ONLINE DISINHIBITION EFFECT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON TAYLOR’S
UNIVERSITY STUDENTS AGED 18 to 24 1.0 INTRODUCTION 1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY Today’s world involves the extensive use of technology where the general public depends on electronic devices and computers increasingly on a daily basis. Online communication frameworks are the increase with fleeting usage rates and growth. Social media is the predominant medium in online communication. According to Reaney, sixty­two percent of people who are connected online, communicate through social media websites (Reuters, 2012).
These social media platforms have become suitable for Internet users who can connect virtually anywhere through their smart phones, laptops, or home computers. Communicating through this medium has it own fair share of ramifications. A certain phenomenon that has the characteristics of social media users is the online disinhibition effect. Online disinhibition effect a loosening (or complete abandonment) of social restrictions and is inhibitions that would otherwise be present in normal face­to­face interaction during interactions with others on the Internet. The six main factors of this effect include dissociative anonymity, invisibility, asynchronicity, solipsistic introjection, dissociative imagination, and minimization of authority. Dissociative anonymity is when people on cyberspace feel that they can’t be portrayed in the same fashion when they’re in real­life situations. Invisibility occurs invisibility when individuals can't be seen or heard; there is no physical presence even if their identity is revealed.
Asynchronicity is when communication is not occurring at the same time meaning individuals are not interacting simultaneously online. Solipsistic introjection is when individuals online can't see others which results in assimilating other's behaviors followed by shaping and assigning their identities. Dissociative imagination is when a feeling of escapism is produced without having concerns about consequences of what they do online. Minimization of authority refers to how real­world statuses have a small impact on an individual’s status online whereas characteristics such as persistence, communication, technical ability, and cyberspace creativity determine an online user’s status. (Suler, 2004) The aim of this research is to explore the outcomes that derive from the online disinhibition effect. A series of online articles such as on Wired have blamed the toxic online behaviors and incapability to communicate properly in real life because of online disinhibition effect. (Martin,
2013) This situation is becoming bigger in the today’s world; thus the research paper will provide supported data to determine if this is a valid claim, identify the effects on young adults, and examine the relationship between real life and social media communication in regards to online disinhibition.

This research was proposed due to the rapid growth of social media. While many social networking sites have come and gone, it’s apparent that social networking is no temporary trend.
In connection to social media, online disinhibition effect has been of great interest and importance to mass communication researchers. This is because changes in behavior towards communication on social media and real life whether negative or positive shape our perception of the world vastly and it is this research paper’s task to explore these effects. This research is target population consists of young adults studying in Taylor’s Lakeside University. The first objective is to determine the nature of online disinhibition through social media among these students. Secondly, it will identify the effects of online disinhibition. The third objective is to examine the relationship between real­life and social media communication in regards to online disinhibition effect.

1.2 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES 1. To determine the nature of online disinhibition through the use of social media among young adults in Taylor’s Lakeside University. 2. To identify the effects of online disinhibition on young adults in Taylor’s Lakeside
University.

3. To examine the relationship between real life and social media communication in regards to online disinhibition effect

1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 1. How does social media contribute to online disinhibition? 2. How does the online disinhibition effect, affect individuals in real life situations? 3. Why is it easier to express oneself when behind the barriers of social media?

2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW

1) Rose, E 2014, ‘Would you ever say that to me in class? : Exploring implications of

disinhibition for relationality in online teaching and learning.’, Networked Learning
9th
Conference, pp. 253–258. This journal covers an aspect of Online Disinhibition, which relates to disinhibited behaviour being a factor that affects the nature of student­student and student­teacher relationships in online courses as compared to face­to­face. This effect is defined as the inclination to behave in a more unreserved manner during online interactions. When people communicate online they more often do so with less limitations than in face­to­face interactions, and such unrestricted behavior tends to occur more often and more extremely. It made use of 20 students and 20 instructors who were all volunteer participants from the Canadian universities of New Brunswick and Alberta.
They were interviewed in an informal and open­ended manner. The qualitative study found that, the findings were consistent with previous research done involving disinhibited behaviour often emerging in text­based communications. It also then affects student­student and student­teacher relationships in either positive ways where for example a shy student opens up or in negative ways where a student crosses the line and communicates something that others may find insulting. This research is heavily related to the study as it explores how Online Disinhibition affects relationships and the various positive and negative ways it does so.

2) Lapidot­Lefler, N and Barak, A 2014, ‘Effects of anonymity, invisibility, and lack of eye­contact on toxic online disinhibition’,
Computers in Human Behavior 28, no. 2,
, vol. pp.434­443. This research studied the impact of three typical online communication factors that cause the toxic online disinhibition. These factors were anonymity, invisibility, and lack of eye­contact which derive from key components of the online disinhibition effect. Toxic online disinhibition is the result of flaming behavior which is defined as the act of hostile and insulting interaction between internet users, often involving the use of profanity. The authors explain that these factors are dominating in generating the toxic effect, but acknowledges that other factors also exist. The research focuses on the three dominant factors with the aim of examining their independent and interaction effects in an attempt to examine the relative contribution of each source of variance to flaming behavior. The authors hypothesized that anonymity would show the strongest effects followed by invisibility and lack of eye­contact based on previous research.
An experimental design of 142 participants with random pairs of participants were presented with a dilemma for discussion and a common solution through online chat. The effects were then measured based on self­reports, expert judges, and textual analyses. A Multivariate Analysis of
Variance (MANOVA) was used to analyze the findings. The study found that lack of eye­contact was the main contributor to the negative effects of online disinhibition. It emerges that previous studies may have defined the concept of anonymity too generally by not concentrating other factors such as lack of eye­contact that impact disinhibition. This research journal relates to the current study because it explains the negative effects of certain online disinhibition traits.

3) Hollenbaugh, E & Everett, M 2013, ‘The effects of anonymity on self­disclosure in blogs: an application of the online disinhibition effect’,
Journal of Computer­Mediated
Communication
, vol. 18, pp. 283–302. This journal primary focus on the online disinhibition effect which consists of anonymity and self­disclosure. most social media users disclosed more information about themselves in contrary to who they actually are visually identified in the real world. This journal also examines the effect of types of anonymity in the amount, breadth and depth of self­disclosure for the social media users. The methods that were applied for this research is through quantitative research as the participants must be at least 18 years old and these participants were recruited in multiple ways as they were contacted through their blog, e­mail and asked to post a call for research participation as it would be most effective. It was announced that 154 individual participate and completed the survey. Through the research, age and gender has a different effects towards self­disclosure as younger people tend to be more disclusive compare to older people and women tend to disclose more information than men. The authors stated that women are significantly more concerned with who they would express their disclosure on social media compare to men.
Anonymity and self­disclosure was measured through the content analysis, as it is very informative. Amount, breadth and depth of self­disclosure results were consulted and calculated by the professors as in determine to get the exact results. Results show that users mostly disclosed their information when they were identified through pictures from their social media.
The article explains the impact of online disinhibition effects which is the anonymity and self­disclosure that is related to the study done.

4) Tian, Q 2011, ‘Social Anxiety, Motivation, Self­Disclosure, and Computer­Mediated
Friendship: A Path Analysis of the Social Interaction in the Blogosphere’,
Communication
Research
, vol. 40, no. 2, p237­239. This journal aims to explore the structure in social interaction with new and current relationships in the blogosphere. It investigates the explicit relation between social anxiety and online friendships. Furthermore, the author looked into the relation between resolving effects of desire and self­disclosure through path analysis. Through quantitative method, a survey questionnaire was done on 385 bloggers that were recruited online. The end results displayed that those with high social anxiety gravitate to generating less new friendships, correspond less with present relationships and had lower qualities in terms of relationship with those present friends as opposed to low socially anxious individuals. However, they had higher relationship quality with new friends made via blogs. The journal showed an in depth analysis of the data and concluded a better understanding of the Internet in terms of social use. The evolution of the Internet has fascinated scholars by its potential impact on human social communication. In the fresh start of the Internet, researches were worried that amount of time spent online will weaken face to face relationships among individuals, which then will lead to alienation and social isolation. This journal looked into the impacts of the Internet through computer­mediated communication such as desolation and lack of face­to­face communication, which relates to the study done.

5) Schouten, A, Valkenburg, P & Peter, J 2007, ‘Precursors and underlying processes of adolescents' online self­disclosure: Developing and testing an “Internet­attribute­perception” model’, edia Psychology
M
, vol. 10, no. 2, pp.292­315. This journal focuses on an “Internet­attribute perception” model that was developed and tested, explaining the development of self­disclosure in instant messaging (IM) interactions. It follows the hyper personal communication theory in which two attributes of computer­mediated communication (CMC), reduced nonverbal cues and controllability, were assumed responsible for the increase of online self­disclosure in IM. This study also looks at how users differ in their perceptions of the relevance of CMC attributes as well as how these perceptions influence differences in online disinhibition and self­disclosure. The method applied in this research was a sample and procedure method. Quantitative data was obtained through a survey among 1,340 adolescents between 10 and 18 years of age who were recruited from six schools in urban areas in the Netherlands. Three schools being elementary schools and the other three being secondary schools. Through the study, age and gender had different effects toward online self­disclosure as female adolescents are more self­disclosed than male adolescents and self­disclosure in same sex adolescent interactions is higher than self­disclosure in cross­sex adolescent interactions. Also, disinhibition precedes online self­disclosure. All effects of private self­consciousness, public self­consciousness and social anxiety on online disinhibition and online self­disclosure were facilitated by adolescents’ perceptions of IM attributes and disinhibition. This research is relevant to the current study as it studies the relationship between the attribute of CMC and online self­disclosure and how online disclosure is encouraged by online disinhibition.

3.0 PROPOSED METHODOLOGY This research will use a triangulation method whereby more than one research method is used in order to strengthen the findings (Bryman,2014). The methods chosen for this research are survey and focus groups.

3.1 RESEARCH METHOD & INSTRUMENT: i. Survey Research
The quantitative research will be conducted through a survey research method as it enables for the description and comparison of the relationship between the use of social media and the online disinhibition effect. An analytical survey is selected as it enables the researcher to understand the behavior of people as well as test the research questions about what instigates certain behaviors.
The research instrument that will be used are self­administered questionnaires in the form of handouts, as it is allows the researcher to sample from a large group of people in a short duration.
The questionnaires is made up of 13 questions consisting of close­ended, scale and open­ended questions. This is so that the researcher can obtain significant findings as the scale and open­ended questions will allow for further explanations of the respondents behavior. An example of an open­ended question is, “ you believe you behave less responsibly on social
Do
media than in real­life? If yes, please explain.”. For the full questionnaire, please refer to
Appendix 1.1. findings obtained from the respondents are assumed to be valid for the
The
representation of the general population.

ii. Focus Group Interviews
The qualitative research method that will be used is focus groups as it involves group interviewing to identify the opinions and attitudes of the respondents we have chosen through screening regarding the online disinhibition effects. This enables us to obtain valuable insights and also to further in­depth this research. A member of the research team would be the moderator to avoid biases, to be more open to listening to different views and would understand the research objective. Screener questions in a form of questionnaire would be use to choose the suitable respondents to participate in the focus group. The screener questionnaire consist of 6 questions as attached in Appendix 1.2. Stimulus materials such as a screenshots of social media activities such as Twitter tweets and Facebook statuses (Appendix 1.3) will be used during the discussions to kick start the discussion for the focus group. The moderator would be provided with a brief overview of the aims of the study and sets out a list of semi­structured interview questions to be used as a moderator discussion guide (Appendix 1.4). The questions will indicate what each group needs to discuss and the moderator can add other relevant questions to probe further any topic mentioned by the group that are relevant to the study to get more information from the respondents.

3.2 RESPONDENTS OF THE STUDY/ SAMPLE SIZE: i. Survey Research The target population for this research are Taylor’s University Students between the age of 18 to
25 who are on social media. The sample frame is made up of the 11 different schools in Taylor’s
University, excluding the Taylor’s Bio Medical Science school, as it has only a small number of students. The samples will be chosen using a probability sampling method whereby 10% of the total population will be chosen as our respondents, meaning that out of the 14000 Taylor’s
University students, 1400 students will be our respondents. Stratified sampling method will be used to determine our respondents, where the students would be divided into various subgroups and then the final subjects are selected equally from the different stratas. Out of the 1400 students, 140 students will represent each of the ten schools we chose and then will be categorized into four groups which are university level, gender, age and ethnicity. As an example, we will use the students from the School Of Communication. The 140 students will be divided into three university level subgroups, Foundation, Diploma and Degree, with 46 students in each subgroup. The 46 students in that subgroup will then need to have equal representation of genders, which means that there should be 23 males and 23 females. The students will then be further categorized in the subgroups of age. Due to the age range being 18 to 24, the male and female students will be divided into seven subgroups with each subgroup consisting of 3 students. Out of that 3 students, 2 of them will be categorized in the local subgroup and 1 in the international subgroup. This process will be repeated when choosing for respondents from the other schools.

ii. Focus Group Interviews
The interviewees for this research are Taylor’s University Students between the age of 18 to 25 who are on social media. The respondents are going to be chosen from 5 of the biggest schools in
Taylor’s University which are School of Business, School of Hospitality, School of
Communication, School of Engineering and School of Law. Recruiting the interviewees would be from the gatekeeper. The dean from each school would select the students to make the interview efficient and a total of 80 students will be chosen, 16 students from each school, 8 male and 8 female consisting of half international and half local students from total of 5 schools.
A purposive sampling technique will be used to determine the respondents. This will be determined with the use of screener questions as attached in Appendix 1.2. The screener questions would cover aspects of which school the respondent is from, age, gender and also how often they use social media. 4 sets of focus groups will be conducted and a number of 40 students is the total amount of respondents for this research. Each focus group will consist of 10 people. 2 students from each school will be chosen, 1 local and 1 international student.

3.3 RESEARCH LOCALE: Taylor’s University has a diverse range of students’ coming from various nationalities which allows for greater viewpoints to be contributed to the research. Also, a majority of Taylor’s
University students have laptops and smart phones which enable them to be on social media sites. The financial stability of majority of the students is more guaranteed as Taylor’s University is a private institute with a more expensive range of tuition fees. i. Survey Research The research is to be conducted at Taylor’s University Lakeside Campus as it has the most appropriate demographics. The research will be conducted at 12pm to 2pm as it is the common break period for most of the students. It will take place in front of the Student Lounge Centre
(SLC) and at the main walkway on level 2 as the traffic is very high in these places because students have to pass these places in order to get to class to or from the commercial block during lunch time. The survey will be conducted for a week, on alternating days. This is to ensure that the respondents are more randomised and reduce the chances of the same students doing the survey consecutively.

ii. Focus Group Interviews
The focus group will be conducted at Taylor’s University itself and the location would be at the discussion room at Block D level 3 during lunch time from 12pm to 2pm to ensure all the respondents are able to attend the focus group. The location was chosen because of it’s convenience as they would all be students at Taylor’s to conduct the focus group and it is on the same floor as the computer labs and technical equipment rental room so we will have easier access to the equipments to accommodate the research.

3.4 ANALYTICAL METHOD
Data analysis is a unified part of the research design and it is a means of making sense of data before presenting them in an understandable manner (Parahoo, 2006). Findings will be carried out through analytical analysis. i. Survey Research Data collected will be analyzed and coded using the numbers on an ordinal scale of 1 to 4.
Numbers on an ordinal scale are in ascending order, with no equal steps implied between the numbers (Parahoo, 2006). As advised by Walters & Freeman (2010) statistician will transfer findings directly to the computer package SPSS (Social Packages for Social Sciences) to evaluate data collected. According to Parahoo (2006) data will be described through frequency and central tendency by the computer package. Frequency of response to questions will then be calculated in percentage form and data will be translated through tables and bar charts. During the analysis procedure, computer records will be equipped with a backup file. Data will be kept on a computer secured by passwords. Completed questionnaires will be kept in a secure place as this is vital for backup and security reasons.

ii. Focus Group Interviews The interview will be recorded on camera with consent from all the respondents in the focus group. The video recorded will not be disclosed to the public in order to protect the privacy of the respondents. The interview will then be transcribed into scripts. The themes and sub themes of opinion will then be identified accordingly in this case, they would be grouped according to dissociative anonymity, invisibility, asynchronicity, solipsistic introjection, dissociative imagination, and minimization of authority
. (Suler, 2004) The transcription will then be analyzed and then categorized into various codes according to the relevant themes subjectively based on similarity and differences between opinions expressed. The quantitative findings will be used to report the data in forms of charts and tables to represent the frequency of the opinions expressed.
The charts and tables will then be interpreted into percentages. The reason for this is because this research uses the triangulation method hence it will be easier to interpret the data collected for both methodology if both results are presented in the same way.

4.0 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
The study had many limitations from various aspects. Firstly, looking from the aspect of the sample chosen, the data collected is limited to Taylor’s University as the research sample are all
Taylor’s University students. Another limitation is that not all the students may be active on social media, which means that the data from the survey research may have a chance to be contaminated. The second aspect looks at the progression of social media. As social media is relatively new, there are not many journals available for reference. This is because the usage of social media has only recently skyrocketed. The third aspect looks at the respondents of the focus group interviews. The research might not be able to get truthful opinions from the respondents as they may not be comfortable disclosing information about online social media behaviour in a face to face interaction which might cause insufficient data or data contamination.

5.0 SUMMARY This research is of value to society and communication knowledge in a manner that it would further fuel the on­going study in the area of the Online Disinhibition Effect. The internet is a relatively new media, social media in particular hence, only a minimal amount of research has been done on this topic as there are not many journals available. Further expanding on the studies that have already been done will help researchers and society better understand this effect. The research is useful as it aids in finding out whether the Online Disinhibition Effect has more positive or negative consequences. This will then aid in avoiding or solving the negative consequences and taking full advantage of the positive consequences to help mould the internet into a better platform for people worldwide. The topic is relevant and important as the internet world is progressing at a very fast pace which has caused the surfacing of many phenomenons and the Online Disinhibition Effect is definitely one of them.

REFERENCE 1. Bryman, A [no date], Triangulation, Loughborough University, viewed 25 November
2014,
. 2. Martin, A. (2013). Online disinhibition and the psychology of trolling. Wired. [online]
Available

at:

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013­05/30/online­aggression

[Accessed 22 Nov. 2014]. 3. Reaney, P. (2012). Most of world interconnected through email and social media.
Reuters.

[online]

Available

at:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/27/uk­socialmedia­online­poll­idUSLNE82Q021
20120327 [Accessed 22 Nov. 2014]. 4. Suler, J. 2004, ‘The Online Disinhibition Effect’, CyberPsychology & Behavior, vol. 7, no. 3, pp.321­326. 5. Suler, J. (2004). The Online Disinhibition Effect. 1st ed. [ebook] New Jersey:
CYBERPSYCHOLOGY

&

BEHAVIOR,

pp.321­326.

Available

http://www.samblackman.org/Articles/Suler.pdf [Accessed 22 Nov. 2014].

at:

APPENDIX
1.1 SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRES

ONLINE DISINHIBITION EFFECT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON TAYLOR’S
UNIVERSITY STUDENTS AGED 18 to 24
Age

:

Nationality:

Gender

:

School :

On a scale of 1 to 4, tick the appropriate answer:
1
= Strongly agree Agree Disagree Strongly Disagree
2
=
3
=
4
=
1. Social media allows you to be more anonymous to a certain degree than in real life.
1 ☐

2☐

3☐

4☐

2. You disclose more personal things about yourself when communicating on social media?
1 ☐

2☐

3☐

4☐

3. You don’t need to worry about how you look or sound when communicating on social media
1 ☐

2☐

3☐

4☐

4. You are comfortable to look at social media users’ profiles since they won’t be notified of it.
1 ☐
5.

2☐

3☐

4☐

Since there are delays on social media communication, you might lose my train of through as replies to each other take over a day or more
1 ☐

2☐

3☐

4☐

6. You are able to ignore messages that are “personal, emotional, hostile” on social media.
1 ☐
7.

2☐

3☐

4☐

Since you can’t hear and see others on social media, you start to imagine how they sound and look like.
1 ☐

2☐

3☐

4☐

8. You are able to create intimate connections through social media communication.
1 ☐

2☐

3☐

4☐

9. You do things on the ‘spur of the moment’ on social media more than in real life situations.
1 ☐

2☐

3☐

4☐

Questions 10 ­ 13 is based on a scale of 1 ­ 4 (1 being strongly disagree and 4 being strongly agree) 10. When it comes to things you shouldn’t do, it is easier to do them on social media than in real­life. Please explain your answer in the lines provided:
1 ☐

2☐

3☐

4☐

________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
____
___________________________________________________________________________
____

11. You behave less responsibly on social media than in real­life? Please explain your answer in the lines provided:
1 ☐

2☐

3☐

4☐

________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
____
___________________________________________________________________________
____
12. Your behavior is different on social media than in real­life situations? Please explain your answer in the lines provided:
1 ☐

2☐

3☐

4☐

________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
____
___________________________________________________________________________
____ 13. You are comfortable with expressing your opinions on social media? Please explain your answer in the lines provided:
1 ☐

2☐

3☐

4☐

________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________
____
___________________________________________________________________________
____

1.2 FOCUS GROUP SCREENER QUESTIONS
1. I am…
❏ Male
❏ Female 2. I am ..
❏ Local
❏ International 3. How old are you?
❏ Under 18 (TERMINATE)
❏ 18­24

❏ 25­34
(TERMINATE)

4. Which school are you from?
❏ School of Architecture/Building/Design
❏ Business School
❏ School of Communication
❏ School of Computing & IT
❏ School of Education
❏ School of Engineering
❏ School of Hospitality/Tourism/Culinary Arts
❏ Law School
❏ School of Pharmacy
❏ School of Medicine

5. Which of the following social media do you use? (You may pick more than 1)
Social

Facebook Twitter

Instagram

Media

Forums/Chat

6. How many hours (approx.) do you spend on social media a day?
❏ 1­3
❏ 3­5
❏ 8 hours and above

Blog

rooms

Youtube

Others
(Please specify)

1.3 FOCUS GROUP STIMULUS MATERIALS

1.4 FOCUS GROUP MODERATOR’S DISCUSSION GUIDE
Good afternoon students. This focus group interview aims to find out firstly, the nature of online disinhibition through the use of social media, secondly, the effects of online disinhibition and lastly, the relationship between real life and social media communication among young adults in
Taylor’s Lakeside University.
1. Do you think social media plays a big role in your everyday lives?
(i) if yes, how?
(ii) if yes, why? 2. Do you rely on social media to get through your day?
(i) if yes, how?
(ii) if yes, why? 3. Do you feel more comfortable when communicating online as compared to in real life?
(i) if yes, why? 4. Do you think your behaviour differs when communicating online as compared to in real life? (i) if yes, is it positive or negative? 5. Do you feel more brave to say what you really feel when communicating online as compared to in real life?
(i) in what way?
(ii) what are examples of things you would say?

6. Do you view the internet as a form of a barrier or protection against other people in terms of the way you choose to communicate with others online?
(i) if yes, why do you think so?
(ii) if no, why do you think so? 7. Do you feel as if your online persona is more likeable by society in general as compared to your personality in real life?
(i) if yes, why?
(ii) if no, you’re human! 8. Do you express your feelings and thoughts more freely online as compared to in real life?
(for example: tweeting your feelings VS sharing it over a cup of coffee with a friend)
(i) if yes, why?