Unleashing Creativity Through Social Media - Research Proposal

Introduction

Creativity is a crucial aspect of human life. It leads to a problem solution and is also the mother of invention. In such a scenario, human beings are encouraged to be creative in whatever they undertake, in different fields, since there can potentially come up with easier, affordable, environmentally friendly, and worthy methods of doing things, hence contributing to ease the life of humanity.

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There is an aspect of social media that has gained significant popularity in the recent past. Such progress has been observed, especially among the youth. Statistics show that 90% of the youth between 15 to 25 years have used social media. 75% of them have been reported to have at least one active social media account. Further, 51% have reported vising social media daily. 67% of their own mobile devices used in accessing social media sites due to the possession of internet capabilities. They visit social media sites to either undertake communication, get entertained, to share some files, to monitor the use of some brands by their fellows, and also as a form of social networking site where they can easily interact with their peers. Thus, basing on the high-level use of social media amongst adolescents, little is known about its effects on their creativity. Previous researches have attempted to establish such aspects as net effects of social distancing occasioned by the use of social media in communication, the relationship between the use of social media and psychological ownership motivation, psychological wellbeing from social media fatigue, the influence of social media on anxiety and depression, as well as how employees' agility can be improved through the use of social media. Thus, a gap is left on how social media influence the creativity of the adolescent population, an area proposed for study at hand.

Literature Review

In line with the proposed study at hand, there are some previous studies related to it. One of them is the study undertaken by Lim et al. (2012). In the research, there was the study of the effects of social distancing imposed by the use of real-time streaming of videos via social media sites. It was posited that social media sites, including Flickr and YouTube, have become online necessities for millions of users across the world. They enable the consumers to share opinions, contents, alongside the perspectives supporting their communication with others. It brings about a shared experience among the users. However, the article points out; its continued use has psychological distancing among the users that, in the end, reduces their quality of social experiences. Thus, it majored on the studies of psychological distancing as a consequence of the use of social media, cased on video streaming services accessed via social media sites. There was the use of inhabited space and isomorph effects as study designs in the process, where the users could access live videos and interact with one another on the site. The result could show that the isomorph effects and inhabited space reduce psychological distancing among the users, hence enhancing their social experiences. In such a case, the study was generalized to the users of social media on the psychological wellbeing of all social media users, which left the need to explore its other effects on adolescents.

Besides, there is a study by Karahanna, Xu, & Zhang (2015). It relates to the relationship between the use of social media and psychological ownership motivation. In the research, there was the exploration of psychological ownership motivation as affected by social media. The study drew on the psychological ownership theory that identifies the existing motives forming the roots of psychological ownership. It defines psychological ownership motivation as a drive to engage in the behaviors aimed at satisfying the motives underlying psychological ownership. There was the submission of psychological ownership drives to engage in the use of social media since it has the affordances of fulfilling the needs of psychological ownership. The measurement of scales for such needs was developed, and the empirical results of the study had it that the psychological ownership needs cumulatively contribute to psychological ownership motivation that, in return, drives the use of social media. Thus, it can be observed that the article explores more on the relationship between the use of social media and psychological ownership motivation among the generalized population, failing to contribute to the effects of social media on adolescents: a gap proposed to be handled in the project at hand.

Furthermore, there is a study by Dhir et al. (2018). It explores the relationship between social media fatigue and psychological wellbeing. It hypothesizes on the deviation of a number of social media users due to fatigue experienced in the process. In the study, there was the use of a stressor strain outcome framework in examining if psychosocial wellbeing measures, including the use of social media and the fear of missing out, triggers fatigue. Its findings suggest that compulsive use of social media triggers social fatigue that leads to anxiety and depression. The fear of missing out predicted social media fatigue indirectly via the mediation of compulsive use of social media. It contributes knowledge to the research being undertaken but fails to fully capture specific populace such as youth, as addressed in the proposed research.

There is also the related study undertaken, though differently. It majors on the influence of social media on anxiety, depression, and psychological distress. It hypothesized that social media is contributing to the evident mental health problems among younger people. Through the searches on Medline, PsycINFO, SSCI, CINAHL, and Embase, it found 13 eligible studies, whereby12 were cross-sectional (Keles, McCrae, & Grealish, 2020). There was a correlation between the use of social media and adolescent mental health problems, thus related to the research. However, the need to focus on youth creativity due to the use of social media is left for the project at hand.

Finally, there is a study by Cai, Huang, Liu, & Wang (2018). It banks on the improvement of employee agility form the use of social media. The study finds that there is a correlation between psychological safety, psychological availability, and psychological meaningfulness with enterprise social media, a positive contribution adding knowledge to the study at hand. However, further research needs to be undertaken to precisely establish the correlation between social media use and youth creativity.

Method

Participants

There shall be the voluntary recruitment of youth aged between 15 - 25 years, hailing from diverse races. Half of them will be male and the other half females. They will take creativity tests in silent rooms to enable optimum working and engagement of their brains. In the end, each participant shall be rewarded $10 each for appreciation.

Design

The data shall be collected experimentally. There shall be the issuance of questionnaires to both the control (youth who have not used social media for the past year) and the experiment group (youth using social media currently). Both groups will each have 60 participants. They will be required to tackle questions testing their creativity, after which marks will be awarded, results obtained, and analyzed qualitatively to derive meaning. Following the information of the groups of the presence of tokens at the end of tests, there shall arise the validity issue of data collected.it is because their results might not reflect the true nature of absolute results as the participants can be concerned with the token hence reckless in filling in questionnaires. Also, some of them might be tempted to be dishonest in filling in questionnaires, a matter that can adversely affect the validity of the results.

Procedure

Having identified the target population, the youth aged between 15 - 25 years, they shall be informed of their parts to play in answering the questions related to creativity. On the day of gathering data from them, the availability of all the questionnaires will be verified, followed by their invitation to designated rooms to tackle creativity tests in a maximum of 2 hours. Thereafter, they shall be appreciated before leaving their respective residential areas.

Results and Statistical Treatment

Following the marking of creativity tests undertaken differently by control and experiment group, they shall then be graded, respectively. The scores shall then be fed to excel spreadsheets where their means, standard deviations, and correlation shall be calculated to establish the relationship between marks scored (creativity) and social media use. The data from the two groups shall also be compared to one another to establish their statistical differences.

Discussion

From the analyzed results, there shall be the establishment of the relationship between social media use and creativity among the youth aged 15- 25 years. The study will form the basis for further future researches, where there is a need to explore further the contribution of social media on the knowledge and advancement of the youth: the area not explored in the research paper at hand.

References

Cai, Z., Huang, Q., Liu, H., & Wang, X. (2018). Improving the agility of employees through enterprise social media: The mediating role of psychological conditions. International Journal of Information Management, 38(1), 52-63.

Dhir, A., Yossatorn, Y., Kaur, P., & Chen, S. (2018). Online social media fatigue and psychological wellbeing-A study of compulsive use, fear of missing out, fatigue, anxiety, and depression. International Journal of Information Management, 40, 141-152.

Karahanna, E., Xu, S. X., & Zhang, N. (2015). Psychological ownership motivation and use of social media. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 23(2), 185-207.

Keles, B., McCrae, N., & Grealish, A. (2020). A systematic review: the influence of social media on depression, anxiety, and psychological distress in adolescents. International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, 25(1), 79-93.

Lim, S., Chan, S. Y., Park, C., Lee, I., & Kim, J. (2012). Getting closer and experiencing together: Antecedents and consequences of psychological distance in social media-enhanced real-time streaming video. Computers in Human Behavior, 28(4), 1365-1378.