Age reaction to social interaction

1. Age reaction to social interaction By Sri Ashok January 19, 2012 HSB 4M1 Mrs. Ray-Zarate

2. Introduction Many people act and interact well with others when they are with their friends, but however, they are not comfortable maintaining the same enthusiasm among new people/stranger while only some people are comfortable talking to and having a friendly conversation with a stranger.A majority of the people in today’s society that are comfortable with such social interaction include older adults , as many teens and younger adults often find it uneasy to do so.

3. Hypothesis The hypothesis for this research report is that older adults, of age 40 and older are more likely to interact with a stranger and maintain a friendly conversation without feeling uncomfortable, when compared to younger adults, ages 21-40, and teenagers. There are two main reasons for this: • The latest generation has grown up with use of excessive electronics and the Internet, and this has resulted in reduced direct face-face interaction among today’s youth, when compared to the older generations of today that are able to have a much of prolonged conversation with someone directly. • This is because those older Generations, especially the people that are over forty years of age, did not grow up in a society dominated by electronics and cyber interactions such MSN, face book, twitter etc., and so, they are more used to having direct communication with others. • The second reason being, older adults tend to talk more about irrelevant things than younger adults do and so the conversations with them are more prolonged than they are with other age groups.

4. Rationale A reason why this hypothesis will be proven correct is because, since many older adults in today’s society belong to the Generation X, where they grew up with a lack of electronic uses such as cell phones, computers etc, for communication; they are more used to having a direct face-to-face conversations with others. This practice served them well, since they can be noticed outdoors as the ones that interact with other people much better than their younger Generations.

5. Example of Excessive electronic use • An example of the young generation of today using excessive electronics more than adults and how it impacts the youth, is clearly explained in the article “The impact of computer use on Children and Adolescents’ development” • This article states that in a national survey of children and teenagers between the age of fourteen to eighteen, the percentage of teens reported to have used a computer out of school for non-school work were 44%. • The article states that the gender disparity in the amount of time spent playing online computer games is greater for fourteen-eighteen year olds than it is for younger children. • The percentage of teens with reported computer use also rose significantly as the neighbourhood income and the parental education increased. • This is because there is a higher need for technology in the household for higher paying job that require the use of devices such as computers and the internet to work from home.

6. Example of Excessive electronic use • More importantly, it is also noticed that the interaction with peers has an impact on a child’s interpersonal skills, their poise and social competence. • But due to the solitary nature of most computer activities that the children and teenagers play today, concerns have been raised that these children might form “electronic friendships” with the machine, instead of developing strong friendships with their peers, and thus hindering the development of interpersonal skills and social interaction with peers and others alike. • The article also states that the prolonged use of these devices did not have the same effect on the person as it did initially. That is during the respondent’s first few years, the more Internet that they were using per week, the more their psychological and social well-being declined. • Over the course of the new several months, further use of the Internet was associated with smaller declines in the psychological and social well-being or even improvements being made.

7. Why Adults get off-topic • The article “Production and Perception of Verbosity in younger and older adults” by James LE and Burke DM state that they discovered that older adults produced more off-topic speech than younger adults during autobiographical interviews. • They analyzed the spoken responses of older and younger adults in a survey or a life history interview, and for each participant, they measured the “item verbosity”, which is the number of questions producing off-topic speech, and “extent verbosity”, which is the experimenter’s rating of the amount of off-topic information. • After conducting this experiment, the researchers found out that both of these increased with the age of the individual. • In addition, certain aspects of psychosocial functions predicted off-topic-speech, and some of them were stress and unhappiness in the social support.

8. Why Adults get off-topic • Their studies suggest that older adult’s tendency to produce off-topic-speech is linked to the deficit in the ability to inhibit irrelevant information. Which means, the inhibitory processes decline in older adults and so that they activate more irrelevant information and are less capable in controlling this once it has been activated. • Another experiment which they conducted reports that, participants categorized as “extreme talkers” in an experiment were older than the people that were categorized as “controlled talkers”. • This experiment also states that these extreme talkers produced more off-topic-speech and their interviews with the experimenters were longer than it was when compared to that of the controlled talkers, when talking about personal topics, such as stories about their lives and problems, etc.

9. Conducting the Experiment • When conducting this experiment, unobtrusive measures will be used when the interviewer approaches the individuals that are going to be observed. • This way the researcher can collect their required data without introducing any formal measurement procedure on the individual that is being observed. • The main advantage of this method is that the individual is unaware that they are being observed for an experiment, and so it can prevent the respondents from altering their behaviour in order to look good in the eyes of the researcher.

10. Conducting the Experiment • The interviewer should make a chart in which they are to record the responses of the people they are interviewing, the chart should be organized such that it consists three different age groups (teens, young adults, older adults) and is divided into two columns for males and females. There should be at least three slots to record the responses of each gender for all the three age groups. • The second step of this experiment is that the interviewer should choose a public place with individuals of the age groups, the variables that must be kept the same are the location, day of the week and time of day that the experiment takes place. All of these variables must be kept the same, as they are the controlled variables. Changing these would result in achieving inaccurate results from the experiment. • The next step is to approach the individual and start a normal, friendly conversation. The interviewer should approach the respondent, and should make sure that the person they are about to interview is not aware that they are being observed, as this can alter the respondents responses.

11. Conducting the Experiment • The interviewer should then record the responses of the individual in their chart after the conversation is over. The chart is include the respondents common responses, their typical attitude when they are approached and during the conversation. Also the interviewer should include whether or not the respondent contributed a fair amount to the conversation. • The previous step should be repeated until at least three males and females have been interviewed for all the three different age groups.

12. Gender and Responses Male Female Teen (15-20) #1 #1 #2 #2 #3 #3 Young adults (21-40) #1 #2 #2 #2 #3 #3 Older Adult (41+) #1 #1 #2 #2 #3 #3 Example of chart

13. Results

14. Results Summary – Teens (Males) • As the respondents in the above list were interviewed, the first male in the teen category was not comfortable in talking, as he made no effort to contribute to the conversation at all. His common responses were usually one worded, such as “cool”. He also constantly kept checking his cell phone for any incoming text messages and kept looking around the place while being talked to, and rarely made any eye contact during the conversation. This person’s interest to interact with others was significantly low. • The second male teen was considerably outgoing, as he contributed well to the conversation and kept it going by adding interesting comments. This teen also seemed to feel comfortable during the conversation as he made eye contact, smiled and was enthusiastic. It can be noted that he was interested in interacting with others, since he was approached for the interview and did not feel uncomfortable at all. • The third teen was the same as the previous female teenager, as he was in a hurry to leave the place and did not seem to feel comfortable being approached by a stranger. This person did not seem to have been paying attention, as he left in the middle of the conversation by stating that he had to go somewhere.

15. Results Summary- Teens (Females) • The first girl that was interviewed made no eye contact whatsoever during the conversation, common responses were “sweet, cool”, this person was confused why she was being talked to so kept looking around to see if any one was noticing her. This can be noted as a sign of feeling uncomfortable as she did not seem to be paying any attention to what they were being said. • The second female was also not comfortable with having a conversation, as she was the one that had been approached. This person did not talk much, as she started to leave during the conversation, stating that she was busy and was being picked up. This can be noted as a sign of escaping the conversation by stating a reason. • The last female teen that had been interviewed responded well to the conversation, as she was polite and nice during the entire length of the conversation. She can be noticed that she was interested in the conversation as she made a lot of eye contact and responded well to the questions that she was being asked.

16. Results Summary – Young Adults (Males) • The first male respondent that was interviewed was not interactive, as he felt uncomfortable and did not seem interested in the conversation. Some of his common responses were “True”. He did not have much to say, and did not make much eye contact either. • The second male that was interviewed had his headphones on even though he was being talked to; he was more interested in his music than the person that was talking to him. This can be viewed as rude, since he made it clear that he was not interested in the conversation, • The last male that was interviewed was trying to control himself from laughing as he kept smirking and made it obvious that he was nervous in maintaining a conversation, as he tried to control himself from laughing and responded to some questions by saying “Yeah”.

17. Results Summary – Young Adults (Females) • The first female in this category that was interviewed was outgoing and was interested in the conversation as she had a lot to talk about. She did seem to feel comfortable, as she was confident in what she was saying and had a sense of humour, and made a fair amount of eye contact • The second respondent was also fairly outgoing, although she made a fair amount of eye contact, she was friendly and had a smile on her face with most of her responses. She did seem to feel comfortable during the conversation. • The last female in this category that was interviewed was constantly checking her cell phone for text messages, and also at point during the conversation, she started to text. This made it clear that she was not interested in the conversation, or what she was being talked to about.

18. Results Summary – Older Adults (Males) • The first male of this category was not very outgoing, as he seemed reserved and did not have much to talk about during the conversation. However the next two males were fairly outgoing, as they had much to say and felt very comfortable during the conversation. • The second and the third male that was interviewed also made a lot of eye contact as they were talking.

19. Results Summary – Older Adults (Females) • The first and the third female of this category were outgoing and had a lot of different things to talk about even though they were approached first by a stranger. They were friendly and did make eye contact as they were being talked to. • However the second female of this category did not seem much interested in the conversation and was somewhat reserved at times.

20. How Results relate to the Articles • Referring back to the hypothesis of this report, older adults tend to talk more because they grew up in a world that was not dominated by the use of electronics. • By having done so, they were comfortable in having a conversation face-to face with others than the teenagers were, since the teenagers of today grew up with electronics and prefer social networking than direct interaction • Also, another reason why the older adults talk more to people is due to their tendency to produce more off-topic-speech during a conversation. As it can be clearly noticed from the results, older adults were the main age that responded well to the conversation. • Although some teenagers and a few young adults did respond well to the conversation when approached, the overall number of people interviewed in the teen and young adult age group were not as much as it was when looked at the older adult results.

21. Conclusions • After conducting the experiment for this report and evaluating the data achieved, the results clearly support the hypothesis for this report. Older adults do interact well and more with others during a conversations, than compared to younger adults and teenagers. • This is mainly due to the excessive use of electronics of today’s teenagers and the excessive use of the computer and the Internet when it became popular during the 1990’s for the younger adults. Also, the fact that older adults talk more due to their tendency to produce more off-topic speech is an effect of aging. • Some of the solutions to this problem that teens and younger adults do not respond well to others can be – reducing the excessive use of electronics for social networking, video games and other entertainment. • Parents should enforce their children on their excessive use of these devices and individuals should make an effort to limit their use of them. • This issue will have a huge global impact in the near future if it is not monitored and controlled by the society with the help of parents and individual resolutions, because as the time goes by – the internet will become more and more dominating and the generation of tomorrow will not be able to have proper conversations with others and interact in person, and so they will prefer interaction through the internet instead.

22. Annotated Bibliography • Patricia Greenfield “The impact of computer use on Children and Adolescents’ development” Applied Developmental Psychology, http://www.cdmc.ucla.edu7. July 2001. Web. January 15, 2012 • James LE, Burke DM, “Production and Perception of Verbosity in younger and older adults” Department of Psychology, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/. 13. September 1998. Web. January 16, 2012

23. Reflection In this experiment I think I did well on the research and how I conducted this experiment. I also think I did a good job on explaining how the experiment was carried out and other methods that were to be followed, and the results summary explaining how each respondent and what they said. I was successful in explaining my results in detail and also in relating them back to the articles that I used. My hypothesis was also proven correct after at the end of this report, with the help of the articles and results that I gathered. Overall I believe that I did a good job on this report. Although time prevented me from gathering more evidence about the articles that I used. If I was to do this report again, I would use my time more wisely by finding more evidence to support my c laim and I would also interview more individuals so that my results would have more responses from people that would have support my hypothesis even better.