Title of Project: Social and emotional satisfactions gained on Twitter

Topic: The use of Twitter and its effects on younger individuals.

Research Question: How do younger adults use Twitter to fulfill certain social and emotional gratifications?

How you gathered your data, challenges you faced, things you learned about research:

The collection of my data consisted of surveys completed by Twitter users and face-to-face interviews. A Facebook invite was created to get volunteers. Twitter followers were asked directly through a tweet. Challenges came from receiving a small number of volunteers than expected from Facebook, but direct Twitter friends helped me gain more people. A personal, family event caused the rescheduling of some of the interviews. I fell behind on my schedule in the completion of each phase of the research and made it difficult to catch up on time. A big part of the research demonstrated the behaviors of various individuals coming from privacy issues and eagerness to learn more, through the interview process. Individuals on Twitter are not concern with privacy because they decide what to post online. Communication on Twitter consists of journaling in public as a way to feel satisfied emotionally.

Discussion

The purpose of this study was to find out and understand the use of Twitter by individuals as a way to achieve their goals. The motivations of their use relates to the communication field, specifically the one existing in the internet. Overall, the understanding of communication is cleared up through the focus on a specific event and interactions, such as those present in Twitter. The focus on the motivations and goals of individuals using Twitter opens a path towards the comprehension of communication skills used online. We seek: How do younger adults use Twitter to fulfill certain social and emotional gratifications? Results demonstrate various ways through which these younger people achieve these satisfactions. Social and emotional gratifications are fulfilled by younger adults through perceiving Twitter as a journal. This view has allowed these people to engage in the web site by venting and exposing a desired self image. Looking at such journal as public or private depends on the user.

Based on the surveys, a large number of people kept their profile and tweets public. About 77% of individuals have their Twitter accounts opened up for anyone to see, with or without an account. The majority of people have a relatively high number of followers ranging from 300-500, who they consider mainly as friends. The majority (39%) of followers also responded that it was moderately important that their followers read their tweets, and 34% responded that it was of little importance. My expectations were that with a public profile people would post less personal information. My first thoughts included that most people would have their tweets locked and those with private profiles would tend to vent more. The data shows otherwise by demonstrating that the majority of people have public profiles and the level of importance of having their tweets read is little. 34% of the individuals answered that they vent very frequently on Twitter. This further supports the idea that individuals with public profiles do not care much about having others read their personal opinions.

Reasons may vary as to why individuals would choose to expose themselves publicly on Twitter. Wang, Fink, & Cai (2008) state that lonely people may begin to get involved in parasocial interactions. Parasocial interactions include imagining a mutual communication with another character that is actually fictional, but produced through a media. The results of this study can connect with this idea as one that can be a possible reason for the public venting. It can be that for individuals, the journal aspect of Twitter can be the imaginary element or “character” through which they have such mutual communication. Wang, Fink, & Cai mention the correlation of loneliness and dependency on internet media, which includes parasocial interactions. Accepting this view means these people would have to feel lonely in order to do this. An emotional need from loneliness can be satisfied through this interaction.

Another expectation involves this emotional issue of feeling lonely. With regards to Trending Topics (TT), I expected a lot support given to people through such aspect of Twitter. Xifra and Grau (2010) demonstrate in their study how Twitter’s TT’s are seen as medium in which individuals can engage in dialogue with others with similar interests. And through these interactions, users can find social connections. This is true, but data from my study demonstrates opposing opinions. Interviewee #3 said, “there’s a small number of people that actually really would take the initiative and personally contact another person via twitter that has the same ideas, beliefs, or interests as them.” Bartsch, Mangold, Viehoff, & Vorderer (2006) also state that Twitter consists of conversations with acquaintances. In theory, TT’s can be used to connect individuals together that have similar interests and concerns, especially to engage in a conversation that would help one of the individuals. But, in practice, it can be different as Interview #1 stated, “[trending topics] can be really pointless and they don’t even relate to anything that is really going on. I feel like it’s just a way for people to have fun.” So, the use of

Trending Topics for emotional and social satisfaction can be dismissed as a source that supports this.

In terms of emotional gratifications, we can note from the results that feeling better does not come from having others read your posts. It seems as though the majority of people view Twitter as a journal, which predominantly involves venting. But, interviewees see venting negatively or “annoying” even though they do it. Venting is seen positively when personally engaging in it, as well as when one understands why others do it. The negative perception comes from seeing the repetitive details from others, as well as the “too much information” aspect involved, as interviewee #2 mentioned. So why continue to vent? Bartsch, Mangold, Viehoff, & Vorderer (2006) demonstrate a connection between the use of media and its influence on emotions, as well as how meta-emotions enable the control of selection of the media. Media plays the role of eliciting certain emotions from people. The researchers provide a diagram that shows the process in which the change of emotions happens. For example, people would find themselves on Twitter either reading or posting and from that first experience they gain a certain emotion from being on the site. Then according to their study, they would become aware of their meta-emotions that then allow them to select the media that will give them the satisfaction they want. Comparing the willingness to vent on one website to another, Twitter seems to be preferred. Interviewee #2 stated, “people constantly write how they’re feeling about something or deep thoughts they might have on their minds. And I feel like these are things that sometimes people don’t want to post on Facebook because it’s less appropriate because Facebook is more personal or strict with the contacts you have on there, so they just post it on Twitter.” This provides support to the idea that Twitter becomes a place online which people choose to go to post things more carelessly as a way to release their thoughts. Twitter allows for 140 characters per post and the average time spent on the site is from 2.6-5.2 hours per day according to the data. The average tweets posted, based on the interview responses, is 30 tweets per hour. These results demonstrate a high level of involvement in the web site in terms of posting information. Despite continuing to look at other’s venting tweets on the site, people would continue to do so too because Twitter has become the place where they have found comfort in doing so.

At first, social gratification is not evident in the results from the survey. We can see that there’s little importance put upon others’ reading people’s tweets. From 5 options, 29.3% of people responded that they usually don’t judge others based on what they tweet. But, the interviewee responses state the opposite. The interviewees mentioned that it is easy to judge others on Twitter based on what they post, especially strangers. Friends that are known in person are judged too. But suspicion towards friends rises as soon as posts don’t correlate to the “persona” the interviewees interact with in person. Interviewee #3 said, “I begin to wonder what a friend is up to when they tweet something really different to what they would actually say in person.” But, as interviewee #1 said, “Tweets cannot be trusted. Because they can’t actually see you and what you’re tweeting, I feel like a lot of people lie about what they’re doing.” This CMC allows the possibility for dishonesty or fabrication of stories by individuals, which can be a reason why it’s not seen as a source for judging others connecting it back to the responses on the survey. This might connect to the idea of venting on the site without having to worry of others’ opinions about their tweets.  This clears up why they might choose to have their profile to be public rather than locked regardless of the number of people following them.

The CMC gives confidence to communicate with others not normally approached in person. It provides comfort to connect with others when no one is looking or when you have the protection of the distance of being online. Perez-Latre, Blanco, & Sanchez (2011) point out that finding information  and contacts on Twitter can lead to helping others with their social relationships. Interview #1 relates, “We can easily talk with someone by tweeting them. For example, I would look around for people from my class for help on assignments, but I wouldn’t actually do that in person when I see them just because it’s easier without having to talk to them in person.”

The use of Twitter includes presenting to the public a desired self image. Interviewee #2 said, “I know people that put on a false personality on Twitter and they say things to make themselves look ‘cool.’” The social need to be looked in a positive light by others persists in the responses of the interviewees. According to Bonds-Raacke & Raacke (2010) those individuals with low self-esteem improve their satisfaction through the control they gain from sharing information about themselves online. They help clarify the understanding of the use of Twitter as a way to produce information that is not real in order to present to others a face in which they would receive a social satisfaction. Interviewee #2 mentions, “[Through the tweets] people can kind of get the image of me being the life of the party and that sort of person, because honestly that’s what I want people to think of me when my name comes up. It feels better showing them that I’m always being positive.” This shows that a social need can be connected to emotional satisfaction. Interviewee #2 mentions venting as well as giving out details on what she is doing to create an image to her followers. The satisfaction would probably come as a feel-good result from comments given in person by people through their judgment of her online personality.

Twitter can be seen as a private or public journal. Young adults point out the main uses of Twitter: venting and social satisfaction. Attaining emotional and social gratifications ranges from releasing tension by posting any thoughts on Twitter, to presenting a persona that will satisfy their relationship with others. The use of Trending Topics as a great help has been negated. The finding support that Twitter is currently used a journal.

 * Bartsch, A., Mangold, R., Viehoff, R. & Vorderer, P. (2006). Emotional gratifications during media use: An integrative approach. Communications: The European Journal of Communication Research 31, 261-278.

* Bonds-Raacke, J. & Raacke, J. (2010). MySpace and Facebook: Identifying dimensions of uses and             gratifications of friend networking sites. Individual Differences Research 8, 27-33.

* Greer, C.F. & Ferguson, D.A. (2011). Using Twitter for promotion and branding: A content analysis of local television Twitter sites. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 55, 198-214.

* Perez-Latre, F., Blanco, I.P., & Sanchez, C. (2011). Social networks, media, and audiences: A literature review. Comunicacion y Sociedad 24, 63-74.

* Wang, Q., Fink, E.L., & Cai, D.A. (2008). Loneliness, gender, and parasocial interaction: A uses and             gratifications approach. Communication Quarterly 56, 87-109.

* Xifra, J. & Grau, F. (2010). Nanoblogging PR: The discourse on public relations on Twitter. Public Relations Review 36, 171-174.