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Vernese Durolin
Professor Colecio
ENC 1102
19 September 2021
Research Proposal
Social media has become a common tool that one utilizes in order to
communicate and connect with others around the world. Well-known examples of these
are Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Tiktok, and many more. This paper focuses
mainly on the site of Twitter. Twitter is a social media platform that has been around
since the early 2000s and has only grew rapidly ever since, with a user base that has
extended to over 300 million monthly active users. But what exactly is Twitter? As
stated, Twitter is, “ an online news and social networking site where people communicate
in short messages called tweets.” A vast amount of people utilize Twitter to discover a
divergent group of others. It allows one to express their thoughts and opinions with a
large audience without having to have any specific credentials. It’s well-liked, it’s
convenient., and of course, it is free. When speaking in terms of genre, Twitter contains
varying kinds of genres that allow them to reach their goal, and to stand out from
different discourse communities that are in the same categories as it. This includes the
tweets themselves, twitters’ ‘dm’, comments, etc. However, tweets are the genre that we
will be placing our focus on. In simple terms, tweets are messages sent on Twitter. Who
uses tweets? Well, more than 80% of twitter's user base are users under 50 years old,
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mainly teenagers. How is it used? When the app is opened users would click the blue
feather button that is usually located in the bottom right corner to begin creating a tweet.
It has a limit of 280 characters. It is mainly used to allow users to express their thoughts
and their point of view on a subject at a given time. Tweets can contain a contrasting type
of information depending on how one is feeling at the time when creating it. Rules that
tweeters must follow are; no violent tweets against an individual or group of people, you
may not threaten or promote terrorism or violent extremism, you may not publish or post
other people's private information, you may not engage in the targeted harassment of
someone, or incite other people to do so. This includes wishing or hoping that someone
experiences physical harm, etc. All these rules help ensure users’ safety and wellbeing.
In spite of this, my goal for this study is to address the issue of how Twitter can
affect one’s mental health. This study is necessary because it is essential that one
understand why they act the way they act. Mental health includes our emotional,
psychological, and social well-being. It affects the way we handle stress, the way we
think, the way we feel, the way we make choices, and many more. Having poor mental
health can lead to a downfall in all of these aspects, and eventually the destruction of the
most important part of the body, the brain. From the end of this research, I hope to gain
more knowledge on how to use Twitter without letting it get the best of my mind. I also
hope to learn how one can improve their mental health when it is needed.
A methodology that I will incorporate to helpfully answer my research question is
textual analysis. “How is Twitter Affecting Our Mental Health?” created by Luke O’Neil,
published on Nov 9, 2019, goes into depth about the subject. In this text, O’Neil goes
in-depth to explicate how spending so much time online, or on social media sites can also
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lead to an increase in brain damage. O’Neil states, “People on Twitter like to joke about
how spending so much time there has given us all brain damage. Being online, or worse,
Very Online can often feel indistinguishable from descending into madness. Our brains
simply cannot have been designed to withstand such a constant onslaught of conflicting
information at once.” For many people, Twitter is a place where they get news, where
they check on friends, or maybe go to even get a good laugh. However, Twitter is also a
place where anxiety can escalate on top of everything else. While there are studies on
how social media affects someone’s ability to sleep, someone’s self-esteem, and
someone’s attention span, there has not yet been a study about how social media is
affecting us as a whole. People take it upon themselves to go on Twitter to talk about
their issues because as always, there is always someone willing to listen on the internet.
A Tweet states, “Mental health is an absolute heartbreaking topic. No matter how people
can present themselves to a group or to an individual NOBODY can ever, ever see what’s
building up in their mind and the pain that they’re suffering and that is what is absolutely
heartbreaking about it.”
TED Talk, “Is Social Media Hurting Your Mental Health?” by Baily Parnell, an
award-winning digital marketer, public speaker, and businesswoman with a special talent
for helping others tell stores, talks about the unintended consequences that social media
has on people’s mental health. Social media can be viewed as a harmless part of daily
lives, but is it actually harmless as it seems? I will be gathering evidence, research,
interviews, and many more to help answer the question that some are begging to know,
How exactly is twitter affecting our mental health?
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TIMELINE
OBJECTIVE DATE/TIME
Phase 1:Data Preparation September 20-27
Questionnaires September 26
Surveys September 27
Phase 2: Data Collection September 30-October 3
Collect Data From the Twitter site October 1
Collect Data From Websites October 2
Compile Research Data October 3
Proofread findings October 4
Submit Rough Draft October 5
Submit Final Draft October 10th
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Works Cited
O'Neil, Luke. “How Is Twitter Affecting Our Mental Health?” Esquire, Esquire, 21 Aug. 2020,
www.esquire.com/lifestyle/health/a13083796/twitter-mental-health/.
TEDxTalks. “Is Social Media Hurting Your Mental Health? | Bailey PARNELLTEDxRyersonU.”
YouTube, YouTube, 22 June 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=Czg_9C7gw0o.
“The Twitter RULES: Safety, PRIVACY, Authenticity, and More.” Twitter, Twitter,
https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter-rules.
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