Final Project

Social Media has tremendously influenced our generation. Throughout this course, we have examined how new media has dominated our lives. New Media has paved the way for endless possibilities. For the purpose of this presentation, we will be focusing on social media and its role in relationships. Specifically, romantic relationships and friendships with a focus on college-aged students. The first half of this analysis will focus on the media and their role in college aged friendships and the second half will focus on media and its role in romantic relationships.

I chose to analyze college aged students is primarily because the first moments of developing a close friendship in college are often difficult. Interpersonal relationships play a crucial role in late adolescents’ college experience. Successful maintenance of existing social connections and establishment of new social ties are associated with lower levels of loneliness and better adjustment to college” (Yang, Brown, Braun, 2014, p.6). Essentially, every college student wants to make these close connections because they do not want to feel lonely on campus. In addition, the article mentions that advances in “communication media” have drastically changed how we use media to communicate and make friends.  Social media allows us to find out more about an individual if we simply search them up. It can be difficult to find out more about a person by asking questions. Societal norms make us feel as if asking too many questions can make you seem nosey and leads to an awkward conversation. Therefore, it may be harder to begin that friendship because you do not know enough about the individual. This is where social media plays a key role. You are able to find out more about a person online by simply glancing at their photo than by asking them millions of questions. In addition, the study found that females tend to use Facebook in the beginning stages of their relationships. “We noticed that female college students articulated a consistent sequence in the use of communication technologies as relationships developed. They usually started communicating with new acquaintances through Facebook and then progressed to instant messaging (IM), after which they might exchange cell phone numbers and, finally, scheduled a time to meet, if everything went well” (Yang, Brown, Braun, 2014, p. 10).

Next, social media also plays a role in romantic relationships. Many college students find it difficult to have a successful relationship because of social media. In fact, social media tends to cause “trust” issues within romantic relationships. The conference paper, Trust but Verify? The Role of Social Media Use in Romantic Relationships: Attachment Styles as Predictors of Monitoring Behavior, Jealousy and Relationship Happiness by the International Communication Association reveals, “While in the past, romantic partners had to trust each other it appears that there is no necessity for trust, since social media offer a variety of features that allow users to track their partners’ activities and whereabouts. In fact, Stern and Willis found that 60% of college students have reported to use Facebook in order to keep tabs on their romantic partners” (International Communication Association, 2017, p. 7). While many romantic partners are thankful to have networks like Facebook to keep a tab on their partners, we should not ignore the fact that our generation has trust issues. In addition, social media can cause jealousy within romantic relationships. With the creation of applications such as Snapchat, users are encouraged to post pictures or send selfies to their “best friends” on the application. This can cause major issues within the romantic relationship if your “best friends” on the application are romantically interested in you.