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European Journal of Education Studies ISSN: 2501 - 1111 (on-line) ISSN-L: 2501 - 1111 (print) Available on-line at: www.oapub.org/edu 10.5281/zenodo.56727 Volume 1│Issue 4│2016 AN INVESTIGATION FOR UNIVERSITY STUDENTS' SELF PERCEPTIONS OF SOCIAL MEDIA ADDICTION Necmi Esgi College of Education, Computer and Instructional Technologies Department, Gazi Osman Paşa University, Turkey Abstract: The aim of the study is to examine the self-perceptions of university students about social media addiction who are aged between 18 and 21 and up. In the research, the social media addiction scale was employed in order to determine students' selfperceptions. The scale was administered to 180 students. Of the participant students in the research, 25% described themselves as individuals experiencing problems in Social media addiction. On the other hand, it was determined that the factors of age, gender and socioeconomic level create no significant differences in students' self-perceptions, l indicate the predicting leadership style with organizational health. Keywords: social media addiction, university students, self-perceptions 1. Introduction In the most general definition, social media is the platform that was used to share data synchronously or asynchronously. Also, social media can be defined as a medium that a content created by one user can be modified and redistributed by other users. In this environments, users share according to their preferences and choices. Most common of these platforms are Facebook and Twitter. Internet addiction is composed of different addiction types such as game addiction, and social media addiction. Social media addiction is considered to be a sub part of internet addiction or a specific case of internet addiction (Wilson, 2015). Seferoglu and Yildiz found that there was a linear relationshıp between primary school students’ internet use and social media use, in a social media addiction study. Rouis et al (2011) suggested that Facebook use effect the academic success negatively; but effects the life satisfaction positively. Akdemir (2013) found that Copyright © The Author(s). All Rights Reserved Published by Open Access Publishing Group ©2015. 31 Necmi Esgi AN INVESTIGATION FOR UNIVERSITY STUDENTS' SELF PERCEPTIONS OF SOCIAL MEDIA ADDICTION Facebook use affects the academic success negatively on primary school students. Literature review conducted about the social media addiction of college students showed that very few studies were conducted about the topic. For this reason the study goal, was applying social media addiction scale to college students and discussing the result. 2. Method and instruments The "Social Media Usage Scale" developed by Esgi (2016) and consisting of 17 items was employed in this research. It is composed of four sub-factors (Time, Social sharing, Job, Health) It is a 4-point Likert-type scale: 1 (never), 2 (rarely), 3 (sometimes), 4 (often ). Social media addiction scale was administered in a pre-trial group that consisted of 285 participants, and its internal reliability coefficient was found to be (a) .94. The scores that can be obtained from the scale ranged from 17 to 68. The base-line score in evaluation of scores was determined as 18 and above, in other words, an individual with a score of 18 or above was considered to be someone who perceived themselves as experiencing social media addiction problems. Students’ self- perceptions were examined on the basis of gender, socioeconomic level, age, and grade level. The impacts of the factors on the group scores were analyzed using t-test, variance analysis and mean distribution. 3. Findings and interpretation 3.1. Findings related to demographic information about students Demographic Information about students is given in Table 1. Table 1: Demographic Information about Students Gender Male Grade Level Female Freshmen Sophomore Socioeconomic Level Junior Senior Low Middle Upper Age 18 19 20 21and up 88 92 48 49 47 36 50 95 35 45 48 49 38 The participants of the research were 180 students attending four different grade level from Gazi Osman Pasa University (95 female and 85 male). Of these students, 48 attended freshmen, 49 sophomore and 47 junior, 36 senior. 50 of the participant students came from lower, 95 middle and 35 upper socio-economic backgrounds. In addition, 45 participants were 18 years old, whereas 48 were 19, 49 were 20, and 38 were 21 and up. European Journal of Education Studies - Volume 1 │ Issue 4 │ 2016 32 Necmi Esgi AN INVESTIGATION FOR UNIVERSITY STUDENTS' SELF PERCEPTIONS OF SOCIAL MEDIA ADDICTION 3.2. Findings related to students' self-perceptions 3.2.1 Distribution Distribution and percentages of the students' scores are presented in Table 2. Table 2: Distribution of students' scores 17 points 18-68 points % f % f 75 145 25 45 As indicated in Table 2, 75% of the students (145 people) perceived themselves as average social media user (17 points and down). In addition, 25% (45) perceived themselves as users who experience serious problems in social media-use (18-68 points). 3.2.2 Age The comparison of students' scores with respect to their age levels is given in Table 3. Table 3: Comparison of students' scores with respect to age Source of the variance Sum of Squares df Mean Square F P 686.374 3 228.7 2.07 .10 Within Groups 19430.620 176 110.4 Total 20116.994 179 Between Groups As it is seen in Table 3, the results of analysis indicate that there is no statistically significant difference between the mean scores received by 18-year-olds ( =35.30), 19year-olds ( =35.76), and 20-year-olds ( =32,75), 21 and upper -year-olds ( =30,75) [F3179=2.07, pc>05]. 3.2.3 Gender Table 4: Comparision of students' scores with respect to gender Gender N Mean Std. Deviation Sd t P Male 88 34.82 10.91 178 1.4 .27 Female 92 32.56 10.06 European Journal of Education Studies - Volume 1 │ Issue 4 │ 2016 33 Necmi Esgi AN INVESTIGATION FOR UNIVERSITY STUDENTS' SELF PERCEPTIONS OF SOCIAL MEDIA ADDICTION The comparison of students' scores with respect to the gender factor is given in Table 4. Table 4 shows that there is no significant difference between students' scores in terms of gender [tl178=1.4, p>05] Girls' scores ( =32.56), and boys' scores ( =34.82) . 3.2.4 Socio-economic level The comparison of students' scores with respect to their socioeconomic levels is given in Table 5. Table 5: Impacts of different socioeconomic levels on participants' scores Source of the variance Sum of Squares df Mean Square F P 161,25 2 80.62 .71 .49 Within Groups 19955,74 177 112.74 Total 20116,99 179 Between Groups No significant difference was found between the mean scores received by students coming from lower socioeconomic background (=33.91), middle socioeconomic background (=32.92), and upper socioeconomic background (=37.08) [F2-179=.49, p>.05]. This finding indicates that children's socio-economic levels do not have impact on the intensity of Social media addiction. 4. Conclusion It was determined, with the general limitations of the research, that 45 of 180 university students aged between 18 and 21 consider themselves as experiencing problems in terms of social media addiction. It means 25 percent of all students have social media addiction. It is indeed a very high number. Yet another notable point is that differences in socioeconomic level, age and gender do not have impact on social media addiction. This finding can be explained by the fact that people from lower socioeconomic background now have equal access to social media technologies. Also same explanation is valid for the factors of gender and age. In conclusion, when all the findings are here considered together, it is believed that social media addiction is growing. People should be informed and educated about social media addiction issues. European Journal of Education Studies - Volume 1 │ Issue 4 │ 2016 34 Necmi Esgi AN INVESTIGATION FOR UNIVERSITY STUDENTS' SELF PERCEPTIONS OF SOCIAL MEDIA ADDICTION About the Author Assoc. Prof. Dr. Necmi Eşgi, working at Gazi Osman Paşa University, College of Education, Computer and Instructional Technologies Department, Turkey, email address necmiesgi@gmail.com, Interested in Social, media, Internet, Addiction, Instructional Design, Instructional Material Development. References 1. “kdemir, N. Tekin . İlköğretim Öğrencilerinin Facebook Tutumları İle Akademik Erteleme Davranışları ve “kademik ”aşarıları “rasındaki İlişkilerin İncelenmesi. Yayımlanmamış Y(ksek Lisans Tezi, Bilgisayar ve Öğretim Teknolojileri Eğitimi ”ilim Dalı, Eğitim ”ilimleri Enstit(s(. Marmara Üniversitesi, İstanbul. 2. Rouis, S.; Limayem, M. ve Sangari, S. Esmail. (2011). Impact of Facebook Usage on Students’ “cademic “chievement: Roles of Self-Regulation “nd Trust. Education & Psychology I+D+i and Editorial EOS (Spain). 9(3), 961-994. 3. Seferoglu, S(leyman S. ve Yıldız, H. . Dijital Çağın Çocukları: İlköğretim Öğrencilerinin Facebook Kullanım Durumları ve İnternet ”ağımlılıkları Üzerine Bir “raştırma. İletişim ve Diplomasi / Çocuk ve Medya. 31-48. 4. http://yunus.hun.edu.tr/~sadi/yayin/Seferoglu-Yildiz_DijitalCaginCocuklari_Ilet_ve_ Dip lomasi - 2013 5. Wilson, L. (2015) Social Media Addiction. http://drlwilson.com/ARTICLES/ADDI CTION%20 SOCIAL%20M.htm Creative Commons licensing terms Author(s) will retain the copyright of their published articles agreeing that a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0) terms will be applied to their work. 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