Facebook and texting ‘boost friendships’

A friend was recently in uproar when she walked into the living room to find her eleven year old daughter sat on the couch with a friend she had over texting each other. This is clearly a ridiculous situation, but if we get past the concerns by this worried mother that her daughter was going to grow up with huge thumbs that will replace her ability to speak, then besides wasting money nobody knows what affect this type of communication will have on the next generations interpersonal and communication skills. But, generally the criticism of electronic communication and social media by religious figures and family spokespeople has been way over the top and have clearly been coming from people who neither use nor understand the technology.

Users of Facebook and other social media sites will tell you it is a great way of increasing your circle of friends, personally I have got in touch with a number of people from school and college who I had lost touch with and find Facebook and Twitter a great way to keep in contact with friends especially when they are abroad.

The key is making sure you build on these virtual friendships with a real life one-to-one friendships and don’t think that just because you are keeping up to date with people on social media that this is a ‘real’ friendship.

It is all too tempting to go into someone’s Facebook profile to see what they’ve been up without actually calling them or seeing them in person. Personally I have Facebook open in front of me when I call someone to catch up so that we can go through their latest holiday snaps or videos of their new baby together, in this way social media is a huge boost.

In relation to texting I don’t think that I have one person where our relationship is based solely on texting, but if it has recently then I apologise. We have all been in that situation where we are too tired to call someone so we text them. It allows us to have a quick micro-chat in the meantime, but doesn’t replace speaking to them, it’s just a stop gap. It’s great when people are family gatherings and can’t talk or it’s handing for business when I just text a client to confirm an action has been done.

Friendships need to be worked at more and more as we get older and no amount of social media or texting is going to change that and nor can replace real life contact. That’s why this article from the Sunday Times was so welcome as it reinforces to non-social media users what we already knew that Facebook and texting can actually boost friendships.

From The Sunday Times

August 16, 2009

Facebook and texting ‘boost friendships‘

Jan Battles

OMG!! Far from signalling the end of real-life friendships among teenagers, electronic communication such as texting and social networking sites promotes face-to-face interaction, research shows.

As recently as this month Vincent Nichols, Catholic archbishop of England and Wales, said mobiles and internet sites such as Facebook were “dehumanising” community life and that relationships had been weakened by the decline in face-to-face meetings.

However, a study of adolescents in 31 European and north American countries, including Ireland, has found that new technology is facilitating real-life friendships rather than replacing them. The more young people communicate electronically, the more friends they tend to have and the more time they spend with them face-to-face, it found.

Researchers surveyed more than 275,000 adolescents about their use of mobile phone, text and the internet and found a remarkably consistent trend in every country. They asked them how often they talked to their friends on the phone, sent them text messages or contacted them through the internet.

They were also asked how many close friends they have, how many days a week they usually spent time with friends right after school and how many evenings per week they usually spent out with friends.

No matter how technologically advanced the country, greater use of electronic media was associated with greater face-to-face friend contact.

“The more they use electronic media communication the more friends they have and the more time they spend with friends in afternoons and evenings,” said Emmanuel Kuntsche, lead researcher on the project whose initial hypothesis was that these communication channels were detrimental to offline relationships.

His original view tallied with that expressed by Archbishop Nichols who said: “There’s a worry that an excessive use or an almost exclusive use of text and emails means that as a society we’re losing some of the ability to build interpersonal communication that’s necessary for living together and building a community.”

Kuntsche said: “I had the impression that this is dangerous to use because they are neglecting social interactions as they have all these possibilities to interact with electronic media. My initial hypothesis was that it is bad for youth to use this excessively, however the results show the opposite.”

Johanna Clancy, 18, from Fairview in Dublin, believes social networking sites help foster friendships. Although she texts “non-stop” and goes online at least once a day she is still out meeting people “all the time”, she said.

“People who would be less outgoing socially find it easier to communicate online so it is a way to make more friends. I’ve never made a friend online that I wouldn’t have known already but I know people who have and they are friendships that are equally as solid as if you met someone face-to-face.” Alan Costello, 17, from Leixlip, Co Kildare, said: “People say you’re stuck on a computer using Twitter or MSN or Bebo but that’s not the truth. We do use it to talk to each other but it’s usually after 11pm when it’s too late to go out. Given the choice we would much sooner go and see each other in person.

Kuntsche, a senior researcher at the Swiss Institute for the Prevention of Alcohol and Drug Problems, said that while new media facilitate the acquisition of friends it also works the other way. “When you have a lot of friends then these friends push you to use your mobile phone more frequently, for example to arrange to meet them. When I look at my school days the only way to arrange to meet in the afternoon was to fix appointments at school.

“Being able to communicate electronically in various ways — owning a mobile, having frequent access to the internet — is a factor for being more popular and being included in these social relationships. Not having a mobile might be a risk for social exclusion because you do not have the possibility to fix appointments so people may tend to forget you when they go somewhere.”

The research, published in International Journal of Public Health, used data collected for the World Health Organisation’s Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study. In Ireland, 44% of 11-year-olds, 59% of 13-year-olds and 65% of 15-year-olds use electronic media communication five days or more a week.

Saoirse Nic Gabhainn of NUI Galway, who is involved in the Irish part of the HBSC project, said children have the same potential to get involved in risk behaviours such as drinking and smoking through electronic communication as meeting up with friends in real life.

“There is no protective effect in relation to risk behaviour of engaging in electronic communication as opposed to face-to-face communication. Children who use electronic communication are just as likely to be engaged in risk behaviour.”