SOCIAL NETWORK USAGE: SOCIAL GAINS, SELF-ACTUALIZATION AND SENSE OF BELONGING

Abstract

Social network usage is one of the important phenomena that have completed the adaptation process and reached very high penetration rates. Students have been the most important audience since the day these networks emerged. In the continuity of the use of social networks, various researches are carried out in a very wide frame. Data were collected from 557 university students studying in Central Anatolia within the scope of this research, which deals with the social gains, self-actualization and sense of belonging dimensions of university students' social network usage. In this descriptive study, survey technique was used. In addition to the general evaluations of the participants on the three dimensions mentioned above, data were collected in order to make comparisons for gender, age and areas of education. The responses obtained in terms of social gains, self-actualization and sense of belonging were analyzed according to gender, age and education. According to the results, while social gains have the highest average, this is followed by self-actualization and then a sense of belonging. In addition, there was no significant difference in terms of gender and age in terms of social gains, self-actualization and sense of belonging. Significant differences were found in terms of the field of study. In all three dimensions, social sciences students scored significantly higher.

Keywords

• Social networks,social gains,self-actualization,sense of belonging,education fields

Sosyal Ağ Kullanımı: Sosyal Kazanımlar, Kendini Gerçekleştirme ve Aidiyet

Abstract

Sosyal ağ kullanımı uyum sürecini tamamlamış ve oldukça yüksek penetrasyon oranlarına ulaşmış günümüzdeki önemli olgulardandır. Bu ağların ortaya çıktığı günden itibaren en önemli kitlesini öğrenciler oluşturmaktadır. Sosyal ağların kullanım devamlılığında da çeşitli araştırmalar oldukça geniş bir çerçevede gerçekleştirilmektedir. Üniversite öğrencilerinin sosyal ağ kullanımında sosyal kazanımlar, kendini gerçekleştirme ve aidiyet hissi boyutlarını ele alan bu araştırma kapsamında Orta Anadolu’da eğitim gören 557 üniversite öğrencisinden veri toplanmıştır. Gerçekleştirilmiş olan bu betimsel çalışmada anket tekniği kullanılmıştır. Katılımcıların yukarıda belirtilen üç boyuta ilişkin genel değerlendirmelerinin yanında cinsiyet, yaş ve eğitim gördükleri alanlara yönelik karşılaştırmalar yapmak amacıyla da veriler toplanmıştır. Sosyal kazanımlar, kendini gerçekleştirme ve aidiyet hissi boyutlarında elde edilen yanıtlar cinsiyet, yaş ve eğitim alanına göre analiz edilmiştir. Sonuçlara göre sosyal kazanımlar en yüksek ortalamaya sahipken bunu kendini gerçekleştirme ve daha sonrasında aidiyet hissi izlemektedir.  Ayrıca sosyal kazanımlar, kendini gerçekleştirme ve aidiyet hissi boyutlarında cinsiyet ve yaş açısından anlamlı bir farklılık bulunmamıştır. Eğitim aldıkları alan açısından ise anlamlı farklılık bulunmuştur. Üç boyutta da sosyal bilimler öğrencileri anlamlı bir şekilde daha yüksek puanlar vermişlerdir.    

Keywords

• Sosyal ağ,sosyal kazanım,aidiyet,kendini gerçekleştirme,eğtiim alanları

References

1. Abrams, D., Weick, M., Thomas, D., Colbe, H., & Franklin, K. M. (2011). On‐line ostracism affects children differently from adolescents and adults. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 29(1), 110-123.
2. Allen, K. A., Ryan, T., Gray, D. L., McInerney, D. M., & Waters, L. (2014). Social media use and social connectedness in adolescents: The positives and the potential pitfalls. The Educational and Developmental Psychologist, 31(1), 18-31.
3. Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (1995). The need to belong: desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological bulletin, 117(3), 497.
4. Blanchard, A. L., & Markus, M. L. (2004). The experienced sense of a virtual community: Characteristics and processes. ACM SIGMIS Database: the DATABASE for Advances in Information Systems, 35(1), 64-79.
5. Bland, J. M., & Altman, D. G. (1997). Statistics notes: Cronbach9s alpha. Bmj, 314(7080), 572.
6. Baym, N. (2011). Social Networks 2.0. The handbook of Internet studies, 2, 384.
7. Cacioppo, J. T., Berntson, G. G., Adolphs, R., Carter, C. S., Davidson, R. J., McClintock, M. K., & Taylor, S. E. (2002). Social neuroscience series. Foundations in social neuroscience. Cambridge, MA, US: MIT Press.
8. Chiu, C. M., Hsu, M. H., & Wang, E. T. (2006). Understanding knowledge sharing in virtual communities: An integration of social capital and social cognitive theories. Decision support systems, 42(3), 1872-1888.

9. Davis, K. (2012). Friendship 2.0: Adolescents' experiences of belonging and self-disclosure online. Journal of adolescence, 35(6), 1527-1536.
10. Day, R. (2007). Information connecting people with services: the information and referral role of community service organisations. Australasian Public Libraries and Information Services, 20(3), 103.
11. Han, B. (2012). An investigation of factors influencing the user's social network site continuance intention. University of North Texas.
12. Harris, J. A. (1993). Personalities of students in three faculties: Perception and accuracy. Personality and Individual Differences, 15(3), 351-352.
13. Kim, W., Kreps, G. L., & Shin, C. N. (2015). The role of social support and social networks in health information–seeking behavior among Korean Americans: a qualitative study. International journal for equity in health, 14(1), 40.
14. Kline, P., & Lapham, S. L. (1992). Personality and faculty in British universities. Personality and Individual Differences, 13(7), 855-857.
15. Koh, JKim, Y. G., & Kim, Y. G. (2003). Sense of virtual community: A conceptual framework and empirical validation. International journal of electronic commerce, 8(2), 75-94.
16. Lochner, K., Kawachi, I., & Kennedy, B. P. (1999). Social capital: a guide to its measurement. Health & place, 5(4), 259-270.
17. Manago, A. M., Graham, M. B., Greenfield, P. M., & Salimkhan, G. (2008). Self-presentation and gender on MySpace. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 29(6), 446-458.
18. Maslow, A. H. (2013). Toward a psychology of being. Simon and Schuster.
19. Nunnally, J. C., & Bernstein, I. H. (1994). Psychometric Theory (McGraw-Hill Series in Psychology) (Vol. 3). New York: McGraw-Hill.
20. Pai, P., & Arnott, D. C. (2013). User adoption of social networking sites: Eliciting uses and gratifications through a means–end approach. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(3), 1039-1053.
21. Paris, C. M., Lee, W., & Seery, P. (2010). The role of social media in promoting special events: acceptance of Facebook ‘events’. Information and communication technologies in tourism 2010, 531-541.
22. Penninx, B. W., Van Tilburg, T., Kriegsman, D. M., Boeke, A. J. P., Deeg, D. J., & van Eijk, J. T. M. (1999). Social network, social support, and loneliness in older persons with different chronic diseases. Journal of Aging and Health, 11(2), 151-168.
23. Pharo, H., Gross, J., Richardson, R., & Hayne, H. (2011). Age-related changes in the effect of ostracism. Social Influence, 6(1), 22-38.
24. Rajan, S. S. (2015). A study on ımpact of social media tools for event marketing. International Journal of Social Science and Humanities Research, 3 (3), 262-282.
25. Salimkhan, G., Manago, A. M., & Greenfield, P. M. (2010). The construction of the virtual self on MySpace. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, 4(1).
26. Schlenker, B. R., & Pontari, B. A. (2000). The strategic control of information: Impression management and self-presentation in daily life. In A. Tesser, R. B. Felson, & J. M. Suls(Eds.),Psychological Perspectives on Self and Identity (199–232). Washington, DC:American Psychological Association.
27. Seidman, G. (2013). Self-presentation and belonging on Facebook: How personality influences social media use and motivations. Personality and Individual Differences, 54(3), 402-407.
28. Shao, G. (2009). Understanding the appeal of user-generated media: a uses and gratification perspective. Internet research, 19(1), 7-25.
29. Sharma, A., & Jaswal, I. (2015). Personality and Patterns of Facebook Usage. International Journal of Academic Research in Psychology, Vol. 2, No. 2.
30. Statista (2019). Most famous social network sites worldwide as of April 2019. 08 Temmuz 2019 tarihinde https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/ adresinden erişilmiştir
31. Statista (2018). Number of social media users worldwide from 2010 to 2021. 08 Temmuz 2019 tarihinde https://www.statista.com/statistics/278414/number-of-worldwide-social-network-users/ adresinden erişilmiştir
32. Tidwell, L. C., & Walther, J. B. (2002). Computer‐mediated communication effects on disclosure, impressions, and interpersonal evaluations: Getting to know one another a bit at a time. Human communication research, 28(3), 317-348.
33. Quinn, S., & Oldmeadow, J. A. (2013). Is the igeneration a ‘we’generation? Social networking use among 9‐to 13‐year‐olds and belonging. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 31(1), 136-142.
34. Williams, K. D. (2007). Ostracism. Annual review of psychology, 58.
35. Zhao, D., & Rosson, M. B. (2009, May). How and why people Twitter: the role that micro-blogging plays in informal communication at work. In Proceedings of the ACM 2009 international conference on Supporting group work (pp. 243-252). ACM.
36. Zhao, S., Grasmuck, S., & Martin, J. (2008). Identity construction on Facebook: Digital empowerment in anchored relationships. Computers in human behavior, 24(5), 1816-1836.