Name : Vianisa Putri Rahayu

NIM : 190210401097

The Effects of Social Media on Communication Skills

With the emergence of Facebook, the way people communicate with each other changed
forever. A social network allowing users to share the events of their lives through posting photos
and status updates, to monitor the lives of their friends, and to communicate directly via a built-
in messenger has revolutionized Internet communication, causing millions of people all over the
world to share all kinds of information about themselves. There were, of course, other social
networks before Facebook, but none of them garnered such a significant user base, remained as
persistent, and continued to act as an effective form of communication as much as Facebook did.
Along with Facebook, currently there are many other social networks, each with their own
features and purposes; what unites them all, though, is the idea of sharing. Seemingly, this
should positively impact the communication skills of users, since it allows communication even
for people far away from each other, or who are unable to communicate live. However, there
have been numerous research studies proving the opposite: social media platforms not only
impair a user’s ability to share thoughts, but distort communication processes, creating more
problems than they solve.

Social media and online communication is believed to be having adverse effect on social
skills and communication among adolescents. Long ago, the time when social media did not
exist and social communication and interaction were the only way of communication.  In the era
of technology, social media interactions now dominates both online and offline conversations. In
a society where interacting and over-sharing is the norm, you are probably more likely to speak
to friends and family through electronic devices than face-to-face. Often at events or parties,
guests are attached to their smart phones twitting or texting, but no one is truly engaging or
interacting with the people around them. As more generations are born into the social age, social
media will continue to be the favored communication form among young people. However, this
shift may begin to affect their ability to properly communicate in person with peers.

Speaking of the positive effects of social networks, they lie on the surface. According to
surveys, 39% of respondents reported feeling closer to their friends because of social media,
while 26% of the sample felt that they had more friends because of social media (NR
Media). Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other similar services make daily communications
between family members, friends, and business partners easier, more accessible, and independent
of circumstances, such as distance. Communities existing on such platforms unite people sharing
similar interests or concerns, and allow the representatives of various cultural backgrounds to
reach each other with no constraints. Helping strangers meet and enabling initial communication
between them—this is what social networks are definitely good for.

At the same time, numerous research studies prove that social media platforms negatively
affect people’s social skills. Probably the most alarming phenomenon connected to the extensive
use of social media services is the decrease in quality of interpersonal communication. One of
the big problems in modern interpersonal communication is the lack of interest people have for
face-to-face communication; even today, there are many people (especially millennials, or
younger) who prefer to solve work or personal problems via social messaging systems.
Approximately 93 percent of communication today is already nonverbal, and thus requires an
additional means of helping people understand each other (such as smileys or emojis), since text
does not convey the total palette of intonations or facial expressions. This brings up several
problems; for example, without these means, it is often more difficult to understand another
person in a messenger system (the classical “he/she did not insert smileys, so I thought he/she is
mad at me”); or, in real life, it may become harder to differentiate and understand real emotions.
According to some experts, even families prefer texting over face-to-face chat. All this leads to
difficulties in professional and personal relationships (Rampages.us).

Substituting real life experiences and events with Facebook-format online updates is another
problem. Studies show that about 11 percent of adults prefer to stay at home on weekends and
make posts on Facebook about how much fun they are having, instead of going out and acquiring
real-life experiences. According to Hussein Chahine, the founder of the service Yazino,
“Communication is constantly evolving. Some people are as used to seeing their friends’ online
avatar as they are their face […] People increasingly prefer quick and frequent engagement with
instant updates on news than a prolonged chat and are also finding new ways to catch up with
friends from the comfort of their sofa.” Mark Clennon, a graduate of the University of South
Florida, says that “People tend to want to show others that they are having fun than actually
having fun themselves […] There’s a greater desire to share with other people you barely know,
than actually hanging out with friends and making memories” (USA Today College). This is
directly connected to another problem: “Facebook depression.” Generally speaking, it is the
sense of inferiority occurring when people (teenagers, mostly) compare their real lives to the
lives of their Facebook friends—based on the posts these friends make online—completely
missing out on the fact that what they see is not necessarily true (NYBH). As a result, an
interesting and alarming phenomenon emerges: many people sit at home, busy creating visibility
of living fulfilled, happy lives, and suffer when they see how fulfilled the lives of other people
are—who, in their turn, sit at home, busy creating visibility of living fulfilled, happy lives. This
is a poignant example of a vicious circle.

Yet another impairment of communication skills caused by the extensive use of social media
platforms is the impoverishment of language. Using messengers, people often use shorthand and
shortened versions of words in order to type and deliver their messages as quickly as possible.
However, such means of communication are much less effective than conventional ones (or
rather, traditional, since contractions, slang, and abbreviations such as “brb,” “u r,” “m8,”
“dunno,” and so on have already become almost conventional), and people getting used to them
can experience difficulties in real-life interpersonal communication (Rampages.us). This is not to
mention illiteracy, which is already becoming a scourge of this generation communicating
through messengers.

Although social media may help people establish initial contact and aid people in uniting into
groups under certain interests, they also cause a number of problems. In particular, nonverbal
communication is gradually becoming one of the dominant forms of interpersonal interaction,
negatively affecting people’s ability to deal with personal contact and meet the reactions and
emotions of other people in real life. A significant percent of adults (up to 11 percent) prefer
staying at home and communicating via their devices rather than going out and acquiring real-
life experiences. This, along with “Facebook depression” and the overall impoverishment of
language and communication skills, is alarming, and requires adequate and timely measures.
Whether or not people want to accept it, social media has several negative impacts on their daily
lives. We cannot deny the fact that social platform is very helpful providing news, gossips, and
to keep in touch with friends and family, but we cannot afford it to become the focal point of our
lives. The access that people have on the internet and social media specifically has become too
easy. It has made the language lazy and thus resulting people uninterested in meeting others in
person, which eliminates any chance of deep and meaningful conversation. People have started
losing their ability to communicate efficiently, which is a testament, to what kind of total control
social media has over their lives. Overall, social media can be beneficial if used wisely and in the
proper proportion. So, it is easy to conclude that the negative impact of social media far
outweigh any benefits that they may provide to society at this juncture.