O impacto das redes sociais no quotidiano de diferentes gerações

  • Matilde de Sousa Letras Sales Saraiva (Student)

Student thesis: Master's Thesis

Abstract

Mankind’s history is marked by events that have been transforming the world and creating adaptation needs on the part of everyone, whether these be individually considered, or for society in general. Therefore, it can be said that words like innovation, evolution, change, instantaneity and connectivity are terms that define the 21st century. What actually emerges in contemporary reality are new forms of interaction, socialization, learning and new knowledge, that relies on digital channels such as social networks. Social media has become more than just a means of entertainment, offering a series of opportunities. The sharing of experiences, feelings and emotions, the development of new groups, the promotion of various causes, constant communication with family and friends, facilitated learning and knowledge transfer, the purchase of products and services online, among several other possibilities, are examples of opportunities that recently nobody thought would be feasible in these digital channels. Nevertheless, despite this positive scenario, there are also less-positive consequences of this use of social networks. Consequently, the present work is based on a curricular internship carried out between September 2019 and March 2020, at the Digital Marketing agency Smartlinks, and its main objective was to understand the impact social media has on the daily lives of different generations, analyzing more specifically the purposes of using social networks, their degree of importance, and the consequences that may have arisen and/or will possible arise from their usage across different generational groups. In this sense, the results obtained in the present investigation show that although nowadays social networks are a communication channel widely used by all generations, those that use them the most and that give them most importance in their daily lives are Generation Z(1995-2010) and Generation Y (1980-1994). These are also the generations that develop behaviors closer to those that are considered to have negative consequences of the use ofthese digital channels. In general, the conclusions of the investigation, showing the complexity of the topic, indicate that currently, and in general terms, there is not a high degree of dependence on these platforms by the different generations.
Date of Award7 Apr 2021
Original languagePortuguese
Awarding Institution
  • Universidade Católica Portuguesa
SupervisorFernando Ilharco (Supervisor)

Keywords

  • Social networks
  • Generations
  • Technological environment
  • Digital dependence

Designation

  • Mestrado em Ciências da Comunicação

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