Disconnected How to Reconnect Our Digitally Distracted Kids Book Review
I keep engineering at a piddling distance, which makes me unusual amid millennials. Four out of five of my peers—those born afterwards 1980—own mobile devices, which are always on, always on u.s.a., and ever continued to social media like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Only while all my friends seem wired into their smartphones 24-7, I've turned off notifications on my iPhone and I participate in the occasional technology Shabbat.
It'due south hard to shake the feeling that, although smartphones open the door to new kinds of social connection, they burn through precious social uppercase—the web of social networks that research says can help us to be happier, healthier, and better employed.
I'one thousand not alone. In fact, Greater Skilful contributor Barbara Fredrickson published a written report last yr that suggests smartphone use may be taking a toll "on our biological capacity to connect with other people."
But practice digital devices and social media really disconnect u.s.a. from the flesh-and-claret people in our lives? Or can mobile devices actually add to our social capital? Researchers are starting to explore these questions—and the answers suggest that our social media presence need not detract from our real-world social connections. In fact, engineering science can actually increase our social capital, if we know how to employ it.
When it's smart to use smartphones
Beginning upward, do smartphones actually reduce our social capital letter?
To notice out, a team of researchers at the University of Florida surveyed 339 students about the intensity of their smartphone use and online social networking. They found that, on boilerplate, participants reported spending about 100-200 minutes per day using the Internet and virtually 30-90 minutes using social networks. Then the students answered questions about 4 dimensions of social majuscule:
- Trust, measured with questions like, "Mostly speaking, there is someone I tin can turn to for advice about making very important decisions."
- Organizational participation, measured just past their number of group memberships.
- Political participation, measured past how oft they watched political debates or participated in demonstrations.
- Network resources, measured by the people of people they know who could provide different resources, such equally a holiday homes abroad or access to professional person journals.
The results? Across the board, heavy smartphone apply was positively associated with all four measures of social upper-case letter. And then it seems that all those people who are glued to their phones are non necessarily more socially isolated.
Simply this relationship only exists to the extent that the smartphones were being used for their social networking capabilities, equally opposed to random Net surfing. In other words, merely those who used their smartphones for social media like Google+ or Twitter knew more people, were more involved with organizations, participated more actively in politics, and perceived more trust amid their peers.
This study was of immature people. Exercise people on the other end of the age spectrum as well do good from online social networking?
Social media help older people stay connected
Studies have shown that older adults—those 65 years and upward—who employ social networking sites benefit from better wellness, reduce their chances of cognitive refuse, and prevent premature death. But only four percent of Facebook users in the The states are over 65, which suggests that older adults may be missing valuable opportunities to strengthen their social ties through social media.
A team of Mexican researchers designed their own type of social media platform, called Tlatoque, which borrows many of its features from popular networking sites (eastward.thou., it has a news feed, status updates, and photo sharing capabilities). After a few weeks, the researchers looked at how interactions through Tlatoque influenced social capital letter and interactions in the existent earth.
They found that the system significantly enriched these adults' relationships with close friends and family. The authors suggest that's because the arrangement helped them become more than aware of what their relatives were up to, enabling the sharing of information with friends and family unit who adopt social media to the "more than traditional" ways of staying in touch. This catalyzed and enriched real-world conversations, according to the results.
While Tlatoque might not be coming to an app store near you anytime soon, this study is the beginning to suggest that we tin utilise our online social capital to enrich our in-person encounters. It'southward a good commencement step toward understanding the human relationship between online and offline social upper-case letter—and how both of these networks might influence ane some other.
Information technology takes a village on Twitter
The results of these two studies seem conclusive: Together, smartphones and social media tin can increase your social capital.
But are all forms of social capital created equal? Another study, recently published in the International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, looked at how the micro-blogging platform Twitter builds dissimilar types of social capital.
On Twitter, all messages posted are publicly available in the global feed of "tweets." But to filter this feed, users can choose to follow other users. That's a great way to learn well-nigh a new task, read about different experiences and opinions, or feel like part of a grouping that's bigger than yourself.
These types of bonds, which are largely informational, are described by researchers as bridging social capital, which the authors loosely define as, "the germination of rather weak ties betwixt people from different networks." Bonding social capital letter, on the other hand, has a more than emotional tone. Bonding happens in homogenous groups of like-minded individuals, like friends or family. And so if bonding capital is about connecting more than securely, then bridging capital is about connecting more widely.
If you were to guess, which 1 would you say Twitter helps to build?
The researchers had a hypothesis that it was both. So they asked 264 Twitter users to report their number of followers and followees, judge the number of minutes they spend on Twitter on an average day, and answer a few questions that would guess a measure of both bridging and bonding social capital. A typical question for bridging social capital asks if "interacting with people on Twitter makes me experience like office of a greater community"; a question for bonding social capital asks if, on Twitter, "there are several people I trust to aid solve my problems."
Twitter did indeed seem associated with both bonding and bridging social majuscule—merely only if the number people you collaborate with on Twitter fell within a goldilocks zone of non too few and not too many.
For example, people who spent the about spent more than time on Twitter and followed more users reported more bridging capital letter. This is because the more y'all follow, the more than opportunity you have to gain exposure to new ideas—or, as the authors say, to "aggrandize your horizons" beyond your "narrow daily being." So is it best to follow as many people as possible? The respond is no, according to this report—when nosotros follow too many people, we adventure information overload. As the authors caution us, "There can be too much of a skillful thing." More than is better, but only upwardly to a point.
When it comes to bonding social upper-case letter, a like principle applies. They establish that a user with an engaged and dedicated audition of followers is probable to experience a cracking sense of emotional support. But if that user'southward follower network becomes likewise large, it becomes an abstract faceless mass, "which increases the user's psychological distance from his or her followers."
Then to build the nigh bridging and bonding capital on Twitter, you want a hamlet of followers, non a teeming metropolis.
What might this have to practise with our offline social uppercase? While information technology wasn't the main focus of this study, researchers found that those who feel more connected in their everyday lives also seemed to feel more connected to their online peers, not unlike the elderly participants of Tlatoque. So in some way, there is a relationship between your offline self and your online profile. The Tlatoque written report even suggests that online connections can support the offline ones.
Taken together, these 3 studies hint at a compelling story—that social networking services can be a significant way of developing, maintaining, and strengthening our social connections, both online and in person. Using social networking services builds social capital in a number of ways: greater emotional back up, lower levels of loneliness, and more feelings of connectedness. But these studies too contain a note of caution: Too many followers and too much participation tin can atomic number 82 to information overload, low, and feelings of disconnectedness.
The bottom line? I'1000 going to keep my iPhone and my Facebook business relationship—but I remember I'll also keep setting limits.
Source: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/does_technology_cut_us_off_from_other_people
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