A Qualitative Study on the Reasons for Social Media Addiction

Yıl 2018, , 861 - 865, 15.10.2018

Mehmet Emin Aksoy

https://doi.org/10.12973/eu-jer.7.4.861

Öz

The aim of this study was to determine the causes of social media addiction of individuals, who define themselves as social media addicts, in a clearer and more concrete way. In order to achieve this aim, participants have been tested with an addiction test, and 25 university students who perceive themselves as social media addicts were selected for the study. The findings of the research showed that participants' reasons for using social media were lack of friends, social necessity of social media, feeling of fulfillment, fear of missing out, intertwining of social media and daily life. The study also pointed out that social media addiction has a beginning and a continuity phase. It has been shown that the individuals who were in the beginning phase tended to start using social media for reasons such as not being able to find friends, lack of socialization, and monotony of life. In the continuity stage of individual addiction, they stated that they use social media for reasons such as, fulfilling a duty, and protecting social relations that they had. One of the reasons for addiction was the need to socialize, while male participants were more interested in acquiring new friends, female participants were more interested in communicating with their real life friends.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Social media, addiction, reasons for social media addiction

Kaynakça

• Arpacı, I. (2011). Kamu kurumlarında teknolojik inovasyon ve inovasyon politikası [Technological innovation and innovation policy in public institutions.]. METU Studies in Development, 38(2), 111-123.
• Arpaci, I. (2013). Organizational adoption of mobile communication technologies (Doctoral dissertation). Department of Information System, School of Informatics, Middle East Technical University.
• Arpaci, I. (2018). Culture & nomophobia: The role of vertical versus horizontal collectivism in predicting nomophobia. Information Development. Doi: 10.1177/0266666917730119.
• Arpaci, I., Baloglu, M., & Kesici, S. (2018). A multi-group analysis of the effects of individual differences in mindfulness on nomophobia. Information Development. Doi: 10.1177/0266666917745350.
• Arpaci, I., Baloğlu, M., Ozteke Kozan, H. I. & Kesici, S. (2017). Individual differences in the relationship between attachment and nomophobia: The mediating role of mindfulness. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 19(12), e404, Doi: 10.2196/jmir.8847.
• Arpaci, I., Kesici, Ş., & Baloğlu, M. (2018). Individualism and Internet addiction: The mediating role of psychological needs. Internet Research, 28(2). Doi: 10.1108/IntR-11-2016-0353.
• Arpaci, I., Yardimci Cetin, Y., & Turetken, O. (2015). Impact of perceived security on organizational adoption of smartphones. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 18(10), 602-608.
• Baker, S. (2016). Why Do People Use Online Social Networking? , http://socialnetworking.love toknow.com/Why_Do_People_Use_Online_Social_Networking the address 07.22. 2016 was accessed on.
• Bridgestock, L. (2016) What Drives Students' Social Media Usage?, http://www.topuniversities.com/blog/what-drives-students-social-media-usage the address 05.23.2016 was accessed on.
• Chen, C., Zhang, K. Z., Gong, X., Zhao, S. J., Lee, M. K., & Liang, L. (2017). Examining the effects of motives and gender differences on smartphone addiction. Computers in Human Behavior, 75, 891-902.
• Creswell, J. W. (2013). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches, 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
• Esgi, N. (2016) Development of Social Media Addiction Test (SMAT17). Journal of Education and Training Studies, 4(10), October 2016, 174-181.
• Glesne, C. (2010). Becoming qualitative researchers: An introduction, 4th ed. Boston: Pearson.
• Jeong, E. J., Kim, D. J., & Lee, D. M. (2017). Why do some people become addicted to digital games more easily? A study of digital game addiction from a psychosocial health perspective. International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction, 33(3), 199-214.
• Jones, S. R., Torres, V., & Arminio, J. (2006). Negotiating the complexities of qualitative research in higher education: Fundamental elements and issues. New York: Routledge.
• Kim, B., & Kang, M. (2016). Effect of MMS Addiction on Users Health and Academic Performance in an Era of Convergence. Journal of Digital Convergence, 14(1), 131-139.
• Kuss, D. J., & Griffiths, M. D. (2011) Online Social Networking and Addiction-A Review of the Psychological Literature. Environ. Res. Public Health 2011, 8, 3528-3552.
• Lee, Y. K., Chang, C. T., Lin, Y., & Cheng, Z. H. (2017). Heads-down tribes across four Asian countries: antecedents of smartphone addiction. International Journal of Mobile Communications, 15(4), 414-436.
• Lenhart, A. (2007) Social Networking Websites and Teens: An Overview; Washington, DC, USA: Pew Research Center.
• Shaffer, H. J., LaPlante, D. A., LaBrie, R. A., Kidman, R. C., Donato, A. N., & Stanton, M. V. (2004). Toward a syndrome model of addiction: Multiple expressions, common etiology. Harvard review of psychiatry, 12(6), 367-374.
• Shen, X., Ng, J. C. Y., & Tan, X. (2016). An empirical study on the antecedents to college student online game addiction in China. Indian Journal of Commerce and Management Studies, 7(1), pp: 8.
• WERSM (2016). http://wersm.com/the-10-top-reasons-why-we-use-social-networks/ the address 07.22.2016 was accessed on.
• Werste, K. (2016). An introduction Social Networking, 4th ed. London: Moment.
• Stavropoulos, V., Kuss, D. J., Griffiths, M. D., Wilson, P., & Motti-Stefanidi, F. (2017). MMORPG gaming and hostility predict Internet addiction symptoms in adolescents: An empirical multilevel longitudinal study. Addictive behaviors, 64, pp: 294-300.
• Yang, S., Liu, Y., & Wei, J. (2016). Social capital on mobile SNS addiction: a perspective from online and offline channel integrations. Internet Research, 26(4), 982-1000.