Unit 2 : Task 1 – Research; Primary, Secondary, Quantitive & Qualitative on Social Media affects

ASA – Advertising Standards Authority –

This is the UK’a biggest independent advertising regulator. They basically make sure to not make ads air that can cause harm, abuse, misleading or offensive. They also take in complaints and constantly monitor adverts to make sure they are applicable.

I will be researching the brand and target audience for that brand in this task.

My brand is called Quorn, was founded in 1985 and is an alternative for meat. So, people who would want to use this are either vegetarian, vegan or just trying to cut down on meat by using Quorn. Their target audience is for anyone who is one of those three things I just listed.

Research Plan –

For my research, I will be using primary research throughout. This will help me in many ways as I am having people’s personal preference, their thoughts and overall opinions. Secondary research would help but isn’t necessary as I am gaining statistics and factual information, I would prefer to ask people myself with my own questions and that would be a downside for me if I chose to do any secondary research.

Of course my main audience is from teens or young adults in their young 20s as this is the main demographic for social media and especially how it is is a big part of their lives. I will be interviewing older people in my video for other perspectives.

Primary Research – 750 words

Questionnaire

I made a ten question questionnaire asking people what their thoughts and experience is on social media and how it is able to affect teens live’s and how it has a big impact and part of their life.

Here are the questions I asked;

Question 1 – Is social media a main aspect of your life?

Question 2 – Has it always been a main aspect?

Question 3 – If it wasn’t a main aspect, what changed that?

Question 4 – Do you ever not feel safe using social media?

Question 5 – Why is that?

Question 6 – What social media do you use the most?

Question 7 – Why do you use that certain social media the most?

Question 8 – Do you feel like social media has a huge impact on teenager’s lives?

Question 9 – Do you think that social media is more of a negative than a positive towards teens?

Question 10 – What is your honest opinion on social media? Do you think it affects teens negatively the same way everyone else thinks so?

On my survey I had 11 people answer 10 questions about social media and the impact it has on teens and even young adults. In this, I asked for their opinions and if they have been impacted by social media and if it has a big part of their lives. I will be analysing the questions and be showing graphs as my main source of primary research.

 

Question 1

Question 1 shows me asking the question and them answering. Out of 11 people, not a single person said social media is not a main aspect of their lives. This can show us how over the past 10 years social media has grown so big and becoming a must within our lives and this can be proven from the answers in the next question.

I asked them if it was always a main aspect and out of 11 people 10 said it never was. This can show from the first question that is now is a big aspect but it never used to be. This again just can show how technology is a must have within this society and probably will always will be, if within 10 years they have become so dependant and reliable to it, who knows what will happen in another 10 years?

In the third question, I asked “Why did it become such a big aspect?” and then turned it into an pie chart of all the common answers. As you can see, almost 50% said that they are dependant on it, some in this category have even said that they would feel peer pressured into using it so often because so many people are using it.

I asked if they felt safe, and of course no one said yes. Why would they? Although over half the people did say only at certain times. This can possibly show the fact that they are aware of the dangers of heavy use of social media yet there are some people who give out so much information about themselves. So, this question basically shows that people can be smart enough to use it all the time and be careful and there can be people who are stupid enough to do so.

This follow up question is from Question 4. Where I asked what didn’t make them safe. Half the amount of people said that they are scared by people who are pretending to be someone else to lure them in. Now of course all of the reason are equally bad yet some people don’t see the dangers.

This one doesn’t really show much, most information will be used in the next question but it is interesting how 72% of people use Instagram.

Carrying on from the previous one, I asked why they use that social media the most. Most of the answers are pretty equal but more people have said that it is their main hobby or that they post content of their hobbies one there. This is what social media is used for and it is good that they still continuing to use this. 

Here is one of the big questions. 10 people out of 11 have said that they think social media has a huge impact on teenager’s lives. This is able to show that people know that social media in 2018 is so prevalent and important and can change so much.

Here, I asked if they thought if it was more of a negative on Teen’s social lives. 58% said they were unsure, which can make sense in a way that they haven’t experienced it as a teen or they are still experiencing it. The pie chart shows that it definitely does have an impact.

Secondary Research –

I found four websites about this topic and I will talk about them.

First website – https://www.loebigink.com/how-does-social-media-effect-youth/

This blog was written by Nia Crawford and it’s showing about the fall of teen’s awareness of the real world and how they’ve become so immune and focused onto social media. It also shows the benefits of social media

Second website – https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/social-media-mental-health-negative-effects-depression-anxiety-addiction-memory-a8307196.html

This article by Independent, written by Sabrina Barr shows six different ways that social media affect mental health. They speak about how people are too addicted to it and having a big following can be heavy as you need to be so careful with what you say.

Third website – https://www.dove.com/uk/dove-self-esteem-project/help-for-parents/talking-about-appearance/how-does-social-media-affect-teens.html

This article was made by Dove UK and doesn’t have a name of whom it is written by. The article shows how teens may have too much information shown online leaving them vulnerable to anything, how teens want to become popular and how it can also knock their self-esteem.

Fourth Website – https://childmind.org/article/how-using-social-media-affects-teenagers/

This article by Childmind, written by Rachel Ehmke tries to help parents into lowering the risk for their children and teens. They talk about the big risks like people stalking, etc. and how it will impact them in the future.