Predictors of problematic social media use among university students - virtual world risk perception, social influence, and internet and social media use patterns.

Joe Weaver | June 2024

Source

TL;DR

Younger students and those on social media more often are more likely to have problematic social media use than older students and those that check social media less often. Those who perceive greater risk in virtual spaces are less likely to have problematic social media use. However, those who use others to regulate themselves more, are less likely to perceive virtual risk and more likely to have problematic social media use.

Summary

Young people use social media a lot. Research suggests different motivations for using social media ranging from entertainment to information gathering. from to identity formation to fitting in, and of course, for connecting with others. For some people, social media use becomes problematic. It interferes with the other needs they have in life. In Predictors of problematic social media use among university students - virtual world risk perception, social influence, and internet and social media use patterns, published in Current Psychology, Orak and Saritepeci investigated various predictors of problematic social media use.

Through a self-report survey, the authors measured the following variables from 552 Turkish college students (ages 18 to 45, Mean age = 22; 60.5% Female):

• Gender (60.5% Female)
• Age (Mean = 22; range: 18 to 45)
• Grade level
• Daily Internet use time (Mean = 5.28 hours)
• Daily SM check frequency (Mean = 13.31 checks)
• Daily SM use time (Mean = 3 hours)
• Daily frequency of checking others SM posts/statuses (Mean = 5.98 checks)
• Platform use
  • Whatsapp 86%
  • Instagram 71%
  • YouTube 54%
  • Twitter 43%
  • Facebook 14%