Ulyana Shirokova Paper #4 Measurement Paper Social Media effects Social Media is human communication of sharing information about yourself on the internet. It is the biggest element in our lives at this moment. We can get any kind of information we want to now about the other person. In the past decades friendships, dating, childhoods have been evolving in very unexpected ways as a result of technological advances. In which ways does social media/technology affect mental health of its user? The theoretical framework that I will be using is Symbolic-Interaction Approach. I chose it, because it analyzes society by stating their personal opinions and wha they believe, even though it might not be true or correct. That is exactly what I need during this research, because we will be discussing a very important topic - mental health. I chose quantitive analysis due to me wanting to know the answers of people in different states in America, different genders, different racial backgrounds, ages 15-25. I will be using proportional quota sampling, because if I would chose something more random, I wouldn't have control over the study, and because I can get 10 same people with same opinions, and I would like to avoid that by choosing different states, genders, backgrounds… The strength of this design is, the control the researcher has over it. If it wants to research black males from 18-25 years old, he can. Other types of sampling have their strengths in different ways. My study population will be from 4 different states: California, Illinois, Florida, New York. 40 people from each state which are: Latinos, Whites, Blacks, Asians. 5 people of each gender of each state will participate, ages 15-25. The two studies that would describe my study population would be the study “Social media addiction and how it affects our lives” (Tunc-Aksan and Akbay 2019). These are college students, ages (18-23). The two finding of the study are: first cause of addiction to social media is the addiction to smartphones; the second result showed us, the “fear of missing out”. I will be collecting my own data because, I am very passionate about this topic, and want to create and analyze answers myself. I will submit IRB application to collect data on human subjects. The reason why I would make my own question is answered below, this subject interests me a lot, and with my questions I want the participants to realize the amount of time they spend on social media and change their lives for the better. My ten questions will be: 1. When did you get your first smartphone? 2. When did you create your first social media account? What was it? 3. How many hours do you spend on social media in a day? 4. Are you satisfied with your social media usage? 5. How many times do you check your phone in one hours? 6. How do you feel when you use social media? 7. How long would you be able to put your phone down for? 8. How ma ...

1. Ulyana Shirokova
Paper #4 Measurement Paper
Social Media effects
Social Media is human communication of sharing information
about yourself on the internet. It is
the biggest element in our lives at this moment. We can get any
kind of information we want to
now about the other person. In the past decades friendships,
dating, childhoods have been
evolving in very unexpected ways as a result of technological
advances. In which ways does
social media/technology affect mental health of its user?
The theoretical framework that I will be using is Symbolic-
Interaction Approach. I chose it,
because it analyzes society by stating their personal opinions
and wha they believe, even though
it might not be true or correct. That is exactly what I need
during this research, because we will
be discussing a very important topic - mental health. I chose
quantitive analysis due to me

2. wanting to know the answers of people in different states in
America, different genders, different
racial backgrounds, ages 15-25.
I will be using proportional quota sampling, because if I would
chose something more random, I
wouldn't have control over the study, and because I can get 10
same people with same opinions,
and I would like to avoid that by choosing different states,
genders, backgrounds… The strength
of this design is, the control the researcher has over it. If it
wants to research black males from
18-25 years old, he can. Other types of sampling have their
strengths in different ways.
My study population will be from 4 different states: California,
Illinois, Florida, New York. 40
people from each state which are: Latinos, Whites, Blacks,
Asians. 5 people of each gender of
each state will participate, ages 15-25. The two studies that
would describe my study population
would be the study “Social media addiction and how it affects
our lives” (Tunc-Aksan and
Akbay 2019). These are college students, ages (18-23). The two
finding of the study are: first

3. cause of addiction to social media is the addiction to
smartphones; the second result showed us,
the “fear of missing out”.
I will be collecting my own data because, I am very passionate
about this topic, and want to
create and analyze answers myself. I will submit IRB
application to collect data on human
subjects. The reason why I would make my own question is
answered below, this subject
interests me a lot, and with my questions I want the participants
to realize the amount of time
they spend on social media and change their lives for the better.
My ten questions will be:
1. When did you get your first smartphone?
2. When did you create your first social media account? What
was it?
3. How many hours do you spend on social media in a day?
4. Are you satisfied with your social media usage?
5. How many times do you check your phone in one hours?
6. How do you feel when you use social media?
7. How long would you be able to put your phone down for?

4. 8. How many of you friends don't have social media accounts?
9. How many people do you know that deleted social media
accounts?
10. How many Instagram-stories do you post per-day?
I will try to find someone online and ask them if they can talk
over the phone or Skype,
answering a couple of questions for a study. These question will
take you maximum 10 minutes
to answer.
Quantitative research is considered more reliable than
qualitative study. This is because a
quantitative approach aims to control or eliminate extraneous
variables within the internal
structure of the study, and the data produced can also be
assessed by standardized testing. (Duffy
1985).
Quantitative research in validity might be a little weaker
because, “strength of qualitative
research is proposed in the claim that there are fewer threats to
external validity, because subjects
are studied in their natural setting. (Sandelowski 1986). Where

5. quantitative is not studied in their
comfortable natural setting, which makes it a little harder for
the researcher
The strength of my study is: This is the generation of the
“future” and “technology”, which is
very important moving forward. The biggest strength of my
study is the questions that have been
asked during the survey, there were straight to the point,
without the participant giving an
uncertain answer. (Shirokova, paper 3).
My future study will be worldwide, analyzing different
countries and their differences in this
field.
Citations
paper 3
Punyanunt-Carter. 2019. IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN
MODERN ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS.
S.l.: LEXINGTON BOOKS.
Paper 2
Min Shin, K., S.-M. Cho, Y. Mi Shin, and K. Soon Park. 2016.
“Effects of Early Childhood Peer

6. Relationships on Adolescent Mental Health: A 6- to 8-Year
Follow-Up Study in South Korea..”
Hawi, N. and M. Samaha. 2016. “The Relations Among Social
Media Addiction, Self-Esteem,
and Life Satisfaction in University Students..”
Aksoy, M. E. 2018. “A Qualitative Study on the Reasons for
Social Media Addiction..”
Tunc-Aksan, A. and S. E. Akbay. 2019. “Smartphone Addiction,
Fear of Missing Out, and
Perceived Competence As Predictors of Social Media Addiction
of Adolescents..”
Paper 1
Shin, Kyoung Min, et al. July 2016 “Effects of Early Childhood
Peer Relationships on Adolescent
Mental Health: A 6- to 8-Year Follow-Up Study in South
Korea.”
Shirokova, Ulyana
Paper #1: Hot Topics
Teens and social media.
My research question is. What are the benefits and drawbacks of
online social networking for
children?
The reason why I was interested in this topic is because I have

7. been looking at my younger
cousins and just regular kids outside, and how much they use
their phones and social media
accounts. It honestly scares me. My childhood was the furthest
thing from this, I did not have a
phone till I was about 13 years old, and the phone had
absolutely no social media. I was hanging
out with my friends, interacting with people, and learning. But I
think this new generation is not
interacting with people enough, which is going to be a huge
problem in the future . I am studying
teenagers because they are our future.
The approach that I will be looking at is Symbolic-Interaction
Approach. Which level of analysis
is micro level. And it answers questions like: How do
individuals experience everyday life? How
do individuals shape or construct reality based on their
experience? And, how do these behaviors
and meanings change from person to person?
There are a lot of reasons why teens shouldn't use social media
as much as they do these days,
but this is one of the most important reasons why. Socialization
between teens. Children’s
relationship with their peers is one of the most important things
about growing up, if they do not
get that connection with their peers it gets harder and harder to
communicate with people in their
future lives, when they will be trying to get into the school they
want or get their dream job.
According to Kyoung Min Shin, who talks about childhood peer
relationships on adolescent
mental health , those future adults are more likely to become
more vulnerable to emotional
problems and social adjustment.

8. Following bad socialization, comes social anxiety and
depression . Teens spend too much time
online worrying what everyone else thinks of them, and if they
get a couple of negative
feedback comments, they get extremely stressed out, and after
that we see the results. And that is
how and why we lose so many lives, young lives, to depression.
Why is this topic important in the society? We really need to
focus on this rising problem,
because it is the future generation of people that we are talking
about, and if everyone is going to
start getting social anxieties and depressions because of
Instagram our future is going to fall.
Shirokova, Ulyana
Paper #1: Hot Topics
Teens and social media.
We need to focus on kids, their phones, and mental awareness.
We really need to be aware of
this. I am from Russia, and no one truly talks about these
problems there, so when I came to
America I was happily surprised to see how much attention the
pay on mental issues of teens,
even though Americans might not realize it.
Of course, there are always positives. I would like to address
three of those positives. Learn
essential job skills, communication, mental health awareness.

9. My dream is to become a web developer, and it became my
dream after I read about it on social
media, where they explained how it works and why it is
important for the future. It caught my
eye, because I did not really know how programming worked,
and if I am smart enough to
become a programmer. So without it would not be possible.
Communication, is a huge positive about social media. I am a
tennis player, and tennis
tournaments are all around the world, so I had to travel to a lot
of places. Which made me have a
lot of friends from other countries, who i might never see again,
this gives me a chance to stay in
touch with them.
And honestly, for me this is the most important thing. Mental
awareness. Now in this generation
where it is so easy to hurt someone anonymously, people can
not stop doing that. Can not stop
spreading negativity, which causes mental illnesses. I have felt
that way, and I saw my friends go
through depression, and it is a very hard thing to go through
without help. At first, it is very hard
to go to a person in real life and tell the how you feel. So here
is where you use social media, to
reach out to people online who provide their help anonymously.
It helps people to open up to
them, because they do not have to know who they are.
To wrap it all up, this topic is very important to society because
we want people to be happy and
learn new things everyday. Social media sometimes does not let
us do that. I would solve this
problem with my child just by controlling the time they spend
on their phones a day, and teach

10. them things about life everyday, so they become a full-grown
person without mental illnesses.
Shirokova, Ulyana
Paper #1: Hot Topics
Teens and social media.
Citation:
Shin, Kyoung Min, et al. “Effects of Early Childhood Peer
Relationships
on Adolescent Mental Health: A 6- to 8-Year Follow-Up Study
in South
Korea.” Psychiatry Investigation, Korean Neuropsychiatric
Association,
July 2016,
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4965647/.
Guidelines – FINAL PAPER
SOC 210 - Research Proposal
[Cover page must be included in a Single PDF document]
(12-15 pages, 12-point font; double-spaced; 1-inch margins)
All components should be in a SINGLE PDF DOCUMENT
I. Cover page (see cover page template on BB)
II. Introduction: Topic, Problem or Objective (1-2 pages)
a. What you plan to study
b. Why you plan to study it (significance or rationale of

11. research)
III. Literature Review (3-5 pages)
a. What other researchers have written on this topic (ONLY
FINDINGS & CRITIQUES)
b. Must Include 5 articles & 1 book
c. What contribution will your study make to the literature?
IV. Theoretical Framework + Hypothesis OR Speculations (1-2
pages)
a. Describe what paradigm/theory will you frame your research
with (specify macro or micro and why)
b. Explain your choice and how this theory will help guide your
explanation of the relationship between the concepts
c. Specific Hypothesis (&Null) or Speculations
d. What do you hope to find?
e. How does the literature or theory guide your hypothesis or
speculations? How does your study advance the current
knowledge in the literature?
V. Research Design, Measurement, Methods, and Analysis (3-4
pages)
a. Sampling design
Units of analysis:
i. Who are your subjects? Why this study population? Provide
rationale?
ii. How you plan to reach subjects (including time dimension)
b. Data-Collection Method (what type of data collection method
you will use: For example: survey, interviews, experiment,
participant observation, primary data collection or secondary
data (using a dataset), etc.)
· Define why this measurement is appropriate for addressing
your RQ

12. · Example your recruitment strategy (e.g. flyers, an informant)
· Will you need IRB? Explain why or why not?
c. Measurement (list of key variables and how you plan to
define and measure them)
i. Independent variable(s) or Characteristics
ii. Dependent variable(s) or Primary Observation
iii. Control variable(s) or Other Indirect Observations to
Consider
d. List 5-10 example questions you hope to ask your
respondents (e.g. survey questions or interview questions or
questions from a dataset)
e. Strengths and Limitations of your Research Design
VI. Conclusion (2 pages)
a. Describe possible ethical issues with your research (potential
benefits + potential harms)
b. Imagine if your hypothesis or speculations were TRUE: State
what this would mean for POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
(State 3-4 policy recommendations)
c. Write suggestions for future research (State 1-2 future studies
to consider)
ASA style citations ONLY
· Alphabetical Order
· Hanging text