Tuesday, December 2, 2014

The Way Texas Tech University Students Use Social Media By Kubra Nur Aric

Abstract
            This study shows how Texas Tech University students use social media. This research paper was written after a survey was done with 152 students. Those students were chosen to be as close to %50 each as possible in order to represent reality. They were asked many questions to discover how they used social media and what their purpose using social media was. You will find out about young people’s social media habits.
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
“We think therefore we are, we share what we are.”
Charles Leadbeater
            In today’s world, technology is a big part of our lives. Most people spend many hours using Internet. We could call using social media more than once per day ‘social habit’.
            There are many explanations that define what social media is. “Social media is the social interaction among people in which they create, share or exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks” (Ahlqvist, T. & Bäck, A. & Halonen, M. & Heinonen, S. 2008).
The first social media-networking site, ‘Usenet’, was created by Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis in 1979 (Bonnett, C. 2010). The second one, ‘MySpace’, was created in 2003 and then Facebook was developed in 2004. Hereafter, the development of social media started. In today’s world 1.73 billion people use social media websites. Those numbers show us how the rank of using social media has increased by years.
            Statistical information about social media is totally shocking. According to Jeff Bullas (2013), Facebook has 665 million active users on a daily basis. If it is compared with Twitter, Twitter has fewer users than Facebook has. But, Twitter has more development. It has 44% growth between June 2012 and March 2013. On the other hand, YouTube has more visitors (1 billion monthly) than the other social media networking sites.
It is well known that young people are more interested in social media than old people. One study shows that 89% of people who are 18-29 years old use social media (Bullas, 2014). However, older people are using social media more often as well. “60% of people between 50-60 years old are active on social media” (Romeri, 2014, para. 2).
            Social media is something that everybody has some idea about even though they may not have an account on the sites. Obviously the way of using social media depends on age, region, gender, etc. This research includes the difference between females and males while they are using social media.
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
Social media is an important part of our lives. According to Joy Baer, 22% of Americans check their profiles on social media several times in a day (Baer, 2012). In the research of social media, we decided to investigate the effects of Social Media on Texas Tech students.
            One study showed that 96% of UNH Whittemore School of Business students use Facebook more than the other Social Media websites. The second website that UNH Whittemore School of Business students check more is YouTube (Bart, 2009). We wanted to know which social media sites Texas Tech University students are using the most. Based on our experience, we are assuming that students are using Facebook the most, you will see the results in the results section.
According to a study, keeping in touch with family and old friends is more important for women (Smith, 2011). They like to find the old friends and have an interaction with them. We wanted to know how man and woman use social media differently.
It was also hypothesized that women use social media emotionally (Joiner, 2014). We decided to ask Texas Tech University students to know if they agree with this statement or not.
            Studies show that every social media website has different ways of being used. A study, which was done with the undergraduate students at a private university, claims that students spend one hour checking their Facebook per day. We wanted to investigate how many hours Texas Tech students use for checking their social media accounts. The reason they check Facebook is to update their ‘Newsfeed’ and read what their friends posted (Pempek &, Yermolayeva & Calvert, 2009).
On the other hand Americans use Twitter to connect with a public figure, for example, athletes, singer, actor, politician etc. (Smith, 2011). In this research, we hoped to show the reasons for Texas Tech University students using social media sites.
            It has been hypothesized that using Social Media ruins friendship (Burbach, C.).  Young people want to share everything they do. When they meet they have nothing to talk about, because they have already gotten updated from social media about what they are up to (Moore, 2011). Also if they get a game request from friends, they start to think about ‘unfriending’ them. We planned to show how Texas Tech University students feel about their friendship with using Social Media.
            The above-mentioned statements were examined by asking Texas Tech University students. After students answered the questions, my colleagues and I will take a look and discover the young peoples social habits.
CHAPTER 3: METHOD
Texas Tech University is located in Lubbock, Texas. There are 28,632 undergraduates, 5,526 postgraduates, and 2220 doctoral students study at Texas Tech University. (Texas Tech University Fact Book, 2014) Although most students are from Texas, Texas Tech University have students who are from more than 100 different countries. That is why our survey, which was done by Texas Tech students, fairly represents the way American young people think about social media.
My colleagues and I were wondering about young people’s social media habit. S. Kaleli, M. C. Rios-Blanco, F. Almutlaq, Y. Liu, F. Luo, S. Valipoor, X. Zhang and me decided to make a study about the effect of social media on Texas Tech University students, so we started to prepare a survey.
When we prepared the survey, there were some questions that we had to ask to people according to our hypotheses. Here are some questions we wanted to learn about Texas Tech students’ social media habit:
-Which social media sites are Texas Tech students using the most?
-What are the reasons Texas Tech students use social media sites?
-Do women express their emotions more on social media?
-How many Texas Tech students connect to public figures on social media?
-Do they feel texting while driving is dangerous? Do they avoid doing it?
-Do they care about Social Media events such as the Ice Bucket Challenge?
-Do they think checking social media websites affects their sleep?
-Do they feel social media ruins friendships?
-Are they okay with the ‘Real name’ policy on the websites?
-How many times do they check social media on a daily basis?
-Do they share personal information on the social media (such as relationship status)?
We and our teachers, T. Leverett, R. Branch, M. Gries, agreed that we should make sure that the study was going to show the real facts about social media, so we knew that we should seek 50% female and 50% male to keep the balance. Since this study shows the way social media is used by American young student population, we kept asking the questions to those who were born in the USA.  For additional information, the international students did our survey too.
First of all we asked three general questions such as gender, degree, and nationality. Then, we picked the most popular social media websites to ask about. We ended up with questions that were relevant about Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat, Ello, Google+, and Vine. In overall, we asked 28 questions to evaluate students’ opinions about social media.
However, we did not ask only the way they used social media, there were couple of questions to discover how using social media affected their own personal life. Also, we asked what they thought about the Ice Bucket Challenge. On the other hand, we asked if they believed social media had bad impression on their relationships and friendships in their social life.
At the end of collecting our surveys, we had 81 females, of whom 15 were international, and 71 males, of whom 16 were international. We had 57 graduate and 87 undergraduate students.
Overall, we kept the balance as much as we could. We reached 152 students who made our study done. According the data we collected, we could say that we did our best to reach a fair representation.
CHAPTER 4: RESULTS
After we finished collecting our surveys, we realized that we could reach any information that we needed to discover the way American students used social media. Actually we realized that we could have many ideas about students’ social habit by using this data. Although, we did not limit our survey only with Americans. To compare American students and international students, we tried to find as many internationals as we could.
Using this methodology, many results were found. It was hypothesized that females and males used social media in different ways. We followed this statement and I would like to highlight the results by comparing females and males. First of all, it is important to say that we had 80 females and 72 males, which meant the percentage of females was 52% and 48% for males. So, we kept the balance.


I would like to divide our results into female and male. Our study showed that 32% of female students posted on Facebook regularly; on the other hand 23% of male students posted statuses on Facebook regularly. It is a fact that females use Facebook more than males. Also, it was found that the percentage of female students who did not have Facebook accounts (6%) was greater than of male students (4%). Also, 20 female students and 8 male students spent more than an hour at Facebook. So, we could say that women spent time on Facebook more than men did.
We asked the students what they thought about Twitter. 66% of females have an account on Twitter and they post it regularly. This number is almost same with males. 63% of males post on Twitter regularly. 15% of females stated that they usually post pictures. Obviously males did not like to post pictures, because only 2% of them stated that they post pictures. When we asked if they used hashtags on Twitter, 27% of females and 37% of males stated that they used hashtags offen.
The study showed that 81% of female students have an account on YouTube, and 20% of them used it occasionally. However, this number is the same as that of male students. 81% of male students used YouTube daily.
Certainly there were questions about the other social websites. We also asked about Instagram, Snapchat, Ello, Vine, and Google+.  According to the data, the percentage of using Vine, Snapchat, and Instagram is higher with females than males. Surprisingly only one female undergraduate student and 3 male students had an account on Ello. The rest of them did not use it or did not know about it.


For additional information, the study showed that 78% of female students thought females used social media more emotionally. Obviously male students did not think the same way.  Only 59% of male students stated that they thought females used social media emotionally.
It was found that females and males thought differently when it came to the affect of social media on the relationships. 20% females stated that they thought social media had good effect on the friendships, but this percentage is higher with males. 36% of males thought social media affected friendships in a good way. However, it was found that most of females (70%) and most of males (55%) thought social media did not have any effect on the friendships.
It was asked that if the students believed social media had good effect on the grades. Only 2% of females and 1% males thought social media were good for the grades. However, 31% of females and 18% males stated that social media had bad effect on the grades. The study showed that most of Texas Tech students believed that social media did not have any effect on the grades.
There was another question about the ‘real name policy’ on Facebook. We wanted to know what Texas Tech students thought about that. Most of females (62%) and most of males (77%) stated that they did not agree with the ‘real name’ policy on the Facebook. Also, 70% of females and 76% of males used their real name instead of using nicknames on the social media websites.
CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION
            Before we started our study, we created some hypotheses so that we could follow these statements and come up with the answers. At the beginning, my colleagues and I had several hypotheses, but everyone followed different hypothesis to discover the way of Texas Tech University students’ social media habit. I, personally, focused on the difference between female and male students and the way they used social media at this research.
One of the hypotheses stated that women used social media more emotionally. What we found after the survey was that both girls and boys agreed with this statement. Our study showed that we were right at the beginning. But I am still wondering about it. How do girls use it emotionally? When somebody likes their picture, does it make them happy? Or, when they read bad comments about them, do they get sad easily? Maybe we should do another survey to investigate how exactly girls and boys use social media different. Because our study showed us most of students, 92% of females and 70% of males, stated that they used emotions while they were texting. According to data, we could stick on that hypothesis; females used social media emotionally. But it is just one difference between females and males.
            Also, we thought that we could figure out which social media Texas Tech students use most. Our study showed that Texas Tech students used Facebook most and than Twitter. These results were exactly what we were expecting. It is well known that Facebook and Twitter are more popular than the other social media websites.
However, we knew that Ello was not that popular, and the results did not surprise us. There were only five people who knew about Ello and had an account on it. We may study about it. We are curious about the reasons they do not use Ello. They might have never heard about it or they may have checked and did not like it. Also, they might not have had time to try a new social media website. However, we could assume that the students did not want to try it. Those are possible answers, but still I am wondering why they did not get along with Ello. What was missing on that website? Obviously, we need more information to discover the reasons of avoiding having an account on Ello.
Also, we believed that Snapchat was very popular among Texas Tech students. I, personally, have seen many people using Snapchat all the time. Whenever an important event comes such as football game or something happens on the campus, they all take a snap, which means quick photo. The fact that not too many students used Snapchat was shocking. 65% of females and 50% of males stated that they used Snapchat. I was expected that 80% or 90% of them used it many times in a day. The things I have seen do not match with our study. Either I may be wrong that they were taking ‘Snaps’ or people may have given us wrong information. In that case I would like to investigate why Texas Tech University students pretend that they do not use Snapchat. Is it something that we are embarrassed to say that we have an account? In my view, it is absolutely worth studying about it.
            However, based on our experience, we have seen many people texting while driving, but most students stated that they thought driving and texting were dangerous, which was very surprising for us. Only one female and two male students thought checking social media or texting while driving was not dangerous. However, it was found that 62% of females and 52% of males stated that they checked their phone while driving. We ended up wondering why they were doing it if they thought it was dangerous. Also, we could say that some of them must feel guilty about it because some people stated that they used their phone only at the stop signs. I thought it meant they knew texting while driving was wrong, so why do they keep doing it all the time? We may need more study to investigate their behavior. It is obvious that the reality and the information that we got from our survey do not match.
            There was another result that was not expected. We knew that in some countries people use Twitter and Facebook to connect with public figures, but there was not many Texas Tech students who used the social media websites for this reason. 85% of females and 50% of males stated that they never connected with public figures on social media websites. It is obvious that male students were interested with public figures more than female students. We may do another study to find out what the reason is that they do not use Twitter for reaching public figures. In the past, fans wrote letters to those whom they loved and sent them by mail. It is well known that Twitter has replaced fan letters. But, we could assume that Twitter has not replaced fan letters in United State of America. I, personally, believe that Twitter is a perfect way to have a chance to talk with famous people, because most famous people answer the questions they receive from their fans. All we need is to find their account and mention the question. It seems very easy. Since many public figures consider the bad and good comments about them in my country, I am very interested in this situation. But this is not the only explanation; we could assume that Twitter had negative interaction so that people would not want to associate with Twitter. As we said before, we need more information to discover the reasons.
            We were curious about the reason that Texas Tech students used social media; we found that most of them used it to update their status and follow their friends. In today’s world, many people fall apart from their friends and from their family, sometimes. I believe it is a great way to reach some old friends. Since I am an international student who lives in America, I use social media to follow what is new in my friends’ life. Texas Tech University students stated that most likely, they posted pictures and sent messages. Well, we never considered the way of using Facebook for texting. So this information shocked us. But overall, we could say that young people use Facebook for communicating with friends.
            On the other hand, we knew that Ice Bucket Challenge was really popular for a long time. We have seen many famous people doing it; not only them; some of our friends followed this trend. So, we asked what they thought about it. For sure, most students knew about the Ice Bucket Challenge, and almost half of them (48%) stated that they thought it was good. However, 27% of them thought it was pointless. I would say that this statement is totally surprising for me. When we discussed it during class, we all agreed that it was pointless. Obviously, American students do not think the way we think. Based on my own experience, I could say that many of my friends challenged by other people and they took a video and showed the awareness of the disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). But, I knew that none of them donated money to the organizations. That is the reason that I thought the Ice Bucket Challenge did not have point.
            There was a question to investigate that social media affected on the Texas Tech students’ social life. We asked the students if they published their relationship status on the social media. 43% of female students and 23% of male students stated that they updated their status when they had a relationship. Obviously male students did not like to show their relationship status. This information pushed us to ask more questions. We would like to know the reasons they were hiding their relationships. Did males think publishing relationships is bad?
            In the end, we could say that we have gotten any information we needed by collecting the surveys. All of data were useful to reach the results, but some of results showed that there were many questions we had to ask to investigate the way of Texas Tech University students’ social media habit deeply.
CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION
            Overall, I could say that it has been a long process for my colleagues and me. We started thinking how it would be useful to discover American young students’ social media habit and we started our study. It was not as easy as we expected. First of all, we had to make a decision about which hypotheses we wanted to follow. Then, we needed to figure out how our survey should look, and which questions we should include. We worked on the format and we tried to make it as clear as it was supposed to be. For sure, we faced some problems while collecting the surveys. Some people did not want to volunteer to fill the survey out, or some of them did not want to spend their time. Also, we saw that some students did not answer some question; in that case we had to hand another survey out, because we would not want having missing information because of the lack of data. So we could say that we have been through a complicated process.
In the end, we believe that we have all the information to understand American young students’ views to about social media. We found some surprising knowledge that we would not expect. Our study showed us that asking correct questions to people we could have any information that we needed. We believed that our study was useful and deserved further study. Also, since our survey was done with 152 Texas Tech University students and we were careful with the numbers, we could say that this research paper is fairly accurate and represents the way Texas Tech University students use social media.
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