Investigating Social Media's Impact on Teen-Parent Communication

This report proposes a research study investigating the impact of Facebook and MySpace usage by teenagers on their communication with their parents. The study acknowledges the increasing use of social media among teens and its potential effects on communication skills, referencing existing research on the topic. The research will employ a quantitative approach, utilizing questionnaires administered to a randomly selected group of participants to ensure validity and reliability. Data collected will be analyzed using graphical and statistical methods, and the results will be interpreted in the context of communication theories. The study aims to contribute to a better understanding of how social media platforms influence the dynamics of communication between teenagers and their parents, particularly in the Australian context. The report includes references to relevant research papers on social media use and its effects on adolescents.

Social Research Design: principles and methods
Name
Date

Introduction and Background
Social media use, especially among tees has been on the increase, helped in part by advancements
in technology, the availability of fast Internet connections and mobile devices such as mobiles and
tablets. Teenagers spend about 27 hours online, according to reports (Anderson, 2015). In Australia,
teens on average, spend 1200 hours on social media, according to SBS News (2017).
Heavy use of social media adversely affects the development of direct and social communication
skills (Kuss and Griffiths, 2017), and can result in adverse effects in the development of cognitive,
social, and communication skills, especially among teens (Bányai et al., 2017).
A lot of research has gone into investigating how the use f social media affects the social and
communication skills among teenagers such as (Bányai et al., 2017), (Kuss and Griffiths, 2017).
Further, a lot of research has been done on the factors causing increased use of social media by
teenagers (Spies Shapiro and Margolin, 2013).
However, more research needs to be done on the specific social networking sites of Facebook and
My Space given their wide use among Australian teenagers, and specifically, how they impact
communication between parents and the teenagers.
Effective communication is defined as a two way process of communication entailing one party
sending a message in a manner that is understood easily by the receiving party
This paper proposes a research on how the use of Facebook and MySpace sites by teenagers affect
their communication with their parents
The research will be undertaken using quantitative primary research using a questionnaire
administered to the subjects. The participants will be chosen randomly to ensure validity and
reliability of the research. The collected data will be analyzed using graphical and statistical
methods and the results discussed in the context of communication theories, before conclusions are
drawn

References
Anderson, E. (2015). Teenagers spend 27 hours a week online: how internet use has ballooned in
the last decade. [online] Telegraph.co.uk. Available at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/digital-media/
11597743/Teenagers-spend-27-hours-a-week-online-how-internet-use-has-ballooned-in-the-last-
decade.html [Accessed 14 Jan. 2018].
Bányai, F., Zsila, Á., Király, O., Maraz, A., Elekes, Z., Griffiths, M., Andreassen, C. and
Demetrovics, Z. (2017). Problematic Social Media Use: Results from a Large-Scale Nationally
Representative Adolescent Sample. PLOS ONE, [online] 12(1), p.e0169839. Available at:
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0169839.
Kuss, D. and Griffiths, M. (2017). Social Networking Sites and Addiction: Ten Lessons
Learned. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, [online] 14(3), p.311.
Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5369147/.
'SBS News' (2017). Teens spend 1200hrs a year on social media. [online] SBS News. Available at:
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/teens-spend-1200hrs-a-year-on-social-media [Accessed 14 Jan.
2018].
Spies Shapiro, L. and Margolin, G. (2013). Growing Up Wired: Social Networking Sites and
Adolescent Psychosocial Development. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, [online]
17(1), pp.1-18. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3795955/.