An Exploration of Young Adult Online Behavior Versus Their Face-to-Face Interactions

This non-experimental study examines the online behavior of young adults versus their face-to-face interactions. A social media survey was sent to undergraduate students of two private universities in the Midwest via e-mail. A total of 1,365 undergraduates participated in the survey. Analysis of the surveys found that 99% of the undergraduates considered themselves honest people. A chi square test comparing male and female responses revealed that honesty does not depend upon gender. A question of whether a person would say mean things to or about a person in a face-to-face encounter was compared with the question of whether a person would say mean things to or about a person through social media. The results were significant for both male and female responses. A question of whether a person flirts more through social media than face-to-face was compared to whether the respondents thought they represented themselves the same online as in the real world. The results were significant for both male and female responses. The research shows that young adults’ behavior online differs from their face-to-face interactions. FACE-TO-FACE INTERACTIONS AND ONLINE BEHAVIOR TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Chapter 1: Introduction.1 Definition of Terms.6 Statement of the Problem.8 Scope of the Study and Deliminations.8 Significance of the Study.9 Methods of Procedure.9 Chapter 2: Literature Review.11 History of Social Media.11 Deception with Social Media.19 Cyberbullying.20 Sexting.23 Narcissism.24 Harmful Effects of Social Media.25 Positive Uses of Social Media.27 Summary.28 Chapter 3: Methodology.29 Rationale for the Method.29 Population of the Study.30 Rationale for Population.30 Description of the Sample.30 Methods of Sampling.31 FACE-TO-FACE INTERACTIONS AND ONLINE BEHAVIOR Procedure.31 Instruments.31 Data Collection Methods.31 Relevant Ethical Considerations.31 Methods of Data Analysis.32 Chapter 4: Results.32 Descriptive & Inferential Results.32 Improvements.40 Chapter 5: Summary.41 Interpretation of Results.41 Relation of the Results to Literature.43 Biblical Integration.44 Strengths of the Study.49 Limitations.50 Suggestions for Future Research.50 References.52 Appendices.62 Appendix A.62 Appendix B.63 FACE-TO-FACE INTERACTIONS AND ONLINE BEHAVIOR List of Tables Table Page 1. Demographic Characteristics of Participants.33 2. Perceived Honesty Compared With Lying Face-to-Face orOnline.37 3. Verbal Mean Behavior Face-to-Face vs. Verbal Mean Behavior Online.38 4. Flirtatious Behavior Online Versus Perceived Online Behavior.39 FACE-TO-FACE INTERACTIONS AND ONLINE BEHAVIOR List of Figures Figure Page 1. Highlights of major social media site launches.18 2. Primary Mode of Social Media Interaction Among Undergraduate Students.34 3. Frequency of Gender and Perceived Honesty of Undergraduate Students.35 4. Frequency of Lying Face-to-Face vs. Lying Online of Undergraduate Students.36 5. Frequency of responses to survey question ten.39 6. Frequency of responses to survey question eleven.40 FACE-TO-FACE INTERACTIONS AND ONLINE BEHAVIOR 1 Chapter 1: Introduction Young adults are fervent communicators. They have an innate desire to constantly communicate with their closest peers. While that desire has not changed in the past twenty years, the method of communication has changed dramatically. In the 1980’s, a typical college student would communicate with their friends either in a face-to-face encounter or over a land-line telephone. Today, however, digital media has become central to the way young adults experience their peer relationships. Friends use mobile phones, social networking sites, and instant messaging platforms to “hang out” with each other around the clock (Giglietto, 2011). Digital media has become so prevalent in the lives of American young adults that being online is almost synonymous with having a presence on a social network site. A survey by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project in 2012 shows that young adults are more likely to use a major form of social media than any other age group. Fully 83% of online young adults are users of social media sites (Duggan & Brenner, 2013). Digital media has given young adults the opportunity to communicate with their peers more with their thumbs than with their tongues. In fact, text messaging has become the most popular mode of communication among young adults in America. Among 18-24 year olds, cell phone ownership and text messaging are nearly universal: 95% own a cell phone and 97% of these cell owners use text messaging. Young adults create the largest number of text messages on a daily basis than any other age group. For example, 18-24 year olds send or receive an average of 109.5 text messages per day, which works out to more than 3,200 messages per month (Smith, 2011). FACE-TO-FACE INTERACTIONS AND ONLINE BEHAVIOR 2 Statistics show that young adults, specifically those in the college age group, are the most active users of social media. This presence of technology in the lives of young adults has added a new dimension to how they interact with each other in relationships. Young adults can choose to be one person in their face-to-face interactions and then choose a different online persona. To date, little research exists that explores how young adults online behavior contrasts with their face-to-face interactions. Young adults’ online activity, especially when it involves risky behavior, is a constant source of concern for college educators, employers, and the media at large. At-risk behavior via social media is a growing problem, because an increasing number of young people use cell phones and other interactive devices as their main form of social interaction (Hinduja & Patchin, 2011). As technology advances, three areas of concern emerge when exploring how young adults communicate online as opposed to their face-to-face interactions. These three areas are cyberbullying, sexting, and narcissism. Cyberbullying can come in many forms. A young adult might e-mail, text, or tweet hurtful or intimidating messages to another person. Young adults might create a video, a web page or a profile on a social media site that makes fun of another person. These online actions often have costly offline consequences, even to the point of the victims committing suicide. In 2011, an exploratory study of cyberbullying with undergraduate students revealed that 54% of the respondents knew someone who had been cyberbullied and up to 34% had been cyberbullied themselves. The main avenues of bullying were cell phones