Difficult in Communicating with Youth

2634 Words6 Pages

As someone who works in food service, it is my job to communicate with customers and get them exactly what they want. Oftentimes, however, it is difficult for this communication to happen easily, especially in youths. Mainly the trouble arises when I attempt to take their order; their eyes are typically glued to their smart phone as they scroll down their Facebook wall or juggle conversations between multiple friends using Facebook’s chat feature. When I finally get their attention, it is not rare that they are reluctant to give me their order. Ever since I began working in the food industry in 2007, this problem where individuals who use social media have a tendency to show symptoms of social anxiety has been increasingly more common. Social anxiety is defined as “marked and persistent fear of one or more situations in fears that he or she may do something or act in a way that will be humiliating or embarrassing” (qtd. in Hofmann and DiBartolo 67). In recent years, studies have indicated that eighty-four to eighty-eight percent of youths use some form of online communication such as those provided by Facebook as a means of communicating with existing friends (Valkenburg and Peter 1). Originally a project that was only available to college students, Facebook has since evolved and attributed a broader demographic (Brown 11) In fact, Facebook has an incredibly large user base of over 500 million people (11). There have been particular cases where individuals frequently freeze up and are unable to have an in-person conversation with others but have no difficulty with communication through an online medium (DeRushia 1). Although Facebook offers excellent means of communication by which its users can connect with their peers and practi...

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... self-esteem that are known to contribute to social anxiety. Use of Facbeook is also found to significantly take away from individuals’ physical social presence, contributing with their inability to converse with others. However, those who have social anxiety feel more comfortable communicating through online mediums, suggesting the possibility of using Facebook as a therapeutic means of treating social anxiety. There have been studies that have explored this possibility and supported that Facebook could be a feasible method of treatment. Unfortunately, this Facebook-induced treatment is missing certain qualities of popular and widely used treatments of social anxiety, and therefore is not a plausible form of treatment. Facebook is definitely responsible for causing its users to have social anxiety, and it should not completely substitute face-to-face communication.

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