Social networks, for better or for worse

Start

Eight out of ten French people see social networks as a danger rather than a benefit for children and teenagers: that's what emerges from the latest Observatoire Cetelem study. (1) in a ground-breaking survey of French people's use of social networks. What emerges is that they are more conducive to isolation than social interaction. The giants Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube and WhatsApp are the social networks with which the French are most familiar. However, notoriety doesn't necessarily rhyme with popularity.

The zOOms of the Observatoire Cetelem, accompanied by Harris Interactive, have chosen to explore a new theme entitled " Social networks, for better or for worse " . This first survey looked at how the French use social networks and how they perceive them, and corroborates numerous studies such as by researchers and economists from MIT and Boccon Universityi which definitively establishes the negative impact of social networks on the mental health of adolescents and young adults. Whether we like it or not, social media use has an impact on mental health.

Other recent studies suggest that people who frequently use social networks feel more depressed, anxious and lonely than those who spend more time away from screens. Do these networks, conceived as a tool enabling individuals to practice a form of "online" sociability with their "friends", as they are called, modify our sociability? According to the Observatoire Cetelem study, 81% of social network users go online every day, including 18% every hour or more... a proportion that reaches 46% among 15-24 year-olds. French people use social networks primarily for entertainment (51%), chatting with friends and family (51%), news (27%) and inspiration (26%).

The French perceive social networks as a danger rather than a benefit for children and teenagers (81%), privacy (78%) and the quality of information (62%). And if their initial promise was to bring people together and connect them, today social networks are seen more as a factor of social isolation (58%) than of connection (42%).

For the French, social networks rhyme more with addiction (86%) than with community sharing (84%). This risk of addiction is recognized as much by young people (89% in the 15-24 age group) as by older people (86% in the 65+ age group).

Not-so-virtual networks

While YouTube (84%) and WhatsApp (72%) enjoy a very good image, others are more controversial, with relatively high rates of poor image: Facebook (35%), but above all Twitter (44%) and TikTok (56%). It's worth noting that younger people have a much better image of the networks than other generations. For users, social networks are an everyday reality: 81% of them say they go there every day. And 18% consult them every hour or more often, a figure that rises to 46% among 15-24 year-olds.

Why not enjoy unlimited reading of UP'? Subscribe from €1.90 per week.

The French claim to be registered on an average of 4 different social networks, and up to 7 for 15-24 year-olds. However, on average, they only post regularly on two of them. Facebook is the most widely used network, with 71% of the population having an account there and using it, ahead of WhatsApp (56%), YouTube (55%) and Instagram (49%). The other networks (Snapchat, Pinterest, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn...) gather less than 1/3 of active subscribers, or even less than 10% for the most confidential networks, such as Telegram, Fortnite or Mastodon. Compared with the rest of the population, 15-24 year-olds say they are more present on almost all social networks... with the notable exception of Facebook, where only 45% of them say they use it, compared with 66% among those aged 65 and over.

In concrete terms, when they're behind their screens, most users look at their friends' publications (89%), consult their messages (86%), or scan publications suggested by algorithms (69%). And with good reason: having fun and relaxing (51%), but also chatting with friends and family (51%) are the primary objectives of users; keeping up to date with the news (27%) and finding inspiration (26%) appear to be secondary benefits. Few admit to seeking to widen their social circle (12%), promote themselves (7%) or boost their ego (5%) ... Nevertheless, the French readily imagine that these are real priorities for others: thus, for 44% of them, if people use social networks, it's to widen their social circle, and for 40%, it's to boost their ego.

The French on their guard

While for the French, social networks rhyme above all with "influencers" (91%), they also emphasize the spirit of community (84%), sharing (83%) and entertainment (80%) that reigns there. But despite these positive points, the feeling of danger prevails. Indeed, the French also highlight the risks of addiction (86%), the fake news (75%), as well as intolerant speech (73%).

As a result of their very different acculturation to social networks, young and old view these platforms differently. Among the most differentiating points, younger people tend to associate the networks more with entertainment, information and mobilization than their elders, who tend to emphasize the possible excesses (conspiracy, narcissism...). On the other hand, the different age groups are relatively unanimous on the risk of addiction induced by these networks: 89% in the 15-24 age group and 86% in the 65+ age group.

A real impact on both individuals and society

If the French are today expressing strong and contrasting opinions on the subject of social networks, it's not least because, in their view, these networks and their development are having a very real and palpable impact on individuals and society.

Sociologists Orna Donath and Danah Boyd were among the first to hypothesize that social networks should increase people's social capital. Empirical literature seems to have confirmed this. One of the first papers to study the impact of Facebook (Valenzuela et al., 2009), for example, showed that the more information you entered in your profile, the more friends you had. But the impact seemed modest. However, according to these authors, Facebook use was positively correlated with personal satisfaction, greater trust in others, and greater involvement in social and collective actions.

On a personal level, a small majority perceive an impact of networks on their daily lives, whether in terms of how they spend their time (58%), how they exchange with their loved ones (56%), or how they get informed (50%), with strong variations according to age, with younger people feeling particularly impacted (80% among 15-24 year olds versus 25% among those aged 65 and over). From a collective point of view, social networks are also perceived as having real effects on the real world: for example, for 57%, they help create mobilizations to change things.

In the eyes of the French, the existence of social networks is more synonymous with danger (50%) than benefit (33%) for society in general. Indeed, while they concede beneficial effects on social ties (54%) and the accessibility of information (50%), they perceive them essentially as a danger for children and teenagers (81%), privacy (78%) and the quality of information (62%). And with good reason: from a psychological point of view, they attribute negative effects to social networking: on mental health in general (64%), critical thinking (58%) and self-esteem (51%).

Ultimately, the French have a very mixed view of the ability of networks to bring people together, with almost 6 out of 10 (58%) believing that they promote isolation rather than social ties (42%). It's worth noting that young people aged 15-24 aren't so oblivious to the dangers of social networks: 45% of them see them as a factor in isolation.

Both collectively and individually, age radically changes the perception of the impact of networks on daily life: much more than their elders, younger people indicate the extent to which networks have an impact on their daily lives. Much more than their elders, Gen Z emphasize the benefits that networks can bring to society, even if they don't deny the possible risks, which they see almost as much as their elders." comments Flavien Neuvy, Director of the Cetelem Observatory.

To fight against disinformation and to favour analyses that decipher the news, join the circle of UP' subscribers.

What kind of sociability are we talking about?

Since the American sociologist David Riesman, and his seminal book The lonely crowd". Nicole Teke, spokesperson for the French Movement for a Basic Income (MFRB), created in 2013, Many authors have highlighted the trend in modern society towards greater isolation. Increasing divorce rates, professional and geographical mobility, and the lack of neighborly contact in large metropolises all lead to this isolation, i.e. to a decline in sociability.

Because they enable people to communicate, technologies support a form of sociability that they can modify. (Christian Licoppe, 2002; Licoppe and Smoreda 2005). This creates an "interweaving" between the various sociability practices, face-to-face and "mediated" by technical devices: not only the telephone, but also all digital means of telecommunication (SMS, e-mail, chats and discussion forums, social networks...). All these practices complement each other, or replace each other if necessary, thanks to what Valérie Beaudouin calls the " desynchronization of time and fragmentation of space "This is partly compensated for by the use of various information technologies.

For some authors, it's the substitution effect that dominates. This is the view of Barry Wellman, for whom "online interactions fill communication gaps between face-to-face encounters... many social ties are becoming non-local, connected by cars, planes, phones and now computer networks".
This is also the thesis defended by Pierre Mercklé, for whom there is no overall decline in sociability, at least not in France, but a replacement of "direct", face-to-face sociability by a sociability "mediated" by technical devices - the telephone yesterday, the Internet and in particular social networks today.

Another analysis, very judicious, is that of Michel Grossetti who, already in 1997, in his text " Electronic communication and social networks "It's interesting to note that many discourses on the effects of the Internet echo the logic and arguments of the 1960s on urbanization. Some present the growth of the network as an increase in freedom, and see in it the solution to numerous social problems; others denounce the regression of interpersonal exchanges, the cold nature of the medium, and the increased possibilities of control it offers to rulers of all kinds. Similarly, in the 1960s, urbanization and the construction of mass society gave rise to an abundant literature on the loss of social ties and the atomization of society implied by urban concentration (Wellman, 1979 and Fischer, 1982). What Wellman called the community issues "Wellman and Fischer's investigations were aimed precisely at testing this hypothesis in terms of social networks. By comparing networks in rural and urban areas, they demonstrated that city life results in a narrowing of relationships, but a different deployment. Relationships in the city appeared to be more segregated (young people socializing less with the old, graduates less with those with little education), with less emphasis on the family. In short, they appear to be more chosen and less subjugated [...].

For Michel Grossetti, access to social networks fosters the formation and maintenance of relationships that differ from ordinary relationships in the same way that urban relationships differ from rural ones: weaker, more ephemeral, more disjointed ties, producing more segmented, less dense networks. Moreover, the number of links, and therefore the size of networks, seems higher, since the most intensive users have more correspondents than others.

En somme, l’accès généralisé à la communication électronique pourrait avoir sur les réseaux sociaux des effets comparables à ceux qu’a pu avoir l’urbanisation en renforçant la possibilité d’échanger régulièrement et facilement avec un grand nombre de personnes : ni paradis, ni enfer, mais une évolution de nos façons de vivre ensemble …

To go further :

(1) Méthodologie de l’étude : Enquête réalisée par Harris Interactive en ligne les 27 et 28 avril 2023. Échantillon de 1 109 personnes représentatif de la population française âgée de 15 ans et plus. Méthode des quotas et redressement appliqués aux variables suivantes : sexe, âge, catégorie socioprofessionnelle et région de l’interviewé(e).

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Previous article

Social networks: UNESCO leads global dialogue on information reliability

China wants to confiscate children's smartphones
Next article

China wants to confiscate children's smartphones

Latest Information Society articles

JOIN

THE CIRCLE OF THOSE WHO WANT TO UNDERSTAND OUR TIME OF TRANSITION, LOOK AT THE WORLD WITH OPEN EYES AND ACT.
logo-UP-menu150

Already registered? I'm connecting

Register and read three articles for free. Subscribe to our newsletter to keep up to date with the latest news.

→ Register for free to continue reading.

JOIN

THE CIRCLE OF THOSE WHO WANT TO UNDERSTAND OUR TIME OF TRANSITION, LOOK AT THE WORLD WITH OPEN EYES AND ACT

You have received 3 free articles to discover UP'.

Enjoy unlimited access to our content!

From $1.99 per week only.
Share
Tweet
Share
WhatsApp
Email