Social Media Applications Research Proposal - University

This research proposal outlines a qualitative study focused on the impact of message wait times on the relationships of university students using social media applications. It explores the factors influencing social media usage, the role of various socio-technological theories, and the effects of wait times on student interactions. The proposal employs interviews with students and a teacher, considering ethical guidelines. It utilizes the social shaping of technology theory to analyze how technology, particularly messaging apps like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, shapes student interactions. The study aims to understand how technological issues affect the social dynamics of university students, considering the implications for their relationships and overall social media usage.

Running head: RESEARCH PROPOSAL: SOCIAL MEDIA APPLICATIONS
RESEARCH PROPOSAL: SOCIAL MEDIA APPLICATIONS
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1RESEARCH PROPOSAL: SOCIAL MEDIA APPLICATIONS
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Literature Review............................................................................................................................2
Research Questions..........................................................................................................................4
Methodology....................................................................................................................................4
Ethical Considerations.....................................................................................................................5
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................5
References........................................................................................................................................6

2RESEARCH PROPOSAL: SOCIAL MEDIA APPLICATIONS
Introduction
The study is a proposal that has put forward and evaluated the framework that would be
used to analyze the given topic in the future. The topic of the research is selected as the time
between messages on social media apps and its implications on the relationships between
university students. Social media apps are some of the most widely used by the youth. The
university students form a large part of the social media community. The functions of messaging
is important to keep the audiences engaged and at times the people engaged with the various
pages or individual profiles do not provide fast replies. This issue is also related to some
frequently malfunctioning social media applications. The study would focus on understanding
how the wait times between messages occurring due to social media mismanagement or
technological glitches can impact the development of positive relationships between university
students. The implications derived from the study would be used to analyze the major issues
associated with social media usage.
Literature Review
The study would consider four principle theories for effectively analyzing the most
important aspects connected with social media technology and analyze the subject in regards to
one theory selected from among them. These theories are technological determinism or TD
theory, social shaping of technology (SST), Social Construction of Technology (SCoT) and
Actor Network theory. The social shaping of technology theory would be used to effectively
analyze the subject matter of the study. Social shaping of technology is concerned with providing
more attention to the characteristics of technology and technical aspects. The social shaping of
technology theory is concerned with the fact that various political, social and technological
players interact with each other to shape the social usage of technology. Hence, it counters the
theories that state that society is shaped by the discovery of technology as many technological
discoveries have not been accepted by the society in the past.
According to Cheng, Fu and de Vreede (2017) social media communication are a
complex processes and goes through various different phases in accordance of the relationships
that are created between people. In this light the technological and social contexts that interplay
with each other need to be found. Accordance Vorderer, Krömer and Schneider (2016) opine that
the social media usage patterns among university students have increased manifold in the last

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decade. A large number of university students are permanently online. This brings to the front
the necessity to understand the social interaction patters with the applicable theories such as the
technological determinism and social shaping of technology theory. The development of
technology in accordance of the consumption or usage patterns of the students have been a
significant focus of the various social networking sites. Brooks (2015) opines that social media
usage among the youth have been related towards the creation and shaping of new cultural
trends. The social shaping of technology theory would be used to assess how the university
students are affected by the wait times they have to face in the various social networking
messaging applications. The usage of SNS messaging technology has caused significant
interplay between the social factors and the availability of technology. How messaging
applications have shaped the modern interactive setup in the youth community would be greatly
emphasized in the study.
In this case the actions of the university students and the general youths can be
considered to be important towards the development of the messaging and posting functions
available within the various Social networking sites (SNS) and other messaging applications.
The theory and the literatures that are considered for the study will be able to shed more light on
the interactive nature of SNS technology. However, at the same time the effect of wait times
concerning the social media messages on the relationships of university students need to be
considered more critically to develop better notions of social media messaging application usage
and development. According to Imran et al. (2015) SNS message wait times are important at
crisis times. This is because more rapid messages and communications are required at this time.
Hence, these are times when the relationships between the university students can be affected by
the wait time on social media. Wait times can be present on a number of occasions, these include
payment wait times for OTP generation, SNS site malfunction, information generation waiting
times and other important areas. In this case there can be disruptions in the smooth flow of
communication (Berger et al. 2018). The idea is to explicitly apply the Social Shaping of
Technology theory to the context of social media messaging service usage. The Social Shaping
of technology theory is important in determining the value of the social and political interactions
that take place ultimately resulting in the formation of newer technologies and optimizations as
per the audience requirements. The theory would be effective in determining both the

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relationships that are existing among the employees and the ways in which the relationships are
affected by technological disruptions.
Research Questions
 What are the factors that influence the usage of social networking sites among the
university students?
 How many students use social networking sites and other related messaging applications?
 What are the activities that are present concerning social media message application
usage among the university students?
 How to university students interact with each other through the usage of the social
networking applications?
 How can the various socio-technological theories be applied to understand the social
media oriented behaviors of the university students?
 How are wait times of applications such as Facebook messenger, Whatsapp and Hike
viewed among the university students?
 What are the issues that are related to wait times between messages on social media
applications?
 What are the issues that emerge from the wait times of social media apps?
 How do these issues affect the relationships between the university students?
 What are the implications that can be gathered from the relationship between technology,
technological issues and the social interactions of university students?
Methodology
The study would employ qualitative research methods for analyzing the subject matter.
Qualitative method that would be utilized for the study would use various sources of information
to derive the theoretical aspects that would help greatly in the evaluation process. Additionally,
the relevant literatures that have considered both the theoretical and practical applicability factors
concerning the study would be utilized to bring forward essential implications. The study would
also consider qualitative data to develop better understanding of the subject matter.
The tools that would be used to conduct the qualitative research would be interviews. 3
interviews would be held among 2 university students and a teacher. The respondents would be

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selected on the basis of their usage of SNS technology for teaching, learning or casual
performances. The interviews would help to develop better understanding of the technological
factors that affect the relationships between the students. The respondents have been selected on
the basis of their practical usage of social media. The interviews would be 10 minutes long for
each of the interviewees. The interviewees would be asked about their own experiences with the
messaging applications and their observation of either their fellow students or in case of the
teachers, their students.
Various journals and books would be consulted to develop better ideas of the theoretical
aspects. The methodology has been chosen on the basis of the effective implications that can be
derived from them for the study. The social shaping of technology theory would be considered to
be the most important factor while assessing the study. The interviews would provide more
detailed idea of the effects of message wait time on the relationships between university students.
The data generated from the interview would be analyzed through thematic analysis.
Ethical Considerations
Considering the fact that the study would employ the interview technique for deriving
essential implications, it is important to note some of the ethical considerations. The interviews
would be done with proper permission of all the people involved. No personal information of the
interviewees would be revealed to the public. There would be no form of external or internal
force given to the interviewees to present their opinions. The researchers would not manipulate
the data generated from the interview and the data would be presented as it is. The socio-
technological assemblage would be taken into consideration to address the most important
ethical issues that can emerge from them. The interviews would be done in an environment that
would be safe for both the interviewees and the interviewer. The conversation would be kept as
formal as possible and sensitive information would not be discussed if not absolutely necessary
in the context of the study. The privacy of the interviewees would be respected. The interviews
would be held in environments that are not provocative and would consist of only the interviewer
and the interviewee in an open surrounding inside the University Campus.

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References
Berger, C., Calabrese, R., Ellul, J., Adorno, T., Horkheimer, M., Barthes, R., Ong, W., Luhmann,
N. and Castells, M., 2018. Communication theory.
Bibri, S.E. and Krogstie, J., 2017. On the social shaping dimensions of smart sustainable cities:
A study in science, technology, and society. Sustainable Cities and Society, 29, pp.219-246.
Brooks, S., 2015. Does personal social media usage affect efficiency and well-
being?. Computers in Human Behavior, 46, pp.26-37.
Cheng, X., Fu, S. and de Vreede, G.J., 2017. Understanding trust influencing factors in social
media communication: A qualitative study. International Journal of Information
Management, 37(2), pp.25-35.
Fulk, J. and Connie Yuan, Y., 2017. Social Construction of Communication Technology. The
International Encyclopedia of Organizational Communication, pp.1-19.
Imran, M., Castillo, C., Diaz, F. and Vieweg, S., 2015. Processing social media messages in
mass emergency: A survey. ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR), 47(4), p.67.
Müller, M. and Schurr, C., 2016. Assemblage thinking and actor‐network theory: conjunctions,
disjunctions, cross‐fertilisations. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 41(3),
pp.217-229.
Rip, A., 2018. Technology as prospective ontology. In Futures of Science and Technology in
Society (pp. 135-155). Springer VS, Wiesbaden.
Vorderer, P., Krömer, N. and Schneider, F.M., 2016. Permanently online–Permanently
connected: Explorations into university students’ use of social media and mobile smart
devices. Computers in Human Behavior, 63, pp.694-703.