Abstract

This study examines the effects of social media on face-to-face communication, with a case study on final year students in the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication of the University of Buea.

The study was conducted employing the quantitative research approach and the survey was chosen as the research method. The questionnaire was administered to 100 students in the aforementioned department.

Results revealed that social media has a dual implication on face to face to communication (28, 28%). However, the individual rating shows that the positive implications 48 (48%) override the negative 28 (28%). Positively, the students articulated that social media has enabled them to make new offline friends and has taught them how to enhance the quality of their face-to-face communication with their friends and relatives.

Negatively, most students preferred browsing online to communicating with friends offline, and others asserted that online communication is more interesting than offline. With these dual implications, the hope of revitalizing face-to-face communication is mild.

Thus, it is recommended that students should engage more in offline conversations than offline. This is because spending more time with friends and family engaging in face-to-face communication strengthens family ties and builds a healthier society.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the study

The nature of communication has changed significantly over the last few decades with the advent of the internet and mobile communications. These communications technologies (CTs) are becoming increasingly popular across the globe (Dutton & Blank, 2013) with millions of subscribers.

Due to the advent of these technologies, individuals rarely have times to communicate with peers, family members, and love ones. They spend a greater proportion of their browsing on social media platforms such as Facebook with the aid of their mobile phones or computer gadgets.

Beebe, Beebe, and Redmond (2005) articulated that interactions among friends and family members have been dramatically altered by the introduction of the personal computer and computer-mediated communication (CMC). “It is a typical scene in modern families these days that the father may be watching the news on the television, the mother is busy fiddling with her smartphone, the sons are fighting aliens on the game console and the daughter is playing with the applications on her tablet. Every eyeball is looking at some sort of screen” (Shout, 2012 in Joo & Teng, 2017 p.28).

Similarly, Subramanian (2017) asserted that there seems to be no time for people to even pause and greet each other when they come across friends or acquaintances. “Everyone wonders as to what has happened or is happening…we are all aware of the reasons.

Social media is steadily but surely impacting the way we live and communicate with one another,” (p.70). The author furthered that digital devices have made our lives apparently easy but actually complicating it perhaps beyond control. Today’s social interaction mostly takes place online.

Online interaction is intriguing. It is common to see an individual with over five thousand friends on social media such as Facebook. Subramanian (2017) describes this as one of the biggest changes brought about by social media on communication.

“Because of social media networks, we are now able to interact with thousands of people all over the world – this is why we see people who have thousands of Facebook friends or tens of thousands of Twitter followers. Without social media, that would be impossible. Social media networks allow us the opportunity to share opinions with a far wider audience” (p.72).

Although some social media users have thousands of Facebook friends, hypothetically, such users do not discuss with approximately ten percent of the friends they have online. Most often, the friends are people they have never seen, met or discussed with offline. Others go to point of accepting friend requests on Facebook with those they do not relate well with physically. This makes social media communication a kid’s play.

Subramanian (2017) articulates that children’s face-to-face communication has equally been affected by social media. According to the author, children contact their friends in the neighborhood through mobiles only. They have also become victims of the digital revolution that is fast spreading across societies.

Nie and Erbring (2002) found that the more time people spend using the internet, the more they lose contact with their social environment. This is another way of illustrating that social media has an influence on face-to-face communication. In a follow-up study, the authors discovered that time spent online competes with, rather than complements, face-to-face social time (Nie, Hillygus, & Erbring, 2002).

In addition, Schiffrin, Edelman, Falkenstern, and Stewart (2010) found that heavy use of the Internet is associated with reductions in the likelihood of visiting family or friends on a randomly selected day.

Lee (2009) equally argued that online communication displaces time with parents, though not with friends. Lee’s articulation implies that social media users are spending most of their time online than offline with their parents. This study is still unexplored in Cameroon. This gave the researcher the motivation to carry out this study.

1.2 Statement of the problem

The advent of the internet is fast eroding the intimacy and length of face-to-face communication among youths. This is worrisome considering the value of face-to-face communication on individuals’ psychological and behavioural development.

Worse still, the problem persists as more and more individuals are signing to different social media platforms daily. It is very common to see people together seated together holding their phones and probably smiling and laughing sporadically. In such context, one may think that the reason for their laughter or the cause of their smiling is because the person close by the hand said something funny.

In most cases, this is not the case because although they are seated together, they are concentrating on their phones or chatting with their peers online and not with the person physically closed to them. This is saddening because as it promotes “physical isolationism” or “I don’t care behaviour.”

Although this scenario is common in society today, it has been underexploited in the academic field especially in the Cameroon context. Most of the evidence that exists on the effect of social media on face-to-face communication is largely anecdotal. This gives more impetus to the researcher to engage in this study.

1.3 Research questions

1. To what extent does social media affect face-to-face communication?
2. Which social media platform do students use most?
3. What can be done to revitalize face-to-face communication amidst the growing popularity of social media?