Twitter as a Modern Instrument of Expression by Z Generation Teenagers

NAME OF AUTHORS :

Bolante, Ma. Carmela

Capio, Ralph Angelo M.

Caringal, Renee Anne V.

Delos Santos, Maicel Cate P.

A Research Project

Submitted to the Faculty of the Senior High School Department

Of Colegio de San Juan de Letran Calamba in Partial Fulfillment in

Practical Research.

March 2019
 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Structure and Rationale of the study

Twitter has become a popular social media platform that provides ground for Z
generation people to express their thoughts, feeling and emotions. According to Statista (2019),
as it reach the point of success that influence millions of individuals worldwide especially the
ones born in the era of the said generation, the use of traditional diary started to fade.

Diary, a notebook where lots of secret thoughts are written, and emotions are expressed.
The diary form began in the late renaissance, when people realized the importance of keeping
tabs on themselves. In addition to their declaration of feelings and personality, diaries have been
of great use for recording social and political history. Interest in this kind of writing increased
immensely in the first part of 19th century and continue for quite a period of time (Tikkanen,
2017).

According to Panger (2017), Emotion is the amusement that spreads with the latest
clever meme and, as this research will suggest, emotion is the calm of daily life that
counterintuitively, is reflected as one of the dominant emotions of social media. This research
addresses some of the fundamental questions about emotion in social media, questions about
how z generation express themselves, about what can be inferred about their emotional lives
based on how they express themselves, and about the impact of receiving the expressions of
others on their own emotions as they browse social media in daily life. Along the way, this
research helps resolve significant conflicts in the literature and, most importantly, helps establish
basic descriptive facts about emotion in social media that have been sorely underdeveloped. The
outcome is a richer, more nuanced picture of emotion in social media, one that supports and
challenges prevailing notions.

One of the striking conflicts in the literature follows from two major lines of research. At
the beginning, researchers seek to use the emotions we express in status updates to make
inferences about our emotional lives. It aims to visualize human emotional rhythms, generate
national happiness indices, predict mental illnesses, and evaluate the emotional outcomes of
experimental interventions. For the next process, researchers explore issues of self-presentation
and emotional expression in social media. With many suggesting, people are self-conscious
about how each individual come across and that makes it tend to portray each other in an
idealized, overly-positive fashion.
 Another important conflict in the literature centers on the emotional and well-being
effects of browsing social media. Some researchers believe that if such individuals tend to
portray themselves in an idealized, overly-positive manner, then browsing social media may lead
to widespread feelings of envy and to declines in well-being as more people compare their lives
unfavorably to the rosy depictions of others’ lives. Competing with this is another line of
research that draws from the theory of emotional contagion and claims positive emotions in
someone’s social media feeds should make that individual feel positive, and opposite effect for
negative emotions. Still, other research suggests browsing social media makes people now a
days feel bad because, every single person spend a lot of time doing it, but do not perceive it to
be very meaningful. While these different lines of research do interact to some extent, there is a
surprising lack of evidence establishing the emotional experience of browsing social media in the
first place, making it difficult to know what, precisely, this current era of people are trying to
explain.

According to MacArthur (2018), In July 2006 a social media platform called Twitter was
born. It was created by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams on March of the
same year. Thus, the revolutionary change on the field of expressing written thoughts began.
Initially Dorsey had a thought of developing an SMS platform that people can use to
communicate. Originally, Twitter was known as Twitter, a name that was coined by Noah Glass.
The first ever tweet was sent by the creator himself, Jack Dorsey which contains the phrase “ Just
setting up my Twitter.” The platform was eventually renamed Twitter. Twitter began
experiencing remarkable growth in 2007. The people of this generation got hooked on the kind
of entertainment that this platform provide. From celebrities to their fans, politicians and
government to the citizens of the world, had their own use of Twitter.

People start to become more comfortable in telling stories through the use of this
platform. At the center of Twitter are small puff of information called tweets, containing a
maximum character of 140. The dictionary meaning of the name Twitter is "a short burst of
inconsequential information", which is the whole essence of this platform. The users must find a
way to tell their story in a short but effective way. People starts to talk, from the moment they
got out of bed to the time they were about to sleep. As of the first quarter of 2018, the number
of active users soar to 336 million. Over time Twitter has made its way and become the modern
instrument of expressing emotions for Z generation individuals. People say that self – expression
is a basic human need. Therefore, it can be fulfilled by getting something off the chest from a
youngster. Furthermore, some teenagers consider using Twitter as a personal diary to be
therapeutic (American Psychological Association, 2018).

Twitter can be considered as a necessary and fundamental practice among teenagers in

terms of expression of one’s feelings and communication with others. It helps the individuals to
have a wide range of thought and wisdom within their selves. The 21st century is a period
characterized by people that are addicted in using mobile phones especially when it comes to
social interaction through the internet. With today’s generation, it is important for the youth to
deal with what they’re feeling or thinking by means of freely expressing it American
Psychological Association, 2018)

Since the success of Twitter, micro-blogging is one of the most popular venues of online
communication and social networking. Micro-blogging is a form of instant messaging where
users report their current status of users and deliver breaking news in short text. The flourish of
micro-blogging and online social network services (SNS) has attracted the researchers’ interest
who try to understand what makes the SNS so popular and how to use SNS as a platform to
study human behaviors and dissemination of information (Java & Tseng, 2007)

According to the social cognitive theory, self-efficacy is the most important characteristic that
changes human behavior. Self-efficacy is the extent or strength of one’s belief in his own
willingness and ability to complete tasks and reach goals. Individuals with high self-efficacy have
high expectation that the outcomes or consequences of the tasks they perform must be
effective, valuable and beneficial to them, and they believe that they can exhibit such behavior.
Self-efficacy is not only influenced by the individual’s capability, but also by other people around
who may have positive or negative attitude towards a specific behavior. People learn positive
behaviors which they believe beneficial to them by observing the benefits of other people
exhibiting the same behaviors or by paying attention to public campaigns, research and media
discussing the benefits of these actions and behaviors (Bandura, 1989).

Environment refers to the factors that can affect a person’s behavior. There are social
and physical environments. Social environment include family members, friends and colleagues.
Physical environment is the size of a room, the ambient temperature or the availability of certain
foods. Environment and situation provide the framework for understanding behavior (Parraga,
1990). The situation refers to the cognitive or mental representations of the environment that
may affect a person’s behavior. The situation is a person’s perception of the lace, time, physical
features and activity (Glanz et al., 2002).

The three factors environment, people and behavior are constantly influencing each
other. Behavior is not simply the result of the environment and the person, just as the
environment is not simply the result of the person and behavior (Glanz et al., 2002). The
environment provides models for behavior. Observational learning occurs when a person
watches the actions of another person and the reinforcements that the person receives
(Bandura, 1997). The concept of behavior can be viewed in many ways. Behavioral capability
means that if a person is to perform a behavior he must know what the behavior is and have the
skills to perform it.
 This study will help us understand the change from when people are writing thoughts on
notebooks to the time they were posting tweets on Twitter and how it affects the behavior of
young minds.

Twitter can help z generation to express and understand themselves through tweeting as
well as having the opportunity to be allowed in sharing their work such as photography, film,
written works and illustrations publicly. Moreover, it can build the self – esteem of individual if
someone have noticed and gave a positive feedback to his/her craft.

Research Questions and Objectives

The general questions and objectives of this study is to elaborate how Twitter became the
modern outlet of expression for Z generation individuals thus, it has given the people a strong
bond even from a far distance, being always up-to-date, a place where freedom of expression is
soaring, and an entertaining way to interact with the peers of oneself.

In this study, the questions and objectives of the research will help the readers to have a
wider range of concept in the capability of twitter as a powerful tool of utterance.

The researchers aim to acknowledge the following questions:

1. Is there any difference between the traditional journal and Twitter?

2. Does Twitter have any significant feature that makes it popular?
3. What makes Twitter such a powerful tool for expressing thoughts and ideas?

The specific objectives of this research are as follows:

1. To determine how much Twitter affects the Z generation individuals

2. To identify benefits and risks of using the said social media platform
3. To evaluate the problem that comes with excessive usage of Twitter
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

This study will be benefited to the following :

Twitter users. The results of this study will help twitter users to know what are the cause
and effects of using twitter as their journal or personal diary.

Students. This study will enlighten students to have awareness on using modern
technology as their personal diaries. This will also let students to understand what are the
realities and effects behind of these actions of Z generations today. Moreover, this research or
study will provide them enough information as our technology become modernize and how
these effect the way of living or expressing emotions commonly to the students.

Teachers/Professors. This study will be beneficial to the teachers and professors because
they may read and be aware of the changes of their students and even the effects of becoming
twitter as a modern instrument of expression. By this way, they can educate their students and
guide them about the limitations of using the social networking sites. This may help them in
planning their own tactics in making their students to realize these modern practices.

Parents. By this study, parents will be guided and aware as they have a contributing
factor on how their child develop his/her communication skills especially in our generation
today, commonly through social media.

Future Researchers. This research will be an useful reference for the researchers who
would plan to study related research which focuses in social media or modern technology.

SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS

This study identifies the usage of Twitter as a modern journal to this current generation as an
intimate freedom of expression. Furthermore, it has no boundaries in letting go what an
individual want to express or share about themselves through the said app.

DEFINITION OF TERMS

1. Microblogging - The activity or practice of making short, frequent posts to a microblog.

2. Inconsequential – It is not important or significant.
3. Publicly – It is used in reference to views expressed to others and not necessarily
genuinely felt.
4. Soaring – Increasing rapidly above the usual level.
 5. Therapeutic – Relating to the healing of disease.
6. Communication – The imparting of exchanging of information or news.
7. Expression – The process of making known one’s thoughts or feelings.

Literature Cited

BOOKS
Glanz, K., Rimer, B.K. & Lewis, F.M. (2002). Health Behavior and Health Education. Theory,
Research and Practice. San Fransisco: Wiley & Sons.
Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: Freeman.
Parraga, I.M. (1990). “Determinants of Food Consumption”. Journal of American Dietetic
Association, 90: 661-663.
Java A, Finin T, Song X, Tseng B. Why We Twitter: Understanding Microblogging and
Communities; Proc. Joint 9th WEBKDD and 1st SNA-KDD Workshop; 2007.pp. 56–65.
Bandura A. Social Cognitive Theory. In: Vasta R, editor. Annals of Child Development. Vol. 6.
1989. pp. 1–60.

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Y