Social Media, Empowerment, and Isolation

Indianapolis, IN

This research focuses on the feelings of empowerment and isolation individuals may experience with the use of social media. Eighteen in-depth interviews were used to pin point whether individuals felt more empowered to engage in social contact over social media rather than real life, to gauge whether individuals felt isolated because of their social media use, and their personal opinions on the use of social media. The four most popular social media platforms used were Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. The results from the data showed that individuals felt more empowered to socialize in real life rather than on social media. Regarding isolation, none of the individuals felt isolated because of their use of social media. Even though participants did not have feelings of isolation they did express in their opinions of social media use that the use of social media could potentially result in feelings of isolation and loneliness.