WRIT 1133: WRITE A RESEARCH PAPER!

In his study conducted in 2014, Philip K. Masur noted three intrinsic needs human needs to satisfy in their everyday lives: the need for autonomy, the need for competence, and the need for relatedness/belongingness. Our research question was: “Is the need to belong so great yet so unmet in some that fulfilling the need with social media becomes an addiction and therefore becomes a need in and of itself?” To study our question of whether or not an intrinsic need can be satisfied in an online context by using social media, Snapchat specifically, we conducted six interviews that asked questions about how, when, and why people use it. We each interviewed one male and one female and separated our findings into different categories. The categories are: boredom and Snapchat usage, snap streaks, Snapchat providing a sense of belonging, and posting snap stories that are funny. We noticed comparatively similar behaviors in some participants as well as some discrepancies. We also noted some gaps in the questions we asked and realized different and better ways we could have asked questions to get more in depth in our research.

METHODS

Owing to the time restrictions we had, our research methods really lacked sample variety (for the lack of a better word) and more than that, due to the nature of our study that required us to ask questions that may have come across as rather personal, all of us felt like there was an involuntary guard our participants put up, despite of the fact that they were otherwise really close to us.

Our primary method was quite unembellished and involved interviewing people on their Snapchat use and the feelings that follow with the same. However, what we lacked in method complexity, we hope, we made up for in “having heard from the horse’s mouth” and artful extraction of information. We interviewed a total of six people, three girls and three boys in order to get a balanced report. The process started with deciding whom to interview. Narrowing down everyone we closely associated with on a daily basis, we made mental lists to see who used Snapchat how much, whether they posted stories or not, if yes, how often did they do so and if no, then why not? Was it a dominant aspect of their personality that we already knew of, which readily explained why they didn’t? How much did they use other social media, how much did they use their phones and whether or not they were innately private people who wouldn’t offer much information in the interview itself. Once we fixated on the categories, we cemented on, or at least tried to cement on one person who fit in at least one of the categories, so that, despite our scanty interviewee pool, we had a broad range of answers to be able reach an informed consensus.

Once the interviewees were decided upon, we had a little mulling to do in the sense that we needed to decide where and when we would interview them. The first thing we all immediately agreed upon was that, if we were going to interview the said person during a class day, it would be definitely be after class since anyone interviewed in between classes would unconsciously be thinking about his/her next class and not given us their full, undivided attention, which would have definitely been a hindrance and the time would also preferably be right after or a little after the person was done with class so that their minds are unencumbered with obligations and homework for the next day. However, if the interview was conducted on the weekend, any time during the day that is suitable to both parties was considered okay. And as far as the where part was concerned, we made it a point to interview each party in their own room, just because that’s where they would be most comfortable and that is where they would feel most in charge. This aspect was really important to us as we were going to be asking very personal questions and we did not want to make our respondents feel as if they were losing this certain sense of power they have by being made to or having to answer questions that ventured beyond what would come up in a normal, day-to-day conversation.

The questions that we asked were framed like “How often do you check your phone?” How often do you post a story on Snapchat” or “Who is your best friend on Snapchat? Talk about your relationship with them?”

Owing to the nature of our research question, we were aware that our questions would cross the line, if only by a little on the “intimacy” aspect, but we made sure that we extracted the information we needed in a very artful way and didn’t come across as particularly nosy. And because of that, it was very careful to maintain a certain level of “casualty” in our questions so when we asked them, they felt like questions a friend would ask, rather than an interviewer.

As far as our follow up on our questions is concerned, that is an area we believe is where we lacked a little since our heads were so wrapped up in keeping it casual and not coming across as particularly nosy that it either slipped our mind or we deemed it inappropriate to pry further.

Another thing we used in order to gather information is that we asked our friends, any friend who was willing to do it for us, to maintain a journal of some sort for about a week about what they snapchat, whom they snapchat and most importantly, what they post in their stories. This was the most invaluable data we collected since it gave us a peak into the unconscious doings of our subjects as opposed to the interview, which, while helpful gave us data that came from a relatively guarded source.

RESULTS

One common theme we found between our results was that people check their phone, specifically Snapchat, out of boredom and that the amount of time they spend checking their phone positively correlates to how bored they are. The first male participant reported that “most of the time [he] just uses his phone when [he’s] bored.” The next mention of using Snapchat/social media in general is from the next male participant who stated he found himself pulling out his phone “mostly when [he’s] bored.” Although we would have to conduct more research to definitively find out the truth behind this idea, we hypothesize that this may be evidence of a relationship between males using their phones more out of boredom rather than just for purposes of unnecessarily checking it. Again, this is a stretch and there is a gap in our research, but we would then hypothesize that females are more likely to spend unnecessary time on their phone checking random things as well as keeping tabs on everyone. However, the next time there is a reference to boredom and technology use, it comes from a female participant stating that they “only watch entire stories when [she’s] really bored.” The same participant then mentions getting annoyed at unnecessary snap story content and that they won’t pay attention to an entire snap story unless they’re really bored.

            We also found a relationship between several of our participants and how seriously they take their snap streaks. One participant mentioned being upset about losing a snap streak with a friend. Three participants in a row mentioned a snap streak they have with a friend; two male participants and one female participant. A snap streak refers to how many days two people have been snapchatting each other and wherever the person is listed in your friends list, it will show the amount of days your snap streak has been going on for. It is then followed by a set of emojis that are indicative of just how close your snap friendship is. For example, a yellow heart next to someone’s name means that you are each other’s best friends on Snapchat. A red heart would mean the two have been best friends for at least two weeks. Other faces include the face with sunglasses, a grimacing face, a smirking face, pink hearts, etc. We did not dig any further into the existence of people’s snap streaks and what they mean to them but if we were to research it further we would ask questions like: “what emojis are next to the names of their friends?” and other questions about how they view their friendships on Snapchat. We would then dig further by asking questions about whether or not they feel a deeper connection with those they have a significant snap streak with and for what reasons they feel more connected.

            Regardless of whether or not their friendship warrants a snap streak, every participant we interviewed confirmed that social media, Snapchat in particular, gives them a sense of belonging and relatedness. As illustrated in a study done by Bauermeister and Leary (1995), it’s a psychological need for humans to have interpersonal connections and relationships with others and one male participant noted that “it’s a way for [him] to connect with people [he] wouldn’t normally see or talk to every day.” The next female participant noted that “as a principal social media can create an online community for people to connect to.” We concluded that in general, people feel a greater sense of belonging when they use Snapchat to communicate and keep up with what people are doing. Our fifth participant observed that “an immediate way to get to know a person is to add them on Snapchat because it’s a casual way to get a peek into their lives and see what they’re about.” If given the opportunity to conduct further research on this question, we would ask about the interviewee’s offline activities as well to get a better sense of where in their lives some intrinsic needs are being less fulfilled than others. We would ask about whether or not it’s a specific person that makes them feel a greater sense of belonging or if it has more to do with the structure of social media that gives them this sense.

            In addition, almost every participant we interviewed stated that when they post a snap story, it’s because they think something is funny and they want their friends to see. They also stated that when they watch snap stories, they expect to see something funny and are disappointed or click through it when it isn’t funny. There were six mentions of snap stories being funny, the highest quantity of mentions in any category. This question was regarding the creation of snap stories as well as the viewing of them. One participant noted wanting to show of her sense of humor in her snap stories and using satire or irony as a way of doing so. Most participants acknowledged that humor is a big part of their snap stories, but that they’re also a way of showing off something cool that they’re doing or seeing. A female interviewee mentioned that when she goes to view someone’s snap story, she’s expecting to see something funny and is disappointed when it’s not funny or it’s excessive. She also said that “[she’s] never super engaged in someone’s story.” To research this further, we would ask questions about whose snap stories they watch first, how likely they are to watch the stories until the end, whether or not they click through the stories and don’t pay attention, etc.

            One discrepancy we noticed between participants was for what reason they check their phone. Although many confirmed that they check their phone out of boredom, one participant acknowledged her phone usage as a way to combat awkwardness. This is an interesting idea and if given more time we would research it further to understand the occurrence of it as well as the validity of it as a truth for a greater amount of people. There was also a discrepancy between how often our participants use their phones.

            The theory of self-determination (Ryan & Deci, 2000) is the theory that the three basic intrinsic needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness even exist. Our results are reliant on the belief that these needs exist and that humans cannot satisfy any further needs until the most basic ones have been met and the results we gathered make sense with the self-determination theory as a prerequisite to our research. A study done by Sheldon et al. (2011) looked into what role Facebook played in terms of promoting higher intrinsic need satisfaction in the category of relatedness and they concluded that Facebook does in fact give individuals higher levels of feelings of relatedness. This is consistent with the conclusions we drew regarding people’s use of Snapchat to fulfill intrinsic needs.