale and index of social support by the authors, heavy users of Internet for communication purposes was related with decreasing depressive symptoms. Heavy use of Internet for non-communication purposes was associated with increase in depressive symptoms.

There are specific types of Internet usage. As cited by Windham (2008), Heitner categorizes users into: Not Social, Asynchronous Social, and Synchronous Social. Not social are those users who only surfs the Web without interacting with other users. Asynchronous Social are those who interact through private messages and e-mails. Synchronous Social are those who interact with “real-time interactions” such as chatting. Teenagers who belong to the first two categories were reported to have more social skill deficits and lower peer status which cause them to be more introverted. Teenagers who belong to the synchronous Social are found to have fewer social skill deficits and higher peer status. They are less introverted. Windham(2008) also said that earlier studies have found out that the more time teenagers spend online, the more popular they tended to be.

One thing that the Windham(2008) finds out is that though chat room is real-time, users interact to strangers. Heitner (as cited in Windham, 2010) speculates that chat rooms may be regarded by teenagers who are less socially-adept as a forum for practicing social interaction.

Social Displacement

The social displacement hypothesis, also known as the “hydraulic” model, holds that the time used for communicating in the Internet decreases the time for more valuable face-to-face interaction with friends and family members. (Bessiere, Kiesler, Kraut, & Boneva, 2004). The hypothesis defies the thought that Internet communication enhances a person’s social resource by providing the users opportunities for social interaction with existing friends and new associates.

The negative association between internet use and offline relationship is explained by displacement hypothesis. The time used to use the Internet is taken away from a person’s activities such as face-to-face interactions (Nie & Erbring, 2000). They said that people cannot anymore spend time offline because the time is already devoted to using the Internet.

With regards to the social displacement hypothesis, many researches found the hypothesis consistent. The research of Weiser (2001) concluded that the use of social networking sites reduces social integration and negatively affects the user’s psychological well-being. Beebe et al (2004) found that teenagers communicating online, such as chatting, are connected with psychological distress.

There are also contrasting studies about the negative influence of Internet use to the social life of people. First, the study of Simpser, Stepanikova and Zheng (2005) oppose to the contrasting studies above claiming that the Internet usage decreased the number of social circles and face-to-face interactions. Second, Namsu (2010) cited Kraut’s study which found that high use if Internet use is speak about the decline of face-to-face communication with other people, higher loneliness, stress and depressive symptoms. Third, Namsu (2010) cited Quan-haase (2002) correlates high Internet use with low social contact offline. Quan-haase (as cited in Namsu, 2010) said that online communication might encourage people to spend more time alone, and talk online with strangers.

There were points argued by scholars about how Internet and Social networks influence social relationships. First, new relationships are made (Rheingold, 2000) in order to have a sense of sharedness and belongingness (Kelemen & Smith, 2001). Second, present relationships were maintained and further strengthened (Robinson, et. al., 2000). Third, people who have social ties in social networks have more trust and greater social tolerance which could help them cope up effectively with possible troubles in daily life. Fourth, Internet users had more contact with the family members and close ties than non-users (Hampton & Wellman, 2003). With these studies, Stern, as cited by Namsu (2010), concluded that Internet make possible a “close emotional relationship” between family members and close friends who haven’t seen for a long time and who aren’t together for some time. Fifth, Kruat (as cited by Namsu 2010), found a positive influence of Internet use. It found out that those who engage themselves more in Internet are actively involved in community activities and feel greater trust in other people.

Possible Effects of Social Networks to Offline Behavior

A journal article gives information on “some ways in which online and offline experiences are intertwined” (Boyd and Ellison, 2007). An analysis by Kyung-Hee Kim and Haejin Yun (as cited in Boyd and Ellisson, 2007) shows that Cyworld, a social network site, would support the social skills of Korean users. They found out that “cultural beliefs and activities” of the users are incorporated in the online interaction. Another person by the name of Lee Humphrey (as cited in Boyd and Ellisson, 2007) studied about a mobile social network, Dodgeball, and sees on how these social network sites reshape the offline social structures, which are the face-to-face interaction structures.

The study made by Lily Ghassemzadeh, Mehrnaz Shahraray, and Alizera Moradi (2008) on the “Prevalence of the Internet Addiction and Comparison of Internet Addicts and Non-Addicts in Iranian High School” randomly selected 1968 high school students. The respondents took different test to measure their Internet addiction, loneliness, self-esteem and social skills. The results showed that “Internet addicts” have lower self-esteem, lonelier and inferior in social skills than moderate users.

Ying-fang Chen and Samuel S. Peng (2008) studied the “Relationship between University students’ Internet use and students’ academic performance, interpersonal relationships, psychosocial adjustment, and self-evaluation.” They gathered 49,609 college students from 156 universities in Taiwan as their respondents. Results show that those who use Internet moderately have better relationship with administrative staffs, better academic grades, and “learning satisfaction” than those who uses Internet heavily. They also found heavy users of Internet to be sad, “physically ill”, lonely and shy.

Sanders et al. (2000) found that heavy usage of Internet by high school is associated with weaker ties unto parents and friends.

Shaw and Gant (2002) reported that Internet use may have some social and psychological benefits for many individuals. Establishing a controlled online environment in which 40 undergraduate participants took chat session with anonymous partner. The study took the measure of depression, loneliness, self-esteem and social support. Results showed that there was a significant increase of self-esteem. The authors concluded that Internet usage really affects depression, loneliness and social support more quickly than it does in self-esteem. Though they established a controlled group, the researchers also claimed that they may have been other variables that influenced the study results.

However, Psychology professor Amori yee Mikam (2010) said that they are finding the interactions of young adults who are having Facebook and Myspace more similar from the interactions that they have in their face-to-face relationship. She also said that teens and young adults who are positively-active in social networking have positive interactions in real life. Teens and young adults who don’t have social skills in reality were also the ones who use social networking in a negative way.

Though there are studies that justified the social displacement hypothesis, other researches were inconsistent with the hypothesis rather supported the social augmentation/efficiency hypothesis. For instance, Katz and Aspen (1997) reported that social use of Internet does not lessen the level of the person’s social participation offline.

A study by Ching-I Teng (2008) about “Personality differences between online game players and non-players in a student sample” examined the players’ openness and conscientiousness between online game players and non-players. The results tell that these online game players are more open and careful than non-players.

Though many studies might show the negative influence of online interactive technologies, there is still a number of teenagers say that social interactive technologies cannot replace the face-to-face interactions but the two complements (Windham, 2008). The assertion can be backed up by a survey of the USC-Annenberg Digital Future Project (2007) which found that nearly all adolescent respondents’ time spent in having face-to-face interactions with their friends and family member were not affected by the Internet. The heavy users of interactive technologies were reported to spend more time with their family and taking part in physical activities (Rideout, 2005).

The study of Ms. Karen Anne M. Adolfo and Mr. Jason D. Gujilde (2010) about the effects of Facebook on UP Cebu students on their relationships with their family and friends and to their academic performance concluded that Facebook, a social network, brings no alarming situation yet to the relationship of UP Cebu students to their families, friends and academic performance (p. 3).

As scholars continue discovering whether using the Internet socially affects offline behavior negatively or positively, Peter, Valkenburg, and Schouten (2005) warn that teenager’s degree of introversion or extraversion alone does not explain his/her success rate of forming and maintain online relationships.

Personality Development of Teenagers

Adolescence stage is a time where mental, physical, social and emotional aspects of the person change. The development of these aspects in a person may take place simultaneously (Erikson, 1968). The components of a stable identity include morals, beliefs, roles, relationship and person’s self-definition (Huffaker & Calvert, 2005). The vagueness of the Internet enables the teenagers to experiment with the different aspects of their identity (Wartella et al., 2004). Calvert (2005) asserts that the society has a great responsibility to help teenagers “navigate their real life and their online ‘selves’ to forge a constructive, unified personal identity.” (p.68)

Identity development is aided with friendships, interpersonal bonds and other relationships (Sullivan, 1953). Teenagers need connection to their peers as they try to understand themselves and others (Hellenga, 2002). With the relationship the teenagers built, they narrate experiences, share problems, give advices and provide emotional support to their friends. With these, there is a tendency that one could influence the other’s point of view. Berndt (1996) asserted that peer influence resulted more positive outcome than negative. Close friend relationships were founded to have higher self-esteem while those who have lack of close relations with friends are associated to have lower self-esteem. (Hartup, 1996).

Myspace, a social network site, offers an individual user a profile where she/he can place facts about her/him. Whatever she/he presents in the profile may or may not be same of her/his true characteristics (boyd, 2007). The possible social network friends of the user are his/her face-to-face friends or otherwise called offline friends. She said that because of the presence of offline friends in the network, teens present themselves in a way that his/her peers will accept. Teenagers are concern whether they are cool in the social network aspect. With this, teens have the ability to behave differently online. Windham (2008) says that peer acceptance is also one of the important factors in social development and identity formation.

Research has shown that the presence of a physical figure is a major determinant in formation of friendship or relationship between two people (Hatfield & Sprecher, 1986). In these social networks, the communication is just limited with the words the user typed in the keyboard, yet these words can be carefully structured than the usual verbal interactions or face-to-face interactions. Bargh (2002) has asserted that the absence of visual and verbal cues will create confusing situations that gives greater emphasis on the mindset of the persons who are communicating.

However, as stated by Windham (2008), McKenna (2002) made an experimental study comparing the reaction produced by online versus face-to-face encounter for meeting each other for the first time. The study shows that the respondents preferred their first meeting online rather than face-to-face.

Inference for the Current Study

Social Network sites are already been used my many people in the world. It play an important role on the social development of the people, especially teenagers. The collected literature relates to the current study because it showed the possible effects of Social Networking to the user. Based on the collected literatures, there were no studies focusing on the interactive skill of active users of these Social Network sites in face-to-face interactions. Although, there were studies that sought the effects of Social Network usage to the users’ personality, these studies doesn’t describe how these users’ interact with their friends and acquaintances. The present study was undertaken to fill the gaps by seeking and observing the interactive skill these users’ in their face-to-face interaction.