The Effect of Interpersonal Communication Via WhatsApp on Students' Socialization Ability

This study explores how interpersonal communication responses in WhatsApp influence the social skills of FIKOM class 2021 students at Mercu Buana University Yogyakarta. With the prevalence of WhatsApp as a communication medium, its impact on social interactions and individual socialization becomes significant. The research aims to analyze the factors affecting perceptions and social skills in WhatsApp-mediated communication. A sample of 160 students was selected from a population of 266 students in the Faculty of Communication and Multimedia. The study utilized a quantitative approach with a questionnaire as the data collection tool, focusing on two variables: interpersonal communication responses (X) and student social skills (Y). Using SPSS software, the data analysis revealed that interpersonal communication responses accounted for 47.7% of the influence, while other factors constituted 52.3%. The findings highlight the considerable influence of interpersonal communication responses in WhatsApp on the development of social skills among students. This study contributes to understanding the relationship between digital communication behavior and its impact on socialization and social skills.


INTRODUCTION
Communication is basically a need for everyone, which is the main factor when establishing the interaction process.Communication activities are a major requirement where every individual interacts with each other to stay connected.This is included in the characteristics of humans as social beings who will always relate to other individuals as an important factor to fulfill their needs in all aspects both within the scope of relations and community (Bangun, Andreas, & Nugraha, 2021;Utari, 2023).However, in every interaction process it is inseparable from the perception or capture of meaning in response to the communication feedback that is carried out.Regarding the perception of communication, in the view of Duncan (2003) states that perception in interaction is a form by the formulation of the existence of various alternatives where perception works as meaning in a deeper action both in terms of human senses such as hearing, feeling, and seeing.
As the interaction process goes on, of course several aspects will emerge in a correlation stage as it should be in interpersonal communication, especially when the meaning of the message goes with socializing activities.In the current era, where the reality of technological advances is increasingly developing, the process of interaction activities can be easily carried out by everyone without being hindered by distance restrictions.When viewed from the side of media technology as it is today, media intermediaries for social interaction have a wide selection of applications that attract efficiency and flexibility for each individual or user in expressing messages both visually and non-visually such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, BBM (Blackberry Massanger) media, WhatsApp, and others.Media features are currently expanding and becoming more attractive with features that attract users in expressing a message.It is possible that every individual currently prefers to express messages or carry out interactions through intermediary media.This ultimately makes more and more individuals who need communication intermediary media in establishing the interaction process to make users more bound.In the end, today's communication tends to use intermediary media as one of the most efficient ways of communicating.
Social interaction media is a network system that has a network component in the form of public interaction media (Mark Hopkins, 2008).The existence of social interaction media is certainly quite capable of bringing about a change where initially each individual encounters a limitation in interacting, but now various easy accesses can be reached by each user.As in one of the current interaction media that is most often used and even in demand for interactional essence, namely the WhatsApp application media.The alternative features in the media have a variety of conveniences in conveying two-way interaction messages in which the message contains emoticon features and sticker icons to represent speech and contextual responses to sentences nonverbally.Sabrina Sella (2008) stated that one of the social interaction media, namely WhatsApp media, can encourage teenage student users to increase self-confidence by observing interpersonal aspects and bringing factors to peer group relationships in the process of social construction.However, based on this research it only focuses on the abilities of young students who have interpersonal communication skills as an alternative to solving social problems through peer group observation techniques.To respond to previous researchers, related to interpersonal communication according to Robins and Judge (2008) stated that interpersonal communication is a performance process of the version or characteristics of a correlation that is carried out by interacting in having three objective factors, namely giving information, getting attention, and understanding messages.To complete a phenomenon that is taken in this study will focus on observing how the influence of Interpersonal communication responses on the effectiveness of the ability to socialize with students through WhatsApp media where has not been explained by previous researchers.This study also aims to find out how the influence of perceptions of interpersonal communication through WhatsApp media has on the effectiveness of social skills in individuals, especially students at Mercu Buana University Yogyakarta.In addition, this study also analyzes the effectiveness and perceptual performance of interpersonal communication through WhatsApp media in terms of social relations factors through the overall perception of interpersonal communication.
To achieve the objectives of this research, of course, there are arguments that will be tested to see indicators of validity in answering correlations to this phenomenon, as in the interpersonal communication perception argument according to Robins and Judge (2008).Then, in terms of intermediary media such as WhatsApp media, it is certainly a driving factor for this interaction to work.By testing this argument, a hypothesis test was carried out to observe and answer whether interpersonal communication responses through WhatsApp media had an influence on the effectiveness of social skills in students of the Faculty of Communication and Multimedia Sciences Class of Mercu Buana University Yogyakarta.
The WhatsApp media application has been present from 2009 to 2010.To be precise, appeared in November by Brian Acton and Jan Kim where finally in 2014, the WhatsApp social media interaction application was acquired by the company Meta.In terms of its development, every increase in the media application has been trusted and used by all active users to express their messages through features that are always updated, which previously only focused on sending text messages, now it has features such as voice calls, video calls, grub chat, and other advanced features.According to survey results in Globalwebinex data, users of this social interaction media, especially the WhatsApp application, have a percentage of 118.5 million users in Indonesia.In fact, in terms of percentage according to Databox, the development of WhatsApp media from 2018 to 2022 WhatsApp media users have increased to reach 79.6% of users aged 16 to 64 years where this figure is increasingly significant because every year users are interested in WhatsApp media features.The WhatsApp application is a self-expression media application both in terms of interaction and social connections that has fullfeatured services according to user needs.This makes the country of Indonesia occupy the second position in the use of the most WhatsApp media in the world.However, due to this study only based on the scope of Mercu Buana University Yogyakarta, the percentage will be further reduced by knowing how much WhatsApp media users are used by Mercu Buana Yogyakarta University students, especially in the Faculty of Communication and Multimedia Science class 2021.
Given the importance of the data obtained, this research has a goal to find out how an interactional communication response works and influences student's social skills.Based on that, the focus on this research is very interesting to find out how aspects of the response and perception of interpersonal communication through WhatsApp media take place, especially if the presence of distance restrictions increasingly influences a person's response when interacting through intermediary media.The process of direct communication is of course very different than through intermediary media.There will be several things that become obstacles in conveying the true meaning.This issue determines whether the response to messages that WhatsApp users send to other users can be accepted or not because everyone certainly has their own point of view in constructing messages both in the context of receiving and delivering messages.
To clearly understand the relationship between the observed indicator phenomena, it is necessary to understand that the basis for the meaning of the definition involved can achieve the meaning of the variable indicator phenomenon, as follows.

Interpersonal Communication
Interpersonal communication has a meaning, namely interaction activities that contain knowledge about the elements of the rules of a communication ethic both in the form of nonverbal touch and knowledge of alternatives according to the ethical context such as elements that need to be considered in interpersonal communication skills, both in terms of encode and decode construction with has aspects of openness, empathy, and even support (Devito, 2013).Like the phenomenon that will be taken up in the current research design, it is possible if there are students who experience difficulties in communicating with other individuals due to limitations or other factors that influence them.Supported by the views on these indicators, therefore this study will explore Interpersonal communication responses in the social sphere of students, whether there are obstacles that affect their social activity activities as well as response performance in encode and decode according to the views of Devito's experts (2013).Regarding indicators, interpersonal in this study is part of the x variable, so that in the interpersonal communication variable researchers can go deeper into the aspects of communication construction and indicators that can influence interpersonal communication based on Devito's exposure namely, (1) Openness, namely where communication can be formed when two or more individuals are open to each other to express their respective arguments.(2) Empathy is a condition in which a person can place himself in situations that are felt by others.In this case, empathy can build the establishment of interpersonal communication.(3) Support is a form of effort that is given by someone to provide motivation for other people or interlocutors.Interpersonal communication can be created with the support of both parties mutually.

Socialization ability
Generally socializing arises from the existence of individuals and organizations using various types of specific relations to all aspects of social correlation factors involving visions, ideas, debates, aspirations, and values.However, this existence certainly has a correlation with social influence which is meaningful as a process of transferring habits into values and rules from generation to generation.Socializing is a process of a member of the reality of society where they will continue to deal with learning in adaptation to lifestyles in terms of thinking that drives the function of the role of social groups (Buhler, 1978).Socialization also has an influence on the formation of the character of both individuals and groups.It is due to the absorption of existing values by the transfer of habits in an environment or community.In this study, socializing is included in the Y variable group which is composed of several indicators according to Buhler such as (1) Adaptation, is a condition in which a person tries to place himself in an environment that is different from his.When individuals begin to socialize, they will be required to adapt to their environment as a form of self-defense.(2) The learning process is an effort for a person to gain knowledge and skills through the experiences he learns.In socializing, a person will continue to try to learn the conditions around him so that he is able to blend in with the social environment.

METHODS
Related to the researchers' efforts to identify causal relationships by differentiating the types of independent variables and dependent variables, the type used in this study is a quantitative descriptive method to provide a description of the variables related to the phenomenon to be studied.The indicators used to measure interpersonal communication variables are openness, empathy, and support.While the indicators used to measure social skills variables consist of adaptation and learning processes.The technique for taking respondents was using proportionate random sampling by distributing questionnaires so that the intended respondent objects were FIKOM UMBY students from Campus III Batch 2021 to be sampled in this study.Based on information related to population data, there are 266 active students at the Faculty of Communication and Multimedia Sciences, of which 115 active students and 151 female students.The calculation of the number of samples from this population uses the Slovin formula with an error tolerance level of 5% to make it simpler and easier to apply.From the pre-research data obtained, answers were obtained from 160 respondents who were the object of research data collection at the Faculty of Communication and Multimedia Science Class of 2021, Mercu Buana University of Yogyakarta.So, the number of samples to be used from the population is 160 students.
The results of the data obtained came from 160 respondents with the help of the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) software.In the first step, the researcher distributed questionnaires to a trial sample of 36 students to determine the level of reliability and validity of the research instrument.If the results show that the instrument is valid and reliable, then the survey phase will be continued with 160 students as a research sample.Then the analysis was followed by an analysis of the effect of the independent variables on the dependent variables which were analyzed using linear regression analysis.By using the proportional random sampling technique, which is a sampling technique in which the population consists of sub-populations, it is done by random or lottery method or systematically.

Respondent Profile
In this study, 160 respondents were used consisting of students from the Communication Studies Study Program, Mercu Buana University of Yogyakarta, class 2021.

Validity and Reliability Test
Testing the validity and reliability using a trial sample that is different from the research sample.The trial sample used a sample of 20 students.The results of the trial sample validity on the X and Y variables are presented in Table 1 shows that each item in the X and Y variables has a Pearson Product Moment value of more than r table (df = 20-2 = 18 and Sig.0.05) which is 0.444, so it is said to be valid.
Because all items are said to be valid, then it is continued with the reliability instrument test.The test results show that the value of Cronbach's Alpha on the X variable is 0.440 which is greater than the r table of 0.329, so that the X variable is declared reliable.In addition, the Cronbach's Alpha value on the Y variable is 0.804 which is greater than the r table of 0.329, so that the X variable is declared reliable.

Linear Regression Analysis
Regression analysis was performed after the prerequisite analysis was met.In testing the terms of this analysis, normality and linearity tests were carried out.The results of the SPSS-assisted Shapiro wik normality test show that the value of Sig. on the interpersonal communication variable is 0.028> 0.05 so that the interpersonal communication variable is normally distributed.In addition, the value of Sig. the sociability variable is 0.063> 0.05 so that the sociability variable is also normally distributed.
Furthermore, a linearity test was carried out which based on the results of the linearity test showed that the value of Sig. the deviation from linearity is 0.747 which indicates that there is a linear relationship between the interpersonal communication variable and the sociability variable.Because the prerequisite analysis has been fulfilled, it is followed by a regression analysis.Linear regression analysis aims to determine the level of influence of each independent variable, namely openness (X1), empathy (X2) and support (X3) on the variable on the dependent variable, namely variable Y.The results of the regression analysis are presented in Table 1.
Variable X2 shows a significant value of 0.00 (<0.05) with a beta coefficient of 0.431.This shows that the empathy variable (X2) has a positive effect on social skills.(H2 accepted).Variable X3 shows a significant value of 0.018 (> 0.05) with a beta coefficient of 0.187.This shows that the support variable (X3) has a positive effect on social skills.(H3 accepted).The coefficient R squared on the results of the linear regression test is 0.477, which means that 47.7% of the Y variable can be explained and influenced by the independent variables X1, X2 and X3, while the remaining 52.3% is influenced by other variables that have not been studied.

Table 1 Table 1 .
Instrument Validity Test Variable X and Variable Y