Internet's Influence on Social/Interpersonal Skills

In their article Social Consequences of the Internet for Adolescents, Valkenburg and Peter offer a hypothesis regarding how Internet communication enhances the relationships and, by extension, well-being of adolescents who are users. They begin by addressing former views on the social impact of Internet technology, which mainly demonstrated that offline social interaction could be impeded by Internet communication with strangers (Valkenburg 152).

Today, this is not as prevalent an issue because online communication has been focused as a medium for interaction with pre-existing friends and a way to meet people one is likely to meet offline as well.

This societal shift provides the basis for the positive impact of online communication that is the focus of the article. Three assumptions form a hypothesis that essentially states that disclosing personal information to one's friends online is a positive way to build relationship quality and personal well-being. These assumptions connect by process of successive reasoning, but the generalized nature of the conclusions draw skepticism as to how they would be formulated.

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Finally, after explaining that social interactions are improved by "online self-disclosure" (Valkenburg 153), the article discusses under which individuals may get the most benefit from online communication, specifically mentioning gender differences, social anxiety levels in adolescents, and the type of technology being utilized. It postulates that boys benefit more from online communication than girls because they have more significant self-disclosure issues (Valkenburg 154) as well as that people with high levels of social anxiety for the same reason.

At the advent of widespread Internet use, like often happens with new technologies, research was conducted about the negative impacts on the average user.

Correlations were drawn between heightened Internet use in adolescents and minimized social interactions offline (Valkenburg 152). In retrospect, this seems like a relatively unimportant observation because now the way people use the Internet has changed greatly. Had the predicted trend continued, humanity could be presently living in a very isolated world indeed.

However, computer-assisted communication has instead shown widespread benefit: it has united people instead of isolated them. Now, as the article points out, "adolescents' online communication stimulates, rather than reduces, social connectedness" (Valkenburg 152). The initial trends still hold true for people who use the Internet as its initial users did when only "11% of adolescents were online" (Valkenburg 152), but the vast majority of people now use online communication technology as part of this more modern network. It is to this group of users that the article attempts to apply its hypothesis of online communication being positive. The hypothesis itself relies on three assumptions.

The first is that "online communication stimulates online self-disclosure" (Valkenburg 153). Evidence for this assumption was found through studies that showed that computer-mediated communication is "typically characterized by reduced visual, auditory, and contextual cues" (Valkenburg 153), making users feel less inhibited by observations of others' reactions to them. The second assumption connects quality of relationships with how much online self-disclosure is involved in the relationship. This is the piece of the article that prompts the highest level of skepticism.

Thirdly, the article connects high-quality relationships to general well-being of an individual. This point relies on correlational data that those who have "high-quality" friendships tend to be happier than those that do not. This assumption also makes sense. These points are called "assumptions" for a reason: they are more based on connecting data from various studies that seem to report parallel findings than conclusive evidence demonstrating a direct relationship between well-being and online self-disclosure. (Valkenburg 152-154)

While the article does recognize that it only studied the use of instant messaging, which is known to be more personal (and mildly outdated) compared to profile-based social networking like Facebook or Twitter, the assumptions made in the article seem to exclude other factors that should be considered in matters of online communication.

Firstly, the article mentions that online self-disclosure among adolescents is especially important because they are the group for whom "shyness and self-consciousness are inherent to their developmental stage" (Valkenburg 153). This statement seems to be more based on stereotypes than evidence, as these characteristics are not necessarily "inherent" to all adolescents. The article also does not address the concern that disclosing significant personal information online, whether one considers oneself to be "close" with the recipient or not, carries a certain risk to it. Face-to-face conversation is much more certain as far as who will be hearing (or reading) what is said. It is sometimes important to have private information as well, and while self- disclosure is important to build trust in a relationship, the internet is not necessarily the best medium to do so.

The second issue with the article's assumptions is that it attempts to compare the "quality" of friendships without explaining how this is determined for comparison. The article seeks to objectify the dynamically changing process of friendship. Based on real-world experience, it seems that it's communication and mutual compassion that build a friendship, no matter how these aspects are met. Self-disclosure online may be one way to increase communication, but it cannot rival spending time with a person as far as "relationship quality" goes.

Internet communication is more useful as a network-based communication tool than a way to improve one's individual relationships with others. It may increase socialization, but it does not necessarily increase "quality" of socialization. While an individual may feel less inhibited online, they may also accidentally say things that are hurtful; interpersonal skills rely heavily on non-verbal communication, something a computer screen is unable to provide.