Research Paper on "Affects of Technology"

Research Paper 9 pages (3207 words) Sources: 9

[EXCERPT] . . . .

The review of the previous literature on this topic were used and analyzed to frame the possible research questions for this study.

Analysis

So far the study has examined the various previous literature and research that was done earlier but in the recent few years -- between 2010 and 2014. The study chose those researches that represented impact of Whatsapp on various sections of the society. This would help in the analysis of the impacts from multiple aspects and which would provide a complete and overall picture of the impact on the society as a whole and particular sections of the society at the same time. This way it would be possible to justifiably answer the research questions as would be evident in the analysis of the secondary data collected as follows.

One of the primary impacts that this internet-based messaging and multimedia service has been able to impose on society is to increase the level of communication. As Plana, Gimeno, and Appel (2013) described, Whatsapp has been able to connect people to a greater degree than was earlier possible. It has become a means of getting in touch with people and of the members of the society instantly and has complemented, if not replaced, the traditional means of communication like phone calls, sms-es and letter writings. It has certainly had an impact on the social meetings of people. Whatsapp has to an extent increased the level and degree of communication between individuals in the society that we choose to communicate with.

This has been made possible primarily due to the ease of use of this medium and the cost effectiveness of the medium. This is reiterated by the research of Church and Oliveira (2013) in Spain which concluded that the users chose to adopt and extensively use Whatsapp due to the convenience in communications and the low costs and cost efficiency of the application.

In both the studies of Plana, Gimeno, and Appel (2013) and Church and Oliveira (2013), the researchers used people from a wide ranging 20 to 60-year-old of age. This indicates that the results of the research were applicable to the cross section of the society in terms of age. Te age factor was also evident in the study by Soliman and Salem (2014) in Riyadh where the 450 respondents were between 18 and 55 years of age. This means that the communication impact of Whatsapp is applicable to people of all ages in the society.

According to researchers this impact on communications has helped to better the society and empowered the people of the information age. The people are more empowered with more information through communications. Examples in recent years are evident in the spring revolution and where Whatsapp, along with other social communication media helped a revolution that resulted in overturning of regimens in some the Arab countries a couple of years ago. Hence when Plana, Gimeno, and Appel (2013) claims that whatsapp has given a sense of empowerment to the people in the society along with a sense of belongingness and helped them to be more sociable through the quick information-sharing, their conclusion seems to be quite accurate.

Another impact that Whatsapp has had on society is that it has created a sense of belonging to users and individuals in the virtual space as well as the feeling of a bond that was secure and committed. This is so because apart from personal one to one messaging, Whatsapp also allows users to be part of groups and participate in the group conversations. Hence a sense of belonging is developed by the users in the virtual space, according to O'Hara et al. (2014).

Another impact of Whatsapp on the society is the development of a sense of identity of the users. As identified in the literature section, according to Bere, (2012), users the aspect of group texting ability that is allowed by Whatsapp has helped users to shape the way that one perceives oneself in the virtual space was well as the manner in which one is perceived by the other users in the space.

The ease with which Whatsapp allows people to connect with each other and the process of comfortable messaging at low costs has given individuals to influence intimacy with each other over the application. As is evidence from the study of Yeboah and Ewur, (2014) who state that lovers and even people who flirt with each other has found it comfortable to get in touch with one another. Hence Whatsappp has influenced and impacted the privacy of individuals in the society.

This online applciation is primarily used on smartphones and ever since smart phone became affordable. It has become a very popular mode of communication and sharing among students. Soliman and Salem (2014) said that students in Riyadh adopted and uses Whatsappp due to the ability of the application of sharing of jokes and funny messages. Another study on South African students found that Whatsapp has left a profound impact on them and the students believed that this medium is able to provide ubiquitous learning through it messaging service and hence the student felt benefitted. Therefore, it can be said that Whatsapp has had an impact to the students who believe that they can gain academically by its use.

Devi and Tevera (2014) made similar conclusions about the impact of Whatsapp on students in the society and said applications like Whatsapp and Facebook were regularly used for communication and information sharing about academic topics.

Another impact that this online messaging and chatting service has had on the students is an increase in the eagerness to learn English among those students for whom English is a foreign language. As Plana, Gimeno and Appel (2013) concluded form their studies that the rampant use of Whatsapp had increased the confidence level and interest in the reading of English through WhatsApp messages.

However, there have also been negative effects of Whatsapp on the students. As mentioned in the literature review section of this study, Yeboah and Ewur's (2014) study claims that while there was an improvement in English among the students, it resulted in students getting more and more distractive and inattentive. The students generally tend to get distracted from studies and other assignments that they were completing and the students were not making proper use of language, spellings and grammars. The students also were observed to lack a general focus towards lectures.

Implications

The implications of the impacts of Whastapp on the society are therefore varied and obvious on one hand while with the possibility of varying from person to person when observed on a personal basis.

The impacts can be summarized as follows.

1) Impacts Cross section of society -- it is not only the young people in the age group of 15 to 25 that are avid users of Whatsapp. Research has found that even people engaged in building their careers and even older people have adopted Whatsapp for its ease of communicating and inexpensiveness. Hence a wide ranging people in terms of age are impacted by the advantages and disadvantages of the messaging system.

2) Makes people more informed -- in the age of communication and information, Whatsapp has emerged as a tool that can give information the users. The messaging services can serve to provide critical information while people are on the move. This service is alerts people through its instant messages.

3) Empowers the society -- as the saying goes, knowledge is power. In the present communication age, be it business or the general population, individuals have a definite leverage over others who possess information. Whatsapp helps in gaining information and empowerment.

4) Detaches people from personal meetings in society -- as people tend to spend more time contacting each other over the internet using Whatsapp, the requirement of meetings face-to-face with each other has been reduced, if not eliminated. Hence people communicate and share information over whatsapp that otherwise they would have delivered through personal meetings or in groups. When people reduce physical personal or group meetings, there is bound to be detachments from society to a certain degree.

5) Students gain in academic exchange -- Whatsapp allows students to exchange educational and academic matters and discuss issues. Hence students can gain academic knowledge through sharing via Watsapp.

6) Students get distracted from studies -- as students engage more and more on exchanging messages n Whatsapp, they tend to pay lesser attention to the traditional ways of academic knowledge gain -- [primarily in the class. Hence it is observed that students get inattentive and their level of distraction is enhanced.

References

Bare, A. A Comparative Study Of Student Experiences Of Unquitious Learning Via Mobile Devices And Learner Management Systems At A South… READ MORE

How to Reference "Affects of Technology" Research Paper in a Bibliography

Related Research Papers:

Technology in the Classroom Research Paper

Technology in the classroom has now become almost necessary in order to proceed with a course efficiently. Teachers have now incorporated technology not just to keep up with the changing… read more

Research Paper 2 pages (869 words) Sources: 2 Topic: Education / Teaching / Learning

---

Technology in the Workplace Research Paper

Technology in the Workplace

Robots in the Workplace Decrease Human Jobs

In this essay, I have discussed the robotics technology and how it has affected the position of human labor… read more

Research Paper 9 pages (2858 words) Sources: 8 Topic: Career / Labor / Human Resources

---

Technology for Students With Disabilities Research Paper

Technology for Students With Disabilities

In our modern society, there is integration of technology into education programs as well as practices in for the purpose of facilitating learning to students… read more

Research Paper 11 pages (3214 words) Sources: 9 Topic: Education / Teaching / Learning

---

Technology in the Workplace Research Paper

Technology in the Workplace

The last thirty years have seen a dramatic transformation of the workplace, because the advent of ubiquitous personal computing and the inter-connectivity offered by the internet… read more

Research Paper 9 pages (2715 words) Sources: 6 Topic: Management / Organizations

---

Technology for Management Essay

Technology in Management

The Fargus Benevolent Fund is a regional specialty insurance company providing weekly-premium health insurance primarily to lower-income customers. They currently operate on a large mini-computer system that… read more

Essay 6 pages (2751 words) Sources: 6 Topic: Business / Corporations / E-commerce

---

View 100+ more related papers  >>