Written Interview by Tess Rempel, 03/24/2023

"Not-So-Social Media: The Distortion of Friendship through Social Media"

This paper examines the capacity of social media to affect friendships. Although it may appear as though social media platforms, such as Instagram and Snapchat, can provide people with more and deeper social connections, these networks may ultimately form the reverse effect. With devices giving humans the ability to appear constantly available, termed “the culture of immediate replies,” Brinna Mulligan examines how exactly this transforms expectations in relationships. Further, Mulligan investigates how other factors impacting relationships, such as the pandemic, translate to different relationship habits on social media. 

Brinna Mulligan is a nursing major working toward a certificate in Spanish for Healthcare at The Catholic University of America. Mulligan grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina, where her motivations for becoming a nurse trace back to.

“Being an older sister, always patching up my brother…my mom would call me ‘Nurse Brinna’ whenever I was taking care of my brother. I started lifeguarding and babysitting, and started to really enjoy that person-to-person interaction in a care setting,” Mulligan said.

In talking about her motivations for pursuing this career, Mulligan also reflected on her mother’s influence. 

“One thing I’ve always admired about my mom is her compassion and caring nature. Realizing how she was able to put that part of her into a profession like nursing and how those characteristics like hers I admired so much and wanted to emulate…really struck me when I started to look more seriously at nursing,” Mulligan said.

It was not until beginning college, however, that social media piqued Mulligan’s curiosity. 

“It kind of struck me how different friendships were when they were through the medium of social media. There was just a different level of expectation. My friendships weren’t face to face all the time. When I had a phone, it was the moment someone texted you, you were expected to reply…it was changing the way I had friendships with people,” Mulligan said.

Along with battling these high expectations, Mulligan perceived her habits and relationship to her phone differently than her peers.

“Sometimes I just wouldn’t reply because I wouldn't be with my phone at all. I remember having a conversation with some of my friends and they were feeling kind of hurt…and that really impacted me because I wanted to understand the culture of immediate replies, even in the workforce,” Mulligan said.

Following this observation, Mulligan was able to satiate this curiosity three years later, under the supervision of Dr. Phair. With the paper complete and her question partially answered, her perspective on social media has changed completely.

“I think I approach them [social media platforms] a little differently now… Letting people know if I wasn't going to be available and I started to use social media as more of a tool, rather than something I had to be involved in.”

Investigating this research question was also timely in that it followed the global Coronavirus pandemic, which shifted both humanity’s relationship to technology and perception of nurses.

“Social media had been detrimental even before the pandemic…even after the pandemic, there’s still negative effects,” Mulligan said, adding “My mom was trying to get recertified into nursing…during the pandemic…and would talk to me about what was going on with the nurses. And so I think it did give me a little bit of perspective on how important nurses are.”

Although Mulligan’s paper elucidated the connection between social media and friendships, many of her questions remain to be answered.

“There’s so many sources that indicate all the benefits of social media, all the negative aspects of social media…just how polarized it was. There was so much research on that side to get a fuller picture, I definitely know…I'm curious about the mental positives about social media,” Mulligan said.

Read Brinna's article, "Not-So-Social Media: The Distortion of Friendship Through Social Media" in Inventio's upcoming Volume 8!