Journal Article Assignment: Part 1
In the fast-changing social environment, people usually underestimate the influence of social media channels on their behavioral and emotional balance. This study “Stress and Its Impact on Social Media Usage” examined the relationship between stress and social media usage, whether stress was an indicator of social media use. Besides, the study tested moderators of the relationship between stress and social media usage. The authors determined that soliciting social support contributed to an increased use of social media. Moreover, the more and more increased usage of social media was related to greater frequency and strength of evoking continuous behavior.
The authors of the article, Bryan Denq, and Wenchen Denq are brothers who today pursue their bachelor’s degrees in California. Bryan is a student at California State University, in Northridge, with major in Psychology, Children and Adolescent Development. His brother, on the other hand, is pursuing his bachelor in Luskin School of Public Affairs, University of California, Los Angeles. Despite their young ages, they have proven to have the ability to be published in a big professional journal and to have a future research career in social media communication field. It seems obvious that growing field of social media research is getting more and more attention, however, then there is still a little amount of good qualitative and quantitative researches on the described theme – the impact on users’ behavioral and emotional balance. “Psychometric Properties of a Scale Measuring Social Support from Significant Others on Facebook” is another article of these two authors, who seems to have a determined interest in social media influence. Their main purpose is to analyze the social media channels as a source of social support, that focus on different ways of social media usage as a support attribute.
The Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (JTWC), that published the article, is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal, and one of several prestigious international scholarly journals in the field of technical and professional communications. JTWC covering themes on management, communication, journalism, and government. Being a big part of SAGE Publications, JTWC aims to meet the diverse communication needs of the industry of communication and interdisciplinary studies. The purpose of this particular journal is to publish communication-related issues with thorough analysis of social media and technological tools of exchanging information (e-mails, chats, variable boards). The journal was created for practitioners and teachers of most functional forms of communication. The website, sagepub.com states, "the JTWC"s mission is to publish peer-reviews cutting edge research on communication-related issues, as well as relevant materials on the teaching of technical and professional writing and reviews of recently published books" (sagepub.com, 2018). The last edition of the Journal of Technical Writing and Communication was dated October 28, 2018, however, the article on social media impact and its influence on stress level dated in April 2018. The April issue has several articles, most of them oriented toward technological communication sphere, social media, and data. Per instance, Instructional Design for Online Learning Environments and the Problem of Collaboration in the Cloud by Brad Mehlenbacher, Ashley Rose Kelly and Developing Strategies for Success in a Cross-Disciplinary Global Virtual Team Project: Collaboration Among Student Writers and Translators by Yvonne Cleary. The journal tries to meet diverse and multiple needs and essentials of the communication industry. The journal seems, therefore, keeps pace with the times while maintaining an analytical perspective on current issues of social media influence in discussing and studying the fast-growing and fast-changing social media atmosphere. A reader should have a clear understanding of intelligible authors' point of view on such current themes.
The chosen article have a significant impact on the topic of social media dilemmas. It is still unclear for us how exactly social media can affect, distress and manipulate a human being and vice versa. Does Stress increase the use of social media and vice versa? Why Stress increase the use of social media? These and other question authors raise in the article with the depth explanation based on quantitative research data. There were a total of 201 participants (94 men and 107 women). A majority of the participants were between the ages of 25 and 34 years and the majority of the participants had at least a bachelor degree. It's stated that this study uses an experimental stress induction and measures later Facebook uses as well as a number of other psychological factors (e.g., habitual behavior, social support seeking). However, authors didn't have a chance to look through other social media resources, such as Instagram or Snapchat, which are considered more teenage-oriented. Assumingly, the multiple choice of collected from various social media resources data could provide the research with more complexity and intricacy. The argumental part of the article shows sign of being genuine and authentic since it was collected with a qualitative approach and among a diverse group of people who use Facebook on a day-to-day basis.
The measures that the authors used in their research seem reasonable: Perceived Stress Scale, the Social Media Use (SMU) Scale, Awareness of Network Life Events Scale, Emotional Support Seeking Scale, the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support Scale, the International Positive and Negative Affect Schedule Short Form Scale, the Self-Report Habit Index, the Questionnaire of Smoking Urges, the emphatic concern items from the Empathy Questionnaire: Second Version, the Self-Report Activity Scale, , the Online Perception Importance Scale, where all of it was created by other researchers in the last couple of years. Regarding the analysis methodology, the authors evaluated hypotheses they made before with the help of collected data. The authors found out that there is a positive relationship between the seeking of social support and social media usage. That seems relatively convincing in view of the fact that usage of social media as a tool for encouraging became a second nature for people, it can be seen with the rise of the number of dating apps and online forums with particular themes.
The article mostly proves multiple opinions on the related topic of social media usage and its influence on behavioral conditions that could be found on diverse platforms. For example, many types of research concentrate on the social media influence of a person's mood, however, not a lot of works actually analyze our behavioral actions and its significance in social media operation.
While many of use social media to feel connected to others, it can also leave people feeling frustrated, lonely and depressed. So it's vital for researches to analyze thoughtfully the connection of these components of our life.
To continue the evolution of social media researches, scholars should concentrate on psychological methods mostly and the reason is that the fast-changing environment requires a more analytical approach to behavioral tactics' investigation. It aims to develop concepts and measurement tools for deep social media influence analysis where scholars will be more solid with the results.
References: B. Denq, W. Denq, W. Hsu, Stress and Its Impact on Social Media Usage, Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, April 25, 2018.
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