Vanness Liu Synthesis Letter

Primary Topic: How does the internet supplement our ability to communicate face-to-face?

Research Questions:

1. How does the internet let us connect with others? 
2. Does the internet strengthen our community as a whole?
3. Do generation Z prefer communication through the internet or face-to-face?
4. What does it mean to be a “heavy internet user” or “newbies” and how does that differ from others?
5. Why is there often the negative connotation around the use of social media?

Dear Professor Beacher, 

While researching how the internet assimilates and supplements our ability to communicate face-to-face I came across multiple sources that taught me more about my topic. Allowing me to be more specific about my research question and also expand the sub-questions that I need to address in my essay. Out of those multiple sources, these four are what I believe not only addresses my topic but also supports a connection between them.

The first article, by Wellman, addresses how the internet affects our voluntary community participation while placing emphasis on the difference between “heavy-users” and “newbies”. Wellman explains that while we might see an increase in heavy-users voluntary participation in the community there is isolation in “newbies”. This is because newer users report to be more stressed out when using the internet and harder to connect to a community. The second article, by Baym, further the first article in exploring the different factors that need to be isolated to properly analyze the effect of the internet on face-to-face communication. Not only do we need to determine how often they use the internet but also take into account which platform they use, what they use it for, and when studying the social ability we also need to understand the relationship they have, whether they are speaking with family, friends, co-worker, or schoolmates. The first two articles help me simplify my topic, as well as understand that I need to address more factors that play a role in determining the effect of the internet. 

Article three, by Downey, talks about the term “social ability”. He mentioned that because of the difficulty of conducting an experiment on the internet on the ability to communicate face-to-face there isn’t any real data. This is why today’s term for social ability is determined by teachers and parents. This connects with the fourth article, by Westerman, because he brings up the idea that many of the negative misconceptions are started by parents and teachers. We were taught to believe that face-to-face is the optimal form of communication while the internet is a distraction. Article four is also an important article because it talks from the viewpoint of the students. Generation Z is one that is known to grow up with the internet and a generation that is highly assimilated with the internet as we grew up with it. So it is important to have evidence and support from their viewpoint.

Overall, while studying and researching more about my topic I learned a lot more about the internet on users. I learned that there are multiple factors that need to be taken into consideration when discussing this topic, which is why I decide to focus more on college students and mention differences between different platforms and how the internet affects face-to-face communication for specific relationships. 

Sincerely 

Vanness Liu