Vanessa Sanchez
Political Psych, Andrews
Research paper
Nov. 12, 2019
Hashtagging
ü Introduction
Hashtagging on social media networks. The focus point of my research paper was to understand the evolving role that social media plays in political participation and the toll that it takes on an individual psychologically. Some people may have different views on what social media actually is, but social media by definition is websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking. Political participation includes a broad range of activities through which people develop and express their opinions on the world and how it is governed, and try to take part in and shape the decisions that affect their lives. I wanted to conduct this research in order to conclude if different forms of social media would increase an individual's political participation, or if using social media didn’t affect their political views at all. Aside from the effects of their political views I also wanted to see how social media may affect people psychologically. People may not notice that the amount of time that they spend on social media, or the things that they see and read may affect them. I predicted that the younger someone is, the more time they spend on social media and the more they are affected psychologically. On the other hand, the older the individual the less time that they spent on social media and the less they were affected psychologically. I made this prediction because I feel as if younger generations feel they need to spend more time on social media and depend on social media to get the information that they need. As where older people may use different news sources in order to get the information that they need.
ü Review of the Literature
There have been many other studies and articles written about social media and how it connects to political views. One article that I read included research on the different roles that social media plays in promoting misperceptions during political campaigns. In R.Kelly Garret’s article Social media's contribution to political misperceptions in U.S. Presidential elections he states, “Reliance on social media for political news has increased rapidly. In 2012, about two in five Americans reported using social media for political purposes, and about one in three said they had encountered messages on social media promoting one of the candidates in the month leading up to the election [3, 4]. Four years later more Americans named Facebook as the site they most often used for political information in the month leading up to Election Day 2016 than named any other site, including those of high-profile news organizations such as Fox News, CNN, and major national newspapers (see Fig 1). This is troubling as online social networks have frequently been used to share political falsehoods, both about candidates and about important campaign issues [5–7]. Even more concerning, there is growing evidence that many of the falsehoods circulating during the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election were part of a Russian propaganda effort [8]. The idea that a foreign power would use social media in an effort to sow disinformation intended to sway an election is deeply troubling.” In the research that he conducted 24.7% of the people that he asked said that Facebook was the site they most frequently used for political information. These people get their political information from Facebook rather than news channels such as: fox news, yahoo news, CNN news, NBC news, and other news sources. Although you would think that people watch the news for political information, I am not surprised that Facebook was people’s number one resource.
Another article I read, How does social media shape our political views? by Chanelle Ignant is about how social media changes our political views because they already know what we like. “Living in a democracy means that all voices can be heard. But with the ability to curate our own news and limit the voices of those with opposing political views, we end up only hearing from people we agree with and completely missing out on anyone else’s opinion. Instead of embracing a vibrant public conversation, we end up in an online echo chamber.” People on different social media platforms tend to do this, they tend to only be exposed to the things that they like or the things that they most relate to. This is why social media affects political views, people do not listen to both sides. Our social media platforms adjust to only show us the things that we like and the things that we are interested in and relate to. When choosing a political standpoint it is important to listen to both sides because you never know what you may or may not agree with.
ü Method
For my research I decided to conduct a survey. I created my survey online on survey monkey and I sent out the link. I sent out my survey to the men and womens soccer team as well as family members and other friends. On the survey that I conducted I asked eight different questions that I felt would help me to further understand how connected people are to social media. Along with understanding their political participation I also wanted to find out if the amount of time that an individual spends on social media affects them psychologically. The first question that I asked was, How old are you? The second question that I asked on my survey was, What different forms of social media do you use? The third question that I asked was, What is social media to you? I asked this question because I believe people have different definitions of what social media is and what it is used for. I wanted to know if everyone used social media for the same purposes. My fourth question was how many hours per day do you spend on social media. My fifth question was, Do you feel overwhelmed by the amount of time you spend on social media? My sixth question was, Do you feel overwhelmed by the demands of social media? My seventh question was, Do you feel anxious or stressed out when you are not able to check your social media accounts? I asked this question with the assumption that the younger generation would be more stressed and overwhelmed about not being able to check their social media accounts. My eighth question ties right in with my seventh question being, How many hours can you go WITHOUT checking your social media accounts? This is a question that I also made many predictions about. I assumed that the younger the individual the shorter amount of time they would be able to go without checking their social media accounts.
ü Results
A way to communicate with friends & family & see what everyone is up to or what they are into
A place to show others what are you up to
A place to keep up with close friends or family but also a place to get the latest news, gossip.
It is something to do to pass the time
Way to know people
a way in which you can meet & talk to people.
Its a form of communication
A social platform
Internet
Interacting with other people’s thoughts
Something to distract me when I’m bored
A waste of time
A waste of fucking time
Information
A way to stay connected with my friends
Something where you can post pictures and talk to friends
entertainment
Social network
A way to stay in the loop bc I don’t get out much
Entertainment
It’s everything
A way to share events in my life with others and also a way to communicate with others
Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat
To keep up with your old friends and what they doing in life
Information
A platform for news and funny content
A platform to connect with people
A way to stay connected and aware of what's going on with family,friends, celebrities, and complete strangers lol. Also just aware of what’s going on in the world
Entertainment
A form of communication
Social media is a way to interact with different people something to use when i’m bored
Something to do when I’m bored. A way to see what my friends and family are up to
a way to connect with friends through the internet
an outlet to our daily lives; form of entertainment
A way of connecting with other people
entertainment
Where people get to see your life through posts
An app to stay connected
Entertainment
Clout
ü Analysis
At the end of my survey I was able to analyze the results that I got. I definitely expected answers to be way different than the ones that I got. When I asked how long people would be able to stay off their social media accounts I expected people to say a longer time, I feel as if the younger generation especially is always very eager to be on their phones and check stuff on their phones. I also predicted that it would be the older crowd that used Facebook as their social media and I was right for the most part. The younger people that took my survey were not really using facebook, they put down different forms of social media such as Twitter and Instagram.
ü Conclusions / Directions for Future Research
In the future I want to probably get more people to take my survey. I also want to make sure that the questions are answered the way that I want them to be answered so that my results are a lot more accurate than what I got. Maybe also instead of giving people the option of typing out their own answers I can give them options of answers so that I am able to really measure the amount of people that choose a specific answer. I also didn’t ask questions about politics and how their social media platforms may play a role in their political stand points. I also think I should have specified in the beginning of my survey what I was doing this survey for and what my goal was in the end so that people would have given honest answers if they didn’t already, or also so people could be more specific with their answers.
Bibliography
Garrett, R Kelly. “Social Media's Contribution to Political Misperceptions in U.S. Presidential Elections.” PloS One, Public Library of Science, 27 Mar. 2019, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6436681/.
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