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Social media and the future of communication

During the pandemic lockdowns many of us realised how important social media is to keep us connected to our communities and the world at large. It served as a window out into the world while we were contained in our homes and for many it was an irreplaceable lifeline.

For years before the pandemic social networking has been evolving and expanding as it’s been supported by the growing framework of technology. It’s no longer just a simple service of connecting users with each other, but also connecting users to businesses and services. These new technologies are often referred to as social networking+ (Yang and Lin, 2022). An excellent example of this is the Chinese application WeChat.

WeChat logos (Source: Adsmurai.com)

WeChat was originally built as a simple social networking app but has since then expanded its services to stretch into every aspect of its users’ lives. This expansion was tied to the Chinese government launching the Internet Plus action plan which aimed to integrate the Internet with traditional industries and the social sectors (Lee et al, 2019). WeChat now offers access to features such as news, entertainment, shopping, finance services like mobile top-up and taxes, travel, and health services such as booking your doctor’s appointments. This mega-platform has fully entwined itself into the daily lives of the Chinese population (Chen et al, 2018).

Some services offered within WeChat (Source: JingDaily.com)

A section of the population finding this expanded service very helpful is the disabled community. Traditionally people with disabilities (PWD) have been regarded as “other” and have faced discrimination through social barriers, cultural taboos, and failure of policies (Lin et al, 2018). The status of the over 85 million disabled citizens in China is similar to the western countries despite the Chinese government having 5-year plans to ease disabled living and setting out plans in the last few decades to construct a more barrier-free environment. These unfulfilled plans often leave PWDs unable to access facilities and limit their social participation (Yang and Lin, 2022).

Just as the rest of the world did during lockdowns, the disabled community finds social media and networking an invaluable tool to have in their daily lives. Often their particular limitations can affect a PWD’s social inclusion levels as they are unable to move around freely or are dependent on their family for support (Yang and Lin, 2022). Digital inclusion afforded by social media applications and networking have become an important mechanism against the social exclusion often experienced by PWDs (Lin et al, 2018). Of course, part of the affordances of the internet is the possibility to disguise yourself behind pseudonyms and online identities which goes a long way to combat some of the inequalities PWDs can encounter in their offline lives.

Secret identity (Source: iProov)

Armed with anonymity PWDs are able to join online communities and establish diverse relationships with both other PWDs and non-PWDs. In China these communities go somewhat deeper than in the West and aren’t just thought of as friend circles but as another family to belong to (Lin et al, 2018).

References

Chen, Y., Mao, Z. and Qiu, J.L., 2018. Super-sticky WeChat and Chinese society. Bingley: Emerald Publishing Limited.

Lee, S., Kim, H., Kim, J., Choi, J., 2019. China’s Internet Plus Strategy: Characteristics and Regional Case Study. Korea Institute for International Economic Policy.

Yang, L., and Lin, Z., 2022. The Impact of “Social Networking +” Technology on the Social Inclusion of People With Mobility Impairments in China. Social Media + Society, Vol. 8 (1). Sage Journals.

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Smartphones and their impact on written language and literacy in the deaf community

As digital technology became more prevalent in society a linguistic phenomenon known as digitalese caused concern. Anxious parents and teachers worried that text speech used on social media and instant messaging would damage the language skills of the younger population (Tagg, 2015). While the digitalese discussion was occurring in the media, another group of people were inviting the new technology with open arms.

The deaf and hard of hearing community have been hoping for technology to provide them with better communication tools for generations, but generally new inventions have fallen short of the mark. The invention of the telephone stemmed from a project intended to assist the hard of hearing and later a teletypewriter was invented but it was only able to connect to other teletypewriters (Maiorana-Basas and Pagliaro, 2004). 

An Avaya 1140 TTY UniPhone (modern teletypewriter) (Source: Amazon.co.uk)

Mobile phones and their two-way text messaging technology and more recently sign language detection and speech-to-text apps have finally provided invaluable communication aids to the deaf and hearing impaired. Studies conducted into technology use have found that teletypewriters and telecommunications devices have become less frequently used while the use of smartphones and personal computers has risen (Maiorana-Basas and Pagliaro, 2004).

Speech-to-text technology (Source: Techcrunch.com)

This new technology has proven especially useful for school age children as a platform to improve their literacy skills. Many deaf children have been taught to communicate via sign language which functions differently from spoken and written languages in aspects like grammar and word order. This results in hearing impaired learners effectively trying to learn a whole new language as they learn how to write. This puts deaf and hard of hearing children at a disadvantage, a fact that has been reported by many studies over the years (Antia et al, 2020). On average hearing-impaired children develop literacy skills slower than their hearing counterparts and it is a trend that tends to continue through their academic career.

Learning phonetics (Source: National Deaf Children’s Society)

A study conducted by Akamatsu et al (2006) on deaf teenagers found that access to two-way text messaging technology afforded them with greater freedom and independence. On top of that, students reported that using their text messaging devices motivated them to improve their reading and writing skills.

Based on studies conducted in the field, the implications of smartphone technology on the education of the deaf community could be quite important. It has shown potential to enhance language learning through access to language models and transactions between readers and text (Maiorana-Basas and Pagliaro, 2004). More research is required into smartphones supporting the language and literacy learning of the deaf community but as the Akamatsu et al (2006) study showed the impact on the participants lives has been very positive overall.

  References

Antia, S., Lederberg, A., Easterbrooks, S., Schick, B., Branum-Martin, L., Connor, C., Webb, M., 2020. Language and Reading Progress of Young Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Children. The Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, Vol 25 (3), pp. 334–350

Akamatsu, C., Mayer, C., Farrelly, S., 2006. An Investigation of Two-Way Text Messaging Use With Deaf Students at the Secondary Level. The Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, Vol 11 (1), pp. 120–131.

Maiorana-Basas, M., Pagliaro, C., 2014. Technology Use Among Adults Who Are Deaf and Hard of Hearing: A National Survey. The Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, Vol 19 (3), pp. 400–410.

Tagg, C., 2015. Exploring Digital Communication: Language in Action. Taylor & Francis Group.

Wolbers, K., 2008. Using Balanced and Interactive Writing Instruction to Improve the Higher Order and Lower Order Writing Skills of Deaf Students. The Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, Vol 13 (2), pp. 257–277

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Social media, its affordances, and my daily life

When it comes to social media the words ‘affordances’ and ‘constraints’ tend to come up in academic discussion. Predictably, constraints refer to the limitations of a communication platform and affordances refer to the possibilities afforded by the fundamental properties of the platform (Norman, 1988). A big affordance of social media is being able to present yourself online in the light that you choose. You choose which parts of your life to share with your online community and which ones you keep to yourself. This projection of image is known as self-presentation and according to Nadkarni and Hoffman (2012) it’s one of the main motivations for social media use.

Ellison et al (2006) write of social media as the perfect platform for users to build their identities by presenting alternating levels of ‘self’, from the idealised to the actual. A tool for this identity management afforded by social media is time or asynchronicity. It affords users time to tailor their responses to according to their online self-presentation setting (Valkenburg and Piotrowski, 2017). These variations of self-disclosure are usually tied to the size of the community and the personal goals of the social media user. These variations were studied by Schwämmlein and Wodzicki (2012) in different types of online communities. They categorised these communities as either common-bond or common-identity.

Discord logo banner

Personally, I engage with other users daily on a gaming social media platform called Discord. My choice of platform is less public than Twitter or Instagram and as posted content can only be seen by members of each server. I engage with people on two separate servers from the same gaming community that I belong to. The server populations range from hundreds of users to less than 10 and reflect the categories set by Schwämmlein and Wodzicki (2012). The small server is a common-bond type as its members engage in off-topic conversations and share more with each other because of closer interpersonal relations. The larger server is a common-identity type where the members feel connected because of a shared identity, in this case as members of the same company in an online game. 

An example of a common-identity community.

My self-presentation on these servers is directly tied to the size of the community; I find myself sharing and being more ‘authentic’ on the smaller server with only a few friends than on the large one with more strangers. I watch what I say and tend to my image more closely on the larger servers. This seems to be in line with the findings from Schwämmlein and Wodzicki (2012). They found that members of a common-bond community are more prone to disclosing personal information as their aims are to maintain the bond between members whereas in common-identity communities people tend to self-disclose less because their goals are more community oriented.

A smaller, common-bond group.  

How do you choose what of yourself you present on your social media?

References

Nadkarni, A., Hofmann, S., 2012. Why do people use Facebook? Personality and Individual Differences vol. 52 (3), pp. 243-249. Elsevier.

Norman, D., 1988. The Psychology of Everyday Things. Basic Books.

Schwämmlein, E., Wodzicki, K., 2012. What to Tell About Me? Self-Presentation in Online Communities. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Vol 17 (4), pp. 387-407

Valkenburg, P., Piotrowski, J., 2017. Plugged In: How Media Attract and Affect Youth. Yale University Press.