Abstract:
Social media have a significant
impact on students and each group of students has a particular use, different from
other groups. This study focuses on effects of social media on Texas Tech
University students. It made a survey on 152 TTU students as a sample of TTU
students. The survey contained 21 questions which consisted of several points
about gender, nationality, and education level (graduate / undergraduate) and
their methods of using social media. The results showed that the majority of
the survey was from American undergraduate students, who represent 95% of all
Texas Tech University students. Moreover, the survey showed Facebook was more
used than Twitter. Also, this study showed that each group of TTU students had
a particular use of social media.
Introduction
Social media have become important nowadays. Social media make the
world look like a small village. Social media allow people to poste, comment
and watch in full freedom that social media help people in communication. “Facebook
will let the people use the applications without any personal information”
(Valinsky, 2013, para.1). People use social media sites such as Facebook,
Twitter, and Myspace to create and sustain relationships with others (Boyd
& Ellison, 2007). Regardless, we
cannot deny that social media have many advantages for people. However, there
are many social media applications on phone devices such as Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram and Snapchat; every person prefers one over the other. Moreover, many people use social media to tell
other people about their lives. People usually post on social media (Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram and Snapchat…. etc.) what they believe inside themselves. There is
argument between people about social media, some people view Facebook is better
than Twitter, and others view opposite that. “Facebook is a repository of
someone’s life where Twitter is like a thought-stream, at least in terms of
usage“ (McHugh, 2013, para.3). Although, social
media have negative effects on the society, its positive effects are more than
negative effects. A lot of people use social media to get jobs, even for their research.
According to McAndrew & Jeong (2012, para.1) “Males are more interested
in number of friends and educational and career accomplishments”.
On the other hand, several researchers discuss the relationship of
social media among students, where some of them see students differ in their use
of social media. Sponcil & Priscilla (2014) say “In particular, college
students form a large proportion of users on social media networks.” In fact there are many differences between male
students and female students and of the other aspect, there are differences
among graduate students and undergraduate students. The argument about social media will continue
between people, and that is a natural phenomenon.
Literature
Review:
There are many studies that have addressed the issue of social
media, but we will choose some studies which have a relationship to our topic.
Here are studies focused on the importance of social media in our lives. According to Asur el al. (2011, para.2),”social media development and the previous research about the popular topics in social media help to develop social media in the whole world.” Also, the author Hajli (2014, p.18), said, “Social media has presented new opportunities to students to use the internet in their research.” In addition,
the author
Lytle (2011, para.1), says, “Facebook
provides an online job hunting platform for students”. We agree with saying
that the social media are very important these days. we could measure this
important during our survey.
On the other hand, studies have studied the negative effects of social
media on the society. The author Moore (2011, para.2), introduced the topic of "Texting,
social media affecting teen sleeping patterns." He believes that teenagers
keep their phones with them; therefore, they tend to wake up and check their
phones frequently during the night. Facebook users’ personal information is stolen
when filling names, addresses, cellphone numbers, and other kinds of
information for online surveys. In our survey, we think there are differences
between undergraduate and graduate in social media use.
There are studies that try to show numbers and statistics about
social media and relationships that with students. There is study that was conducted by Sponcil
& Priscilla (2014); the purpose of this study was to examine social media
use among college students and how it affects communication with others, and
college students' self-concept. This study depends on Pearson correlation
between usage of social media and self-concept; students completed a
questionnaire which assessed personal use of social media, communication skills
with friends and family, and effects on self-concept. Results indicated that
all of the sampled college students were using at least one form of social
networking website where author said that" a .586 Pearson correlation
between usage of social media and communication with family and friends.” These
findings provide implications for future research on why these social networking
sites have gained popularity.
Another study discuses intention for using YouTube to share video,
where the author wrote about “Predicting
the determinants of users’ intentions for using YouTube to share video:
Moderating gender effects. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking” (Yang, 2010, para.1). It tries to analyze gender differences
in choosing YouTube to share videos. The results of a survey “among 206 male
and 135 female video sharers on YouTube show that perceived ease of use and a
positive attitude are significant determinants of the intent to use YouTube to
share videos” (Yang, 2010, para.1). In our survey, we may make a comparison
between Texas Tech University males and females students about social media
Moreover, there is study
that was written by McAndrew and Jeong (2012, para.2) that measured the
relationship between age and sex on Facebook. Also, it included 284 males and 735 females; it found
females use Facebook more frequently than males. In addition, there
is a study that was presented by Joiner et al. (2014, para.1) called “Publically
different, privately the same: Gender differences and similarities in response
to Facebook status updates.” They made a
hypothesis that says “women use affiliative language more than men on
Facebook statuses; this study consisted of 388 females and 207 males”. The result
was the determination that the females post and publish more than males. In our
survey, we will focus on using Facebook and Twitter between TTU students.
Hypotheses:
This
study put hypotheses to examine finally; these hypotheses are:
- The uses of social media differ between graduate and undergraduate students.
- There will be no difference between males and females about using social media.
- TTU students use Facebook more than Twitter.
Methods:
This study concentrates on all kinds of social media such as
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest and Snapchat. We tried to
discover which one of the social media were used more than the others. Texas
Tech University students were used in this study as samples that could be
generalized to all universities in the United States. Texas Tech University is
located in Lubbock, which is an average city, and includes 33,111 students on
its campus (TTU, 2014). All the technical and communications methods are available
in the city, which help students use social media.
We are a group that contributed the survey on the campus of Texas
Tech University. We designed a paper survey which contained 21 questions about
gender, nationality, and education level (graduate / undergraduate). In
addition, the survey offered several questions about social media; all of them
revolved around the question of how Texas Tech University students used social
media. However, our group consisted of nine persons who collected a sample
survey of Texas Tech University students. Some of us handled the survey by ourselves
where are they worked between TTU buildings to ask students, and others went
online where they used social media to collect the survey.
The survey included 152 students; 80 of them were females and the other
72 were males. Also, the survey showed 59 graduate students and 85
undergraduate students; another point was that the survey included 120 American
students and 32 International students. American graduate students were 39 and
American undergraduate students were 75. Also, the survey covered international
graduate students, who were 20 and International undergraduate students, who were
10. That means the largest category on our survey was undergraduate females
students. (See figure 1).
Figure (1)
This study depended on the survey to explain differences between
Texas Tech University students where there are many aspects about social media.
Some students preferred Facebook to Twitter, but others were in contrast to
that. On the other hand, some students posted on social media than more others,
and each group had particular interests different from others. However, we will discuss the results of survey
in the next section.
Results:
We will view the sample of the survey that was taken from Texas
Tech University students by our group. The survey showed the majority of this sample
was from American undergraduate students, who represent 95% of all Texas Tech
University students, and 5% were international students. Also, the survey stated
nearly 56% were undergraduate students and approximately 44% were graduate
students (Figure 2). For more details about categories of survey, there are 52%
female undergraduate students and there are 48% overall of the survey who were
male undergraduate students. We obtained several results from our survey which
showed differences between males and females, graduate students and
undergraduate students in Texas Tech University.
(Figure 2)
There are several social media applications that were included in
our survey such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat,
Ello, Vine and Google+. The user numbers of Texas Tech University students were
different from one to another in social media. We compared numbers of Texas
Tech University students who had accounts in social media; we found YouTube
obtained 24%, which was the biggest percentage, then Google+ got 19% of users
who were included in the survey, then Twitter took third place with 17%. The percentages
of users for Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, Vine social media were
between from 11% to 7% of user percentages of those who were included the
survey. The Ello social media had the lowest percentage of users; it got 1% of users
of those who were included in the survey (Figure 3).
(Figure 3)
Moreover, the survey stated various results when we wanted to see the
interaction between Texas Tech University students and social media. We merged
numbers of students who post regularly and post /use occasionally to become
numbers of students who work on social media. After that, we found Facebook got
the highest number of users with 108 users of these who were included in the
survey, that means it got 71% of user percentages of those who were included
the survey. The second social media
interaction was Instagram, which contained 73 of out 152, that means it got 48%
of user percentages of those who were included the survey. Snapchat had 68
users; that means it got 44% of user percentages of those who had accounts on
social media. Twitter, YouTube and Pinterest took numbers of users between from
40 to 45 users, approximately 26% to 29% of user percentages of who those had accounts
on social media, but Google+ and Vine got less than 20 users who were included in
the survey (Figure 4).
(Figure 4)
At this point, we will focus our analysis on Facebook and Twitter,
because they are popular social media in the world. Facebook has gotten the
highest number, for interaction in social media, when we wanted to divide this
number between males and females and graduate and undergraduate. In addition,
we noted that undergraduate students posted more than graduate students on
Facebook. Furthermore we noted TTU female students used Facebook more than TTU male
students (Figure 5). Also, TTU students
used Facebook in different ways; most of them posted on Facebook (if we collect
students who chose “post regularly” and “post occasionally” together) and a few
students do not know Facebook (Figure 6).
On the other hand, Twitter got the same results that Facebook got, where undergraduate female students used Twitter more than undergraduate male students, but male graduate students used Twitter more than female graduate students. Combinations of numbers of the survey showed graduate male students worked on Facebook more than graduate female students used Twitter. Also, the undergraduate female students worked on Facebook more than undergraduate male students (Figure 7). Moreover, graduate students have accounts on Twitter more than undergraduate students, but the undergraduate students posted on Twitter are more than gradute students. Furthermore,
undergraduate students who not know Twitter more than graduate students (Figure
8).
Otherwise, we will illustrate numbers of YouTube social media,
because it took highest number in users who have accounts on it than other
social media. In fact, female students have accounts on YouTube more than male
students. Also, the undergraduate female students worked on YouTube more than
undergraduate male students (Figure 9).
All this survey can be considered as a sample of university students in
the United States who used social media.
(Figure 5)
(Figure 6)
(Figure 7)
(Figure 8)
(Figure 9)
Discussion:
In this section, we will try to explain survey results and find
some explanations for these numbers from the survey. The survey showed the
majority of this sample was from American undergraduate students, who represent
95% of all Texas Tech University students, and 5% were international students.
That result came like that because most TTU students were from the United
States which means they have American nationality. Also, the survey showed that 56% were
undergraduate students and approximately 44% were graduate students because it
is knows that undergraduate students are more than graduate students in all
universities. Otherwise, the numbers from the survey indicated that 53% of TTU
females used social media, which is more than TTU males, because most of our
survey was from TTU females. Also, the result that female undergraduate
students were more than male undergraduate students referred to the fact that most
TTU students are females. The survey obtained several results from our survey
which showed differences between males and females, graduate students and
undergraduate students in Texas Tech University.
According to the survey, 56% of TTU students, who were included the
survey, were undergraduate students; that means undergraduate students use social
media more than graduate students. Normally, younger people like fun and to use
any new things more than older people; that could explains why undergraduate
students use social media more than graduate students. Also, we noted that the
survey indicated that 53% of TTU females used social media, more than TTU males,
because the most sample of TTU students were from females. I think that has a
relationship with females psychology, because it is common that females are more
social than males. The behavioral female psychology makes them use social media
more than males. This is just trying to
explain the relationship between females and social media.
In focus on kind of social
media, we noted YouTube and Google+ had high percentages - 24% and 19% respectively
- of students who have accounts on them. The reason YouTube and Google+ had
higher percentages than other social media is there they request from users to
open accounts in their social media. On the other hand, the small percentages
of students who had accounts on social media were 1%, 7% and 7% for Ello,
Snapchat, and Vine respectively. Explanation of these decreased percentages could
be that these kinds of social media are new for users and some of them are more
complicated to use than others.
In spite of the fact that YouTube and Google+
had high percentages of students who have accounts, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat
got high percentages of students who posted. Facebook was awarded the highest percentage,
which was 25%. This is a high percentage for Facebook because it gives its
users full options to design their website page and post on it what they want.
The other social media which had high percentage were Instagram, which took 17%, and Snapchat which got
16%; that could be cause to these kinds of social media allow their users to
post pictures and videos and share them with other users, which makes people more
active with other people.
On the other hand, here we will try to understand the difference
between Facebook and Twitter. They are more popular than other social media; a comparison
between Facebook and Twitter is necessary to discover which one is more used
than others among TTU students. The survey indicated that 88% of TTU students
use Facebook, while 64% of TTU students use Twitter; that means TTU students
use Facebook more than Twitter. Facebook has special advantage of discovering
old friends for you because it displays persons had studied with you in the same
school or in the same job, or with same interests, and so on. Furthermore, TTU
undergraduate students are more likely to be working on Facebook and Twitter than
TTU graduate students. I think that is because Facebook is more fun than
Twitter, which is more to exchange news
between its users. Also, I noted TTU
graduate students were more likely to have accounts on Twitter than TTU
undergraduate students. I think that is because Twitter is more serious than
others, where users use it to exchange news and to know any new happening such
as any new science, technology or happened in the world.
Finally, all of information in our survey was
about on TTU students. We chose some important result and we tried to analyze
these results. There are many differences between females and males, and also
between undergraduate students and graduate students. In fact, each group of
TTU students had different interests from other groups.
Conclusion:
Social media is very important in
our lives. To discover this information, we made a survey, which included 152 students
of Texas Tech University; 80 of them were females and the other 72 were males.
Also, the graduate students were 59 students and undergraduate students were 85
students. In addition, American students were 120 students and International
students were 32 students. The
study showed differences between males and females and graduate students and undergraduate
students in Texas Tech University. Also, the survey indicated that TTU female
students used social media more than TTU male students. Furthermore, Texas Tech
University students who had accounts in social media YouTube obtained the
biggest percentage, then Google+ got many users, after that comes Twitter took
third place between other social media. We learned from the survey that TTU
students use Facebook more than Twitter where Facebook has more power than
Twitter. On the other hand, the results showed what normally happens among
university students, but the results sometimes were a surprise for us. However,
this social media study of TTU students was a small sample which included 152
TTU students, and gave us the general trends for using social media between TTU
students. The sample of TTU students should include at least 3000 TTU students
to get perfect results.
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