The Influence of Social Media on Adolescents
Research Question
The study is designed to determine the effects of social media on adolescents. With the growing usage of social media among adolescents whereby some individuals spend up to nine hours per six hours per day, it is expected that the platform has significantly influences the mentioned users. This project encompasses the social impact theory of group influence that suggests that social influence will increase as a function of perceived ‘strength’ among the group members since social media encompasses a lot of group influence. The perceived strength of this study is that the research will use simple and fun methodologies of collecting data as well as its analysis. Hence underlying information will be brought up in accordingly. Moreover, the project encompasses peer reviewed content from scholarly articles hence its information is reliable and credible.
Hypothesis
Higher levels of conformity as well as straits of un-satisfaction with self are are associated with individuals who spend a considerable amount of time on social media than those who do not. The present project will strive to prove stipulations that state that social media influences adolescents to crave for the lifestyles projected by their peers hence puts pressure on them to conform to the contemporary trends. Moreover, this pressure has the negative effect of making the teens not to be satisfied with their lives. Moreover, the project will demonstrate the various positive and negative aspects attributed to the usage of social media among adolescents.
Subject Selection
According to World Health Organization’s definition of adolescence, it is a period of development between age of 10 to 19 years (Andreassen et al, 2016). As such, the research will encompass young people between the age group (10-19 years) who are of sound mind. The sample will include teenagers of different races and be picked from elementary school and CSI College students to enhance the diversity of the subjects. Moreover, the subject selection will encompass uniformity in gender selection to avoid disunity of the population, which may result in inaccurate conclusions. Also, the study will encompass 200 participants who will be chosen randomly from the mentioned institutions of learning. The study will employ the use of stratified random sampling to ensure an unbiased selection of participants. In this type of sampling, groups of individuals from distinct levels in both the elementary school and the CSI College will be chosen. The final sample will be chosen from those groups hence it will represent the whole population uniformly. Lastly, the sample will be referred to in terms of numbers hence they will remain anonymous so as to protect their identity.
Procedures
First, the sample will be scrutinized to ensure that they satisfy the requirements of the research. It will be educated on the need of the study and its significance in the society and the school fraternity. Moreover, sample will be informed that it will be anonymous hence it should strive to be honest during the research. Lastly, they the group will be guided on how to fill in the questionnaires to make sure that everything is understood. The group will be encouraged to ask questions whenever it feels the need to do so. Two locations are set aside for the study a lecture hall in CSI college and a classroom in the nearby selected elementary school. Indeed, it will be convenient for the selected sample to meet in their respective halls to fill in the questionnaires, an activity which will take about 15 to 20 minutes. The questionnaires will be delivered to the two venues in advance, to avoid delays. After filling every part and after the researcher has ascertained that every area is filled as needed, the respondents will be free to leave.
The questionnaires will encompass four parts which will cover all the needed information. The first part will entail collecting the background information of the respondents such as their age, level of education, and their race. The second part will involve ascertaining what the respondents know about the effects of social media on adolescents. The third part harbor questions with a Likert scale that ranges from strongly agree to strongly disagree with specific questions which will touch on various personal effects of social media to adolescents. The last part will encompass open questions on the effects of social media on teenagers whereby the respondents will be free to expound on how social media has influenced their lives (Allen et al, 2014).
After the collection of the data, it will be refined into a version which can be analyzed. After that, the quantitative data will be fed into Excel and SPSS functions to ascertain the various trends in the data (Andreassen et al, 2016). Additionally, descriptive analysis will be used to show the main aspects of the data: mean, standard deviation, and skewness. Also, it is imperative to ascertain that much of the study’s inferences will be made from the results of the data analysis hence it will be desirable to present them via graphs for easy visibility of the underlying trends. Moreover, qualitative analysis will be applied on the open questions’ answers to assess the opinions presented by the respondents. In this case, the opinion held by majority of the respondents will be taken to be the opinion held by the rest of the population.
Human Subjects’ Protection
The research will encompass disclosing sensitive information, which can be applied to the rest of the population. As such, it could be dangerous if the data is accessed by unauthorized parties. As such, anonymity will be implemented to make sure no respondent can be tied to particular results. The derived information will be beneficial for the respondent as well as the rest of the society since it will show the impacts of social media, such as making adolescents more emotional and unstable. Notably, the information derived from the study will be published in popular platforms, which are accessible to adolescents, parents, different members of their school’s fraternity, and the public. However, the names of the respondents and their levels of education will not be provided so as to ensure the human subject’s protection (Allen et al, 2014).
Conclusion
The research is expected to ascertain the impacts of social media to adolescents. It will majorly encompass administering questionnaires to the selected respondents in the age group 12 to 19 years. The findings of the research will be beneficial to adolescents, parents, teachers, and the rest of the community in understanding how to handle adolescents and hence present an opportunity for coming up with methods of handling the negative effects of the use of social media by adolescents. Moreover, the findings will help in understanding some of the common symptoms of adolescents who are heavily influenced by social media and hence help in handling them before they progress to critical conditions.
References
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. Retrieved from https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/educational-and-developmental-psychologist/article/social-media-use-and-social-connectedness-in-adolescents-the-positives-and-the-potential-pitfalls/92B9E45410B9031B410725340A4C1C66
Andreassen, C. S., Billieux, J., Griffiths, M. D., Kuss, D. J., Demetrovics, Z., Mazzoni, E., & Pallesen, S. (2016). The relationship between addictive use of social media and video games and symptoms of psychiatric disorders: A large-scale cross-sectional study. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 30(2), 252. Retrieved from http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2016-13379-006
APPENDICES
APPENDIX 1: REQUEST LETTER
Dear respondent,
Good day! I am a graduating student of CSI College. As a requirement for my course, I am currently conducting a survey about the Influence of Social Media on Adolescents. The respondents for this study are CSI Collage students and students from our neighboring elementary school. In line with this, I have chosen you to be one of my respondents of this research study and it’s my sincere hope that you will take time to answer the questionnaire’s questions honestly. Please note that all the data gathered will be treated with utmost confidentiality and will be used for academic purposes only.
Thank you for your support.
Researcher.
APPENDIX 2: QUESTIONNAIRE
Part 1: Background information
- Gender
- Male b) Female
- Age range
- 10 -12 b) 13-15 c) 15-17 d) 17-19
- Level of education
CSI College Elementary
Part 2: knowledge on influence of social media on adolescents
Please indicate your level of agreement with each of the following statements. 1=Strongly disagree, 2=disagree, 3=Neutral, 4=agree, 5=strongly agree
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | |
| I know what social media is. | |||||
| The use of social media is encouraged upon by the media. | |||||
| I use social media daily. | |||||
| I receive adequate education on the use and effects of excess usage of social media. | |||||
| I know of a friend who uses social media. | |||||
| Usage of social media has adverse effects on adolescents. |
Part 3: Survey on the use of synthetic marijuana
- I use social media at least 3 hours per day.
Strongly Agree.
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly Disagree
- Social media puts pressure on me to conform to group mentality.
Strongly Agree.
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly Disagree
- I know of an adolescent who is depressed due to the excessive usage of social media.
Strongly Agree.
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly Disagree
- Adolescents hooked with social media have emotional issues than those who use it sparingly.
Strongly Agree.
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly Disagree
Part 4: explanations
How much many hours do you spend on social media per day? Are you comfortable with this number?
What aspects of social media offer advantages to you and which ones are detrimental to you?
Does seeing some posts on social media put pressure on you and make you to compare with others?
What would you say is the effect of excess usage of social media usage among adolescents?