De La Salle University - Dasmariñas
COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY
Effects of Social Media on Interpersonal Communication of First Year
Engineering Students of De La Salle University-Dasmariñas
In Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements in Research Project
Submitted by:
Ditchon, Roniel Ken Cedric M.
Libao, Christian Adrian R.
Macaspac, John Joselle V.
Manalo, Denzel R.
Rosales, Shiela Mae P.
Salvatierra, Jillian Pauline R.
Submitted to:
Sir Raymond Ibasco
March 2019
De La Salle University - Dasmariñas
COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY
ABSTRACT
Students are in need to improve their interpersonal communication skills for developing
relationships with others, but more people have been inclined to the trend of using social
media for communication. Several studies have showed that it is considered as a factor
that affects the relationship between others. Difficulty in developing communication
skills may have impaired the interpersonal relationships. Furthermore, when
communicating on social media sites like Facebook, what does it help in the society,
people instantly accepted a communication platform with no boundaries, the social
media. Regardless of their benefits in connecting people around the globe, Researchers
have been studying its impact on user’s mental health and society using quantitative
approaches with other university students. However, the social media users stated that
their behaviors do no harm to their relationships. This study aimed to know the effects of
social media to interpersonal communication, with the use of quantitative method by
selecting and conducting survey to the respondents, the students along with their
interpersonal communication skills. Quantitative method was chosen to gain
understanding of the effect of the social media to interpersonal communication. The
survey was conducted in a sample population of first year engineering students, consisted
of 45 respondents in total. Results are that social have both positive and negative effects,
while it virtually brings people together but also makes the far from each other personally.
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COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY
Chapter 1
PROBLEM AND ITS BACKGROUND
This chapter includes the background of the study, statement of the problem,
hypothesis, significance of the study, scope and limitations, conceptual framework of the
study, and definition of terms.
Background of the Study
Social media utilize internet technologies to create interactive platforms via which
people share, discuss, and modify personal-generated content (Kietzmann, Jan H.;
Kristopher Hermkens 2011).
As Facebook arise the communication of people have changed a lot. Social media
allows users to share their events in lives by posting and updating status; also, to
communicate to other people even in far distances. Seemingly, communication have
moved to different level and ways. Vocabulary of people have increased, and others have
followed the trend due to social media. Regarding that, the effect of social media to
communication have been sought in different ways.
A few heroes state that there is no returning. So, if you happen to look around an
eatery you will be hard-pressed to discover individuals who don't have their heads down
utilizing their mobile phones to content, Tweet, or refresh their Facebook statuses—all
while offering a feast to others at their table. Internet has been the part of daily life of
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COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY
people which have a great impact to the society. According to Paul Booth, PhD (2010),
an associate educator of media and film contemplates in the College of Communication
at DePaul University in Chicago, internet-based life positively influences how we draw
in with each other over all settings and ages. "There has been a move in the manner in
which we impart; instead of eye to eye cooperation, we're having a tendency to lean
toward intervened correspondence," he says. "We'd preferably email over meet; we'd
preferably message over chat on the telephone."
Three key issues are surfacing regarding the job online life currently plays in
individuals' correspondence styles. To begin with, when we convey through online life,
we will in general trust the general population on the opposite end of the correspondence,
so our messages will in general be increasingly open. Second, our social associations are
not reinforced as much through online networking as they are eye to eye, so we don't will
in general develop our connections—they will in general exist in business as usual. Last,
we will in general pursue and communicate with individuals who concur with our
perspectives, so we aren't getting indistinguishable assorted variety of perspectives from
we've gotten previously. Specialists agree that the individuals who have a sharp feeling
of perception must know that individuals are changing the way they impart.
Online networking would be continuously improving as people advance to an easy
living life. They will keep on expanding the volume of the human correspondence
procedure, and we will keep on figuring out how to utilize them for good and for worse.
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COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY
Statement of the Problem
This study aims to answer the question:
What is the effect of Social Media to the Interpersonal Communication of First
Year Engineering Students of De La Salle University – Dasmariñas?
Scope and Limitations of the Study
The scope and limitation of this research focus on the first-year engineering
students of De La Salle Dasmarinas University. It is to determine how social media affects
the interpersonal communication of the students.
Significance of the Study
This study is significant to the following persons:
Engineering Students. This study can help them know what and how social
media affect their communication skills.
Netizens. This study will help inform the netizens how the communication skills
of engineering students improve or worsen.
Future Researchers. The proposed study will benefit and help them future
researcher as their guide. The study can also open in development of this study.
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COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY
Chapter 2
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES
This chapter holds related articles and studies used as a guide and reference in
conducting the current study.
Ideas and knowledge from the previous studies will provide more meaning of
what the main variables of the study. Some familiar things have been found in the studies
reviewed such as the positive and negative effects brought by the social media to the
communication skills of the social media user.
The Use of Social Media
According to Carson (2017), the publication of different social media apps and
software, the style and method of how people speak to one another has changed. As we
know, social networks allow different users to post different events of their everyday lives
through shaving images and constructing messages that shows their current status on
different social media platform. This allows people to keep track on a certain people and
gives us the freedom to communicate to those people who are out of reach, and most
important of all, it gives us the freedom to express our feelings publicly.
Based on a research study conducted by a professor on West Virginia, actions
made by an individual can be amplified by the use of social media. Significantly,
messages now a day’s does not have a specific place like in real life which has more
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contact on the sender and receiver, and the individual has the power to divide himself
from the conversation temporarily. Unlike on social media, the person cannot withdraw
temporarily because social networks are everywhere. Also, communications held on a
social media platform is delivered in a more publicize way.
Effects of Social Media to Interpersonal Communication
Communication has evolved, and it causes large changes on our communication
skills adding persistence to a single conversation with a person. This kind of way of
communicating might lead to a build-up overtime and it might increase the rate of cyber
bullying cases.
Positive Effects of Social Media
Of course, social media effects do not only bring more negative effects to the
surrounding and that is because we also have good benefits that we can get from this
technological advancement. One of the positive effects of using the social media is the
expansion of their social lives. Social media increases the number of possibilities to
interact with other people across the whole world.
According to Zaher (2009), interact among other students through social media
platforms and other conditions such as online activities are used by learners or students
to improve their skills in generating ideas to.
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Respectfully, Other researchers regards this activity as a multimodal
communication through internet and computer as part of educating and learning. In
relation to this, Abu Ghareeb (2007) stated that social media is a way to understand and
adjust on having online assessments as part of new generation learners. Also, it is
associated to a theory that was dependent on the student’s adaptation as it helps them to
interact and communicate between learners and others. Furthermore, Zamel (2013)
emphasized that social media is a way to improve the skills of users in terms of emotional,
behavioral and cognitive that would contribute to utilize active ideas and thoughts.
Evidently, social medias brought a more positive effect on communication skills
of everyone; for it allows reach out to those people who are physically far from them and
gave an opportunity to those people who can’t share ideas personally speak for
themselves.
Negative Effects of Social Media
Dwyer (2007) suggests that people misinterpret others, especially on social media,
for they have lacked social cues and they tend to be direct in expressing their thoughts
even without considerations. This leads to misunderstanding and offensiveness towards
each relationship and might have been prevented if social cues were present.
Although, many research studies show that social media only brings negative
effect on the user’s communication skills such as the distortion of communication process
which builds more conflict relaying one message to the other instead of making it easier.
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COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY
Some scholars have suggested that social media lessen the interaction among
people personally. Kraut, Brynin and Kiesler (2006) stated that communication platform
has been changed to internet ones that replaced interpersonal relations. Berker (2006) also
discussed the effects that social media and the internet on the families: “The people within
the family have been more open to social media rather than on family, in which they
cannot determine the behavior of a person within their scope.”
Another Negative cause of the social media to individual communication skills is
the internet addiction. This addiction is now labeled as mental illness which deters
someone to interact with people personally with the person around them which leads to
an emotional shutdown.
There are also effects that are neither positive nor negative, like the changes it
brought to this generations writing style. It makes writing more summarized allowing us
to construct shorter messages and disregard things like grammar use.
Synthesis
As of today, millennials can now interact with hundreds of thousands of people
simultaneously without having to speak to them face to face. It also increases the speed
and reach of the messages as if the world is getting tinier and tinier as our technology
grows. Even though social network does contribute on establishing first contact and helps
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us unite, it also provides a bunch of problems too. Particularly, interpersonal interactions
are moderately accepting that one of its dominant form todays is nonverbal
communication which affects the proficiency of a person to personally interact and
witness the emotions of different human beings in the real world. This, along with all the
loss verbal communication is very terrifying, and it needs enough and appropriate amount
of care in using social media.
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COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY
Chapter 3
METHODOLOGY
This chapter shows a detailed presentation of the methods and procedures
employed in the conduct of this study This chapter represents the research design,
respondents of this study, research locale, research instrument, data gathering procedure
and statistical treatment of study were all used in conducting the current study.
Research Instrument
Online survey forms were used to gather data in this study. A questionnaire
containing 10 questions, was adapted on the study of Britt, Milissa. (2017), S, A. M., &
V. L. (2017), and Drussell, John. (2012) and used to gain the information that will come
from the answers of the respondents.
Research Design
The research design to be used is an instrumental case study because the study
will be focusing on the insights of a topic or issue, redraw generalizations, or build theory.
In this study, the group would be evaluated are the 1st Year Engineering students of De
La Salle University-Dasmarinas. The group is to be given a set of questions that would
lead to the effects of social media in their interpersonal communication.
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COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY
The independent variable in the study is the effects of the social media to the
interpersonal communication of the students whether it be positive or negative, while the
dependent variables would be the participants for the survey.
Respondents of the Study
The Freshmen Engineering students in De La Salle University – Dasmariñas
were the respondents of the study. The population sample of accommodated by this
research is 45 students.
Research Locale
The study was conducted in De La Salle University – Dasmariñas Campus,
DBB-B, 4115 West Ave, Dasmariñas, Cavite.
Research procedure
The data is going to be collected by conducting surveys on 1st year Engineering
Students of De La Salle University-Dasmarinas. A portion of the research group will be
assigned to distribution and collecting of survey forms to the respondents. The data
collected from the survey will then be tallied and analyzed.
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COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY
Chapter 4
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
This chapter presents, analyzes, interprets, and discusses the data gathered in this
study. This chapter also presents the information that give answers to the questions raised
to identify the correlation between the two variables being discussed.
Problem. What is the effect of Social Media to the Interpersonal Communication
of First Year Engineering Students of De La Salle University – Dasmariñas?
Way of Communication
According to the data gathered, 97.8% or 44 out of 45 of the sample population
have agreed that the way of speaking interpersonally was affected by the social media.
According to a survey (Hanke 2018), 74 percent of Millennials prefer communicating
using social media and mobile phones rather than in person. Regardless that, 68.9% of
the respondents have also agreed that social media reduces social distance. Moreover, the
social media do not hinder the way of having face to face communication of Freshmen
Engineering LaSallian Students. Out of 45 students, 26 have prefer to keep in touch with
others by talking personally which help builds better relationships.
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Generally, it has affected student’s communication skills either improving or
being depreciated. The want for instant information changes the ability to clearly
understand ideas implied when speaking to others.
Positive Effect of Social Media to Interpersonal Communication
Students have positively affected by the social media by having their
communications skills and interpersonal relationships improved, and their self-
confidence increase. Most of the first-year engineering students, strongly agree that their
communications skills have improved with the percentage of 40, 37.8% remained neutral
and less have disagree. Respondents have also agreed that their thinking skills have
improved with the help of social media, 20 students have remained neutral, 19 students
have agreed, and others have disagreed.
Social media help improved the quality of relationship between users (Sponcil
and Gitimu 2012) Somehow, students tend to use one-way interaction instead of two-way
interaction. Most of their time of surfing social media simply to read others newsfeed and
profile. According to Zaher (2009), social media accessible for learners are helpful for
making their thoughts and ideas organized for communication purpose, as for De La Salle
University – Dasmariñas, the school offer the Schoolbook for alternative learning agent.
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Negative Effect of Social Media to Interpersonal Communication
Students of De La Salle University – Dasmariñas responded dominantly neutral
on relying too much on social media, out of 45 first engineering students 20 have been
neutral, 15 students agree that they rely too much on social media and 10 do not rely. This
shows that most students have been communicating through social media rather than face
to face interaction. People depend much on the use of internet platform rather than having
a personal communication to other people, and “as Social media become more developed,
its movement of another activities becomes more significant” (Brynin and Kiesler 2006).
Also, more studies supported that more people have been engaged more on using social
networking sites rather than face-to-face meeting to other people for learning, business
and personal purposes.
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COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY
Chapter 5
CONCLUSION AND RECCOMMENDATION
This chapter includes the summary, findings, conclusions, and recommendations
of the research study.
Summary
The main objective of the study is to determine how social media affect the
interpersonal communication of first year engineering students. The study also wants to
determine the positive and negative effects of social media and determine how
engineering students can improve their interpersonal communication skills. The
respondents in this study focus only the first-year engineering students of De La Salle
University Dasmarinas and among all the first year engineering students only 45
students are the respondents which are picked randomly. A questionnaire was used to
fulfil the objectives.
According to the data gathered, 97.8% or 44 out of 45 of the sample population
have agreed that the way of speaking interpersonally was affected by the social media.
Out of 45 students, 26 have preferred to keep in touch with others by talking personally
which help builds better relationships.
For the positive effect of social media to interpersonal communication, most of
the first-year engineering students, strongly agree that their communications skills have
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improved with the percentage of 40, 37.8% remained neutral and less have disagree.
Respondents have also agreed that their thinking skills have improved with the help of
social media, 20 students have remained neutral, 19 students have agreed, and others have
disagreed.
For the negative effect of social media to interpersonal communication, Students
of De La Salle University – Dasmariñas responded dominantly neutral on relying too
much on social media, out of 45 first engineering students 20 have been neutral, 15
students agree that they rely too much on social media and 10 do not rely.
Conclusion
Social media has been here for a short period of time. It has both positive and negative
effects especially for the users, majority are teenagers and young adults. In this study
the researchers find the effects of social media on intrapersonal relationship of freshmen
engineering students of De Lasalle University Dasmarinas by conducting a research
questionnaire.
In conclusion, the social media effects the intrapersonal communication both
positively and negatively. Social media affected intrapersonal communication a lot.
Majority of the students improved their communication skills by using social media. It
boosts their self-confidence while communication to others and it affected them
positively. On the other hand, social media slowly is dominating communication rather
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than face to face communicating. Majority of the students rely on social media rather
than face to face communication. The internet or the social media has become the better
platform for communication and replaced the face to face communication.
Recommendation
The researchers recommend to the future researchers to augment more ideas and
have more respondents who will participate in the study for better and more concrete
results. The future researchers can also add questions for the questionnaire that can help
for getting the results.
The researchers also recommend that future researchers should expand the scope
of the variables they would use and the factors they would consider and check to produce
results that could be even more universally accepted.
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References
“The Impact of Social Media Use on Social Skills.” New York Behavioral Health.
N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2017
“The Negative Impacts of Social Media on Face-to-Face Interactions.”
Rampages.us. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2017.
“Viewpoint: Why Social Media is Destroying Our Social Skills.” USA Today
College. Gannett Satellite Information Network, 18 July 2014. Web. 27 Apr.
2017.
Abu Ghareeb, A. (2007). Trends in pre-school child education in some countries
of the world. Fifth Annual Scientific Conference, Pre-school Child Education,
Reality and Future Aspirations Cairo: The Book Center for Publishing in
cooperation with the National Center for Educational Research and Development.
Berker, T. (2006). Domestication of Media and Technology. Maidenhead, UK:
Open University
Press.
Booth, P. (2010). Digital Fandom: New Media Studies. New York, USA: Peter
Lang.
Britt, Milissa. (2017). Effects of Social Media Use On Interpersonal Relationship
Satisfaction.
Drussell, John. (2012). Social Networking and Interpersonal Communication and
Conflict Resolution Skills among College Freshmen. Retrieved from Sophia, the
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COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY
St. Catherine University repository website:
https://sophia.stkate.edu/msw_papers/21
Dwyer, C. (2007). Digital Relationships in the ‘MySpace’ Generation: Results
From a
Qualitative Study. In Pace University.
Hanke, Stacey (2018). “How Social Media Affects Our Ability to Communicate.”
Thrive Global, thriveglobal.com/stories/how-social-media-affects-our-ability-to-
communicate/.
Kietzmann, Jan & Hermkens, Kristopher & McCarthy, Ian & Silvestre, Bruno.
(2011). Social Media? Get Serious! Understanding the Functional Building
Blocks of Social Media. Business Horizons. 54. 241-251.
10.1016/j.bushor.2011.01.005.
Kraut, R., Brynin, M., & Kiesler, S. (2006). Computers, Phones, and the Internet.
Oxford
Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press.
S, A. M., & V. L. (2017). Impact of Social Media on Interpersonal
Communication. Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research, 3(7). Retrieved
from https://www.onlinejournal.in/IJIRV3I7/027.pdf.
Sponcil M, Gitimu P. (2012) Use of social media by college students:
Relationship to communication and self-concept. Journal of Technology
Research; 4:16-28.
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COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY
V. V. (2015). IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON INTERPERSONAL
COMMUNICATION PATTERNS (Master's thesis, Institute of Philosophy and
Sociology, University of Latvia, 2015) (pp. 134-136). Lomonosova 1/5, Riga,
Latvia: The University College of Economics and Culture. DOI:10.13165
Zaher, G. (2009). Electronic Approaches. Cairo: The World of Books.
Zamel, M. (2013). Trends of students of the Faculty of Educational Sciences
(UNRWA) towards integrated learning. Journal of the Union of Arab Universities
in Amman, 59.
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COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY
APENDIX
Questionnaire
Gender: ___Male ___Female
1. Do you think that social media influences way we speak and write in our everyday
lives?
o Yes
o No
2. Do you use smileys or other inserts when writing e-mails, SMS, twitter messages?
o Yes
o No
3. When text messaging do you think of the grammar rules and punctuation?
o Yes
o No
4. Do you post personal information on social media?
o Yes
o No
5. Do you agree with a statement that social media minimize social distance?
o Yes
o No
6. “I prefer to keep in touch with others by” Please rank the statements using a scale
1-5, with 1 being your most preferred choice and 5 being your least preferred
choice.
_____Texting
_____Facebook
_____Talking in person
_____Phone
_____Email
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Please read each statement and mark the number that most applies to you using the
following scale:
1-Stongly Disagree 2-Disagree 3-Neutral 4-Agree 5-Strongly Agree
7. I’ve improved my ability to work
1 2 3 4 5
out problems by using social media
8. I rely too much on social media to
1 2 3 4 5
stay in touch with people
9. I’ve improved my ability to
1 2 3 4 5
communicate by using social media
10. I feel out of touch with others
1 2 3 4 5
because of social networking (texting,
Facebook)