Research Proposal; Online Social Networking versus Human Relationships
For the final assignment of this semester I’m putting together a research proposal in order to investigate my chosen topic from semester one further, ‘online social networking versus human socializing’. Last semester I looked at several books about human psychology in particular how we communicate non-verbally with other people, this includes aspects such as body language and eye contact, looking at how important these are interested me most, as this is what is left out when we socialize online.
This proposal is set out to gather research and evidence on the reliability of communicating online, how people have adjusted to this and where it’s going to lead us in the future. I will use methods that were practiced this semester, looking back at the assignments we’ve been given; each has provided a different way of gathering information.
I intend to use a combination of both the observation and interview method (Mecca Bingo and Magazine assignment). For the first part of my research I intend to observe the behavior of people communicating in person, for this I would pick a common meeting place such as a coffee shop or restaurant where you’d often find groups of people discussing everyday things without pressure. I’ve considered how I would record my observations, and as not to invade anyone’s privacy or listen in on personal conversation I’ve ruled out the option of any audio recordings, instead I’d pay more attention to their actions and how much they mirror each other in terms of body language or use physical gestures/contact to interact with one another. This could be recorded by myself using notes and sketches, as any photo or video recording may not provide an accurate representation of what’s going on.
I would then conduct a similar observation but this time looking at how people act when using socializing sites/applications online. When looking at social networking statistics, unsurprisingly the most popular site is Facebook, which trumps competitors in terms of activity and registered users, currently standing at over 500 million and still growing. However I believe a more precise representation of how we can communicate with each other online would be to look at real-time socializing applications, such as Skype and MSN Messenger, where there’s an instant messaging system back and forth The best location for accomplishing this would be an internet café or communal area that offers Wi-Fi.
Although I believe the observation method will play an important part in gaining research about the differences in people’s behaviour while socializing both off and online, introducing the interview method will allow further insight into how we have adjusted to the change in how we communicate on a daily basis on a more personal level. I predict from past experience, the observations that I make will rely on paying close attention to detail and allowing myself to expand and evaluate on what I see. I would assume that people would be less likely to express physical emotion when face to face with a computer rather than another person, but does this affect them in the long run? Do the two forms of communication ever overlap and affect or change how we speak to each other? Which do people feel more comfortable with?
These are a few examples of questions that could be partly answered through watching reactions and how people interact with each other, but to gain as much evidence as possible I’d propose asking users these questions on a personal level and see what feedback is given. Interviewing strangers have proven of more benefit than doing so with anyone you’ve already established a relationship with, it leaves out any personal issues that may affect answers and heightens your awareness of their mannerisms which is where anything such as a sense of anxiousness or positive reactions to questions will become obvious. I’m interested in whether people feel comfortable with this change in our society, have they made the adjustment easily, do they value face to face interaction more than they did before and how it has affected them and others surrounding them.
Whilst at a location such as an Internet café completing observation research, by approaching visitors that are using the facilities, an interview could be constructed by putting together a set of questions about how they use social networking sites. I would record their answers as well as make notes of how detailed they were in their explanations, how elaborate their body language was and any other I believe to gain a first hand experience of the differences between online and offline conversation would be to then request permission to complete a portion of the interview over an application such as MSN messenger or Skype without the use of any video. I could then record any differences I experienced in the conversation with the same person, and whether I felt more or less comfortable conducting it this way, and how both myself and the interviewee felt about the experience as a whole.
I believe this combination would offer a fairly quick and reliable way of obtaining evidence on this topic, and allow you to instantly see the differences between the two forms of socialization as well as individual’s feeling on the subject. It could easily be extended over a longer period of time, a survey could be set up online and involve larger groups of people in order to gain a broader amount of results. The feedback that is gained would give us a better understanding of how our civilization has made the shift to the Internet being a part of our daily lives, and how social networking has changed drastically in such a short period of time.
Tim Brown, the author of Change by Design poses an interesting question, which this research could form answers to, and that is “How does membership in an online community affect the behaviour of individuals once they return to the prosaic world of atoms, proteins, and bricks“.
Are the days of meeting up face to face to discuss our lives eradicating only to be replaced by pixelated versions of each other?
