Online Journal of Health & Allied Sciences (Dec 2014)
Social Networking Among Youth and Their Communication and Conflict Resolution Skills
Abstract
Introduction: New digital media have dramatically altered the communication landscape, especially for youth. “Indian web users spend 26 minutes online each day”. This study is concerned with effect of social networking on youth regarding potential risk, safety, wellbeing & skill development because they are still maturing & forming the ability to attain & implement communication & conflict resolution skill on interpersonal level. Aim & objective: To explore the impact of social networking on communication & conflict resolution skills among first MBBS students. Material & Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out on 122 first year MBBS students using semi structured questionnaire after taking their consent. Data collection was based on purposive sampling. Data entry and analysis was done using excel and SPSS v16. Result: Mean age of participants was 17.7 + 0.62 years, All the participants 122 (100%) have their own cell phone & 112 (91.8%) were using internet. Majority of participants have their profile on Facebook 100 (81.9%) and What’s app 105 (86.1%). Twenty seven percent (33) participants strongly agreed that “people who rely on social networking are losing the ability to talk with others”, while 50 (41%) strongly disagreed to it. More than forty seven percent (58) of participants were of strong belief that “people cannot effectively solve problem using social networking”. More than half (52.4%) of participants said that “it’s easy to take things the wrong way during social networking”. Conclusion: The study shows that participants have replaced traditional methods of communication with social networking on which they spend a fair amount of time. Use of social networking sites helped half of the adolescents to open up to the world but these sites did not help much in conflict resolution as responded by nearly half of participants.
