Proposal

Serdar 10.14.2014

Introduction

            As time passes by, the usage of social media is getting more common among people. Although some people might think that they are harmful for everyday communication, they are indispensable communication tools for the recent generation. Cherie Burbach states that the social media have changed the way people communicate with each other in a negative way; on the contrary, social media helps us to keep in touch with family members or old friends more easily compared to the past (Burbach, n.d.).  Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+, YouTube, Snapchat, Vine, and Tumblr are only some of the popular ones among the college students’ huge variety of social media tools. Some of them are getting more popular; some of them might lose their popularity over time. According to John McDermott, some of the usages of the social media among college students, as of November 2013, are Facebook 88.6%, Instagram 51.5%, Twitter 43.7%, Tumblr 35.5%, Snapchat 25.9% and Vine 25%; in addition, while the usage of Facebook is decreasing, other social media sites are getting more popular among college students (McDermott, 2014).

Also, college students use different social media web pages for different reasons. As McDermott stated, for example, while Facebook users are tending more to keep in touch with their old friends or family members, Twitter users are using Twitter more for expressing themselves easily; on the other hand, college students prefer Snapchat due to the feeling of keeping safe what they shared (McDermott, 2014). Molly McHugh explains the usage of Facebook and Twitter as: “Facebook is a repository of someone’s life, where Twitter is like a thought-stream, at least in terms of usage” (McHugh, 2013, p. 6).

In the Fall 2014 semester, the class of ESL 5301 will conduct research about Texas Tech student’s are use of social media. Since social media are enormously popular, it would be useful and interesting to study how Texas Tech students are using social media. In this research, each student will conduct different research about some topics, for example, the reasons students use the social media, how frequently they use them, which social media they prefer for different purposes, whether social media affect their success and other topics, by making surveys with the contribution of Texas Tech students. Each individual in the class will state hypotheses and try to find out whether it is true or not. I will provide information in the methods section about how this research will be conducted.

Literature Review

There are many different statements and questions about social media. The most general questions about social media are about how many people are using them, and what are the different usages between different age groups, genders and races. Mislove et al. conducted research to find out how many Twitter users there are in United States and how gender, race and geography affects the usage of Twitter (Mislove et al., 2011). They found out that Twitter users are mostly represented by male users; however, their research represents a non-random sample (Mislove et al., 2011). It is very difficult to find out the number of users of social media; we can, however, get an approximate percentage of Texas Tech social media users. In addition to that, Fink et al. found out in their research that male and female users have different reasons to use social media (Fink et al., 2012). According to the Thiago Guimaraes, the numbers of social media users are increasing and Facebook is the most popular one. He indicates that more than 84% of the web users in North America have Facebook accounts and females are using Facebook a lot more than males (Guimaraes, 2014).  In our survey, we can simply ask both male and female Texas Tech students which social media they prefer and how they use social media.

Another claim about social media is that social media might be harmful for its users in many ways. Eric Moore, for example, introduces research conducted by Marc Eric Dyken in his article; according to that research, teenagers spend time on social media at bedtime and it causes many problems like sleep disorders and fatigue during the day (Moore, 2011). We want to know if this is true for Texas Tech students. In our survey, we can ask Texas Tech students whether they check social media at bedtime or not and whether they believe checking social media at bedtime causes them sleeping disorders or not. I believe that Texas Tech students check their social media at bedtime, but they will not believe that checking social media at bedtime is causing sleeping disorders. We can also try to find out whether Texas Tech students believe the social media affect their college success or not. Mary Bart introduced a study in her article and the study found out that there is no relationship between grades and social media usage (Bart, 2010). In our study, we may verify that Texas Tech students believe that there is no relationship between grades and social media usage; however, I believe that the students will admit social media disrupts them while they are studying.

 A different claim is Kylie Burchart’s statement that the usage of social media has negative effects on communication; social media are making people more introverted and people have stopped communicating with their friends face to face because of the instant messaging ability (Burchart, 2013). Ryan Masin and John D. Faubert also support this claim by stating “Those who use Facebook more intensely report a lower quality of interpersonal relationships than those who do not use Facebook as intensely” (Masin & Faubert , 2013, p. 55). We can ask Texas Tech students if they use the instant message feature of social media web pages and we can ask them whether they prefer communicating with their friends on messenger or face to face. In my opinion, Texas Tech students will state that they more likely to prefer sending messages than doing face to face communication.

According to the Ryan Lytle, social media encourages people to make donations, and it has become easier to create fundraising than before (Lytle, 2014). According to his research, 64% of the social media users donated more than $100 last year (Lytle, 2014). In summer, there was a very popular fundraiser among social media users called “ice bucket challenge” for ALS research. Briefly, social media users poured a bucket of ice on their heads, and donated $10 to the ALS Foundation, and challenged their friends to do the same through social media. If they did not pour the ice and challenge other friends in 24 hours, they would have to donate $100 to the ALS Foundation. It became very popular in a very short time and many people, including celebrities, got involved in the challenge.  It would be very interesting to check how many Texas Tech students participated in the ice bucket challenge, and how much they have donated. I believe a large number of Texas Tech students were challenged by their social media friends and participated in ice bucket challenge.

Some Hypothesis Ideas

§  Most Texas Tech students will admit that they are checking their social media account at bedtime.

§  Texas Tech students believe that checking the social media in bedtime will not cause sleeping disorder.

§  Female students check their social media at bedtime more than male students.

§  Texas Tech students will state that they do not believe social media affect their success in a negative way.

§  Texas Tech students will admit that social media interrupts them while they are studying.

§  Most of the Texas Tech students have participated in the ice bucket challenge and donated to the ALS Foundation.

References

Bart, M. (2009, December 30). Do college student spend too much time on Facebook, YouTube and other social networking sites? Faculty Focus. Retrieved (October 2, 2014)  http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/edtech-news-and-trends/do-college-students-spend-too-much-time-on-facebook-youtube-and-other-social-networking-sites/

Burbach, C. (n.d.). Ways Social Networking Ruins Friendship. About Relationships.

Retrieved (September 25, 2014) http://friendship.about.com/od/Social_Networking/tp/Ways-Social-Networking-Ruins-Friendship.htm

Burchart, K. (2013, March 13). Social media: changing communication forever. The Argus.

Retrieved (September 11, 2014) http://www.theargus.ca/articles/opinion/op-ed/2013/03/social-media-changing-communication-forever

Fink, C. E. (2012, June 4-7). Inferring Gender from the Content of Tweets: A Region Specific Example. Proceedings of the Sixth International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media. Retrieved (October 2, 2014) http://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/ICWSM/ICWSM12/paper/viewFile/4644%26lt%3B/5031

Guimaraes, T. (2014, September 12) 7 New Statistics About Facebook Users That Reveal Why It's Such a Powerful Marketing Platform. Business Insider. Retrieved (October 9,2014)

http://www.businessinsider.com/a-primer-on-facebook-user-statistics-2014-9

Lytle, R. (2014, September 18). Social Media Users Are More Charitable Than You Might Think. Mashable. Retrieved (October 2, 2014) http://mashable.com/2014/09/18/social-media-charity/

Masin, R. & Faubert, J. D. (2013). Effect of gender and Facebook use on the development of mature interpersonal relationships. Journal of Student Affairs, Vol. XXIII. Retrieved (October 2, 2014) http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1101&context=john_foubert

McDermott, J. (2014, January 21). Facebook losing its edge among college-aged adults. Digiday. Retrieved (September 25, 2014) http://digiday.com/platforms/social-platforms-college-kids-now-prefer/

McHugh, M. (2013, September 5). Why do we hate Facebook hashtags? Digital Trends.

Retrieved (September 25, 2014) http://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/why-do-we-hate-facebook-hashtags/#!bNSzV7.

Mislove, A. E. (2011, July 17-21). Understanding the Democraphics of Twitter Users. Proceedings of the Fifth International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media.

Retrieved (October 2, 2014) http://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/ICWSM/ICWSM11/paper/viewFile/2816/3234

Moore, E. (2011, August 19). Texting, social media affecting teen sleeping patterns. The Daily Iowan. Retrieved (October 2, 2014) http://www.dailyiowan.com/2011/08/19/Metro/24431.html

Proposal

FA.

Topic: Proposal

Introduction

Social media have become important nowadays. According to Moore (2011, para.1), “social media has changed the way people keep in touch in a negative way.”  In contrast, some views say that social media help people in communication “Facebook will let the people use the applications without any personal information” (Valinsky, 2013, para.1). Regardless, we cannot deny the social media have more advantages for people. However, there are many of 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 life “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).  On the other hand, there is another view says that social media has the negative effects on the society. According to Burbach, (n.d.), social media has changed the way people keep in touch in a negative way. Also, McAndrew & Jeong (2012, para.1) say “males are more interested in number of friends and educational and career accomplishments”. 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). ”development of social media and the previous research about the popular topics in social media.” Also, the author Hajli (2014, P.18), said, “Social media has presented new opportunities to consumers to use it on the internet.”  In addition, the author Lytle (2011, para.1), says, “Facebook provides an online job hunting platform for students. We agree with saying that says the social media are very important in these days.     

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 the 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 such an online survey. Al-Deen & Hendricks  (2012, P. 12), said “For researchers to investigate the theoretical implications introduced by social media and lay the groundwork for a robust social media agenda potentially spanning multiple disciplines.” We cannot deny that there are negative effects in social media; in contrast there are more advantages  come from social media.

The third studies try to show numbers and statistics about social media. There is a study address “ 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). 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 females post and publishes more than males. There are several measurements on these studies; also we will make survey in this study to verify from these measurements.  

Hypotheses:

1.      People admit that social media have become very important in their lives.

2.      Students will state that they do not believe social media affects their success in a negative way.

3.       The uses of social media differ between graduate and undergraduate students.

4.      There will be no difference between men and women about using social media applications

 Reference:

Al-Deen, H. S. & Hendricks, J. A. (2012). social media: usage and impact. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, c2012.

Asur, S., B. A. Huberman, G. Szabo, and C. Wang. (2011). Trends in social media: persistence and decay. In 5th International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, 2011.

Burbach, C. (n.d.). ways social networking ruins friendship. About Relationships .

http://friendship.about.com/od/Social_Networking/tp/Ways-Social-Networking-Ruins-Friendship.htm

Hajli, M. N. (2014). A study of the impact of social media on consumers.  International Journal of Market Research. Birkbeck, University of London. 2014, Vol. 56 Issue 3, p387-404. 18p.

Joiner, R., &. Stewart C., et al. (2014). Publically different, privately the same: Gender differences and similarities in response to Facebook status updates. Computers in Human Behavior, 39(0): 165-169. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563214003707

 Lytle, R. (2014). Social media users are more charitable than you might think. Mashable website.  http://mashable.com/2014/09/18/social-media-charity/

McAndrew, F. T., & Jeong, H. S. (2012). Who does what on Facebook? Age, sex, and relationship status as predictors of Facebook use. Computers in Human Behavior, 28(6), 2359-2365. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563212002075

 McHugh , M. (2013, Sep. 3). Why do we hate Facebook Hashtags. Digital Trends http://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/why-do-we-hate-facebook-hashtags/#!bNSzV7.

Moore, E. (2011, August 19). Texting, social media affecting teen sleeping patterns. The Daily Iowan. Retrieved (September 18, 2014).

http://friendship.about.com/od/Social_Networking/tp/Ways-Social-Networking-Ruins-Friendship.htm 

Valinsky, J. (2013, April 30). You can soon access apps on Facebook without handing over any personal information. The Week Retrieved http://theweek.com/speedreads/index/26080/speedreads-you-can-soon-access-apps-on-facebook-without-handing-over-any-personal-informatio

Yang, C., Hsu, Y., & Tan, S. (2010). Predicting the determinants of users’ intentions for using YouTube to share video: Moderating gender effects. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 13(2), 141-152. 

An analysis of the real name issue on social media sites (FL)

Introduction

       It is reported that 58% people around the world use social media and the number of people using social media is still increasing (Social Networking Statistics, 2014). For example, Facebook says that it has over 1 billion people using Facebook every month, 23% percent growth from last year (Associated Press, 2013). Social media is becoming an important part of our society and redefine the way modern people interact with each other (Guha, 2014). Social media is changing the world in terms of news (Bennett, 2013), human interactions (Jones, 2013), political landscape (Tchong, 2012) and learning (Cushard, 2013) and marketing (Whaling, 2011). However, it is warned that the risks of false information are growing with the increment of the use of social media (Goodwin, 2013). Fake user names are considered as one type of false information on social media sites and result in confusion for some social media users. Therefore many social media companies have presented a real name policy. However, a few social media users have fight against it. In fact, it has raised a war between users of social media and social media companies (Tao, 2011). Thus it is urgent and important to know how many people support the real name policy in order to better understand this conflict.

In this proposal, people’s attitudes toward the real name policy of social media companies are investigated. To be specific, the percentage of people that agree with the real name policy will be computed. The percentage of people who use real names to register on social media sites will also be determined. Therefore, a survey about these two questions will be conducted for Tech students considering their ages and genders etc. At last, the survey result will be analyzed.

Literature review

The real name policy states that everyone registered on social media sites is mandated to use the real name by social media companies (Levy, 2014). However, a few social media users disagree with this policy and have a conflict with social media companies. This conflict is called Nymwars (Galperin, 2011). This word is very popular because of the hashtag “#nymwars” on Twitter (Twitter, 2014). Google+ first released the real names policy to help flight spam and stop fake user profiles in June, 2011. After that, Facebook implemented the same policy to identify users’ real names and asked users to change their names from fake ones to real ones in November, 2011 (Coldewey, 2014).

However, many social media users fought against this policy (Kayyali and York, 2014). Owing to the great pressure of these social media users, social media companies successively determined to stop the real name policy. Google+ dropped the real-name policy and apologized to Google+ users in July 2014 (Doctorow, 2014). Facebook also canceled the real name policy and apologized to Facebook users (Coldewey, 2014).

Research Questions

1)      What percent of Tech students support or go against the real name policy on social media sites?

2)      What percent of male Tech students support or go against the real name policy on social media sites?

3)      What percent of female Tech students support or go against the real name policy on social media sites?

4)      What percent of Tech students report using real name or pseudonyms on social media sites?

5)      What percent of male Tech students report using real name or pseudonyms on social media sites?

6)      What percent of female Tech students report using real name or pseudonyms on social media sites?

Hypothesis

1)      Most of Tech students will go against the real name policy on social media sites.

2)      More female Tech students will go against the real name policy on social media sites than male Tech students.

3)      Most of Tech students would like to use their real names on social media sites.

4)      More male Tech students would like to use their real names on social media sites than female Tech students.

Reference

Associated Press. (2013, May 1). How Facebook has grown: Number of active users at

Facebook over the years. Available from: http://news.yahoo.com/number-active-users-facebook-over-230449748.html (Accessed date: Oct. 08, 2014).

Bennett S. (2013, July 25). How social media is changing the world. Available from:

http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/social-media-change-world_b46821 (Accessed date: Oct. 08, 2014).

Coldewey D. (2014, October 1). Facebook Apologizes to Drag Queens Over ‘Real Name’ Issue.

Available from: http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/facebook-apologizes-drag-queens-over-real-name-issue-n216211 (Accessed date: Oct. 02, 2014).

Cushard B. (2011, July). How social media has changed learning: a few answers via tweet chat.

Available from: http://www.mindflash.com/blog/2011/07/how-social-media-has-changed-learning-a-few-answers-via-tweet-chat/ (Accessed date: Oct. 08, 2014).

Doctorow C. (2014, July 16). Google Plus drops "Real Names" policy. Available from:

http://boingboing.net/2014/07/16/google-plus-drops-real-names.html (Accessed date: Oct. 02, 2014).

Galperin E. (2011, December 26). 2011 in Review: Nywars. Available from:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/12/2011-review-nymwars (Accessed date: Oct. 02, 2014).

Goodwin B. (2013, January 8). Misuse of social media could wreak havoc, warns World

Economic Forum. Available from: http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240175704/Misuse-of-social-media-could-wreak-havoc-warns-WEF (Accessed date: Oct. 08, 2014).

Guha S. (2014, March 7). How Social Media Has Changed the World? 5 Impacts of Social Media

On Our Lives. Available from: http://webseo22.hubpages.com/hub/How-Social-Media-Has-Changed-the-World-Impact-of-Social-Media-on-Our-Lives (Accessed date: Oct. 08, 2014).

Jones H. (2013, June 7). Social media’s affect on human interaction. Available from:

http://www.hastac.org/blogs/haley117/2013/06/07/social-medias-affect-human-interaction (Accessed date: Oct. 08, 2014).

Kayyali N. and York J. (2014, September 16). Facebook’s ‘real name’ policy can cause real-world

harm for the LGBTQ community. Available from: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/09/facebooks-real-name-policy-can-cause-real-world-harm-lgbtq-community (Accessed date: Oct. 08, 2014).

Levy K. (2014, October 1). Facebook meets with the LGBT community regarding ‘real name’

policy. Available from: http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-might-change-its-real-name-policy-2014-10 (Accessed date: Oct. 08, 2014).

Social Networking Statistics. (2014, July 9). Available from:

http://www.statisticbrain.com/social-networking-statistics/ (Accessed date: Oct. 08, 2014).

Tao L. J. (2011). The Nymwar: social media networks and the laws. Available from:

http://www.academia.edu/5660313/The_Nymwar_Social_Media_Networks_and_the_Law                 (Accessed date: Oct. 08, 2014).

Tchong M. (2012, September 13). Three ways social media is reshaping the political landscape.

Available from: http://readwrite.com/2012/09/13/3-ways-social-media-is-reshaping-the-political-landscape (Accessed date: Oct. 08, 2014).

Twitter. (2014). Tweets about #nymwars hastag on Twitter. Available from:

https://twitter.com/hashtag/nymwars (Accessed date: Oct. 08, 2014).

Whaling H. (2011, May 12). Five ways social media has changed marketing campaigns. Available

from: http://mashable.com/2011/05/12/social-media-change-marketing/ (Accessed date: Oct. 08, 2014).

Investigating personality differences between female and male college students through Facebook

Ying Liu

Introduction

Social media, as internet-based applications, were created for social interactions. Through social network people can establish or keep connections, share information, and express feelings with friends. Emergence of tablet computers and smart phones has led to more wide and frequent usage of social media in modern society. Social media have become an indispensable part of our modern life, especially for young people. Facebook is considered as one of the most popular social media among college students in the United States (U.S.). Approximately 94% undergraduate students were reported to have Facebook accounts with a 150-200 friends list (Ellison et al., 2007). Stern and Taylor (2007) stated 96% out of 364 college students spend 10 to 60 minutes every day on Facebook. Consequently, Facebook provides huge amount of information for social media researches.

Literature review

Previous studies have shown that many differences exist between female and male Facebook users among college students, such as number of Facebook friends, Facebook profile design, time spent on Facebook, frequency of posting pictures and sharing links, and manners of expressing feelings. Facebook is considered as a good tool to explore the personality differences between males and females by analyzing their different activities on Facebook. McCrae (1992) invented a Five-Factor Model (FFM) to describe personality in five aspects: neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Neuroticism is a reflection of people’s distress and sensitivity extents. Butt and Phillips (2008) and Wolfradt and Doll (2001) indicated people at high level of neuroticism spent more time on internet communication to alleviate loneliness. In this case, neuroticism difference between males and females can be detected by the frequency of checking Facebook and the time spent on Facebook. Extraversion is a reflection of people’s sociable ability (Ross et al., 2009). Consequently, the number of friends on Facebook accounts and the amount of sharing personal information, such as posting personal, family, or friends’ photos, are indexes to measure the extraversion level. In this study, a survey of 120 students in Texas Tech University will be taken to explore their basic Facebook account information and activities on Facebook. Based on these data, I will focus on analyzing two aspects of personality differences (neuroticism and extraversion) between male and female college students.

Research question

What personality difference can be detected by comparing males and females’ activities on Facebook.

Hypothesis

Females are at a higher level of neuroticism and extraversion than males through their activities on Facebook.

Reference

Amichai-Hamburger, Y., Wainapel, G., &Fox, S. (2002). On the Internet no one knows I’m an Introver: Extroversion, neuroticism, and Internet interaction. Cyber Psychology & Behavior, 5(2), 125-128.

Butt, S., & Phillips, J.G. (2008). Personality and self reported mobile phone use. Computers in Human Behavior, 24(2), 346-360.

Ellison, N. B., Steinfield, C., & Lampe, C. (2007). The benefits of Facebook “friends:” Social capital and college students’ use of online social network sites. Journal of Computer‐Mediated Communication, 12(4), 1143-1168.

McCrae, R.R., & John, O.P. (1992). An introduction to the five-factor model and its applications. Journal of Personality, 60(2), 175-215.

Ross, C., Orr, E.S., Sisic, M., Arseneault, J.M., Simmering, M.G., & Orr. R.R. (2009). Personality and motivations associated with Facebook use. Computers in Human Behavior, 25(2), 578-586.

Stern, L. A., & Taylor, K. (2007). Social networking on Facebook. Journal of the Communication, Speech & Theatre Association of North Dakota, 20(2007), 9-20.

Wolfradt, U., & Doll, J. (2001). Motives of adolescents to use the Internet as a function of personality traits, personal and social factor. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 24(1), 13-28.

Congratulations Serdar & Tugce!

Welcome Ray Kemal!

 

survey

ESL 5301

Survey

Thank you for filling out our survey!

___ M         ___ F               ___ Undergrad.    ___ Grad.     ___ Other

___ from USA            ___ International

Tell us about your use of the following social media

Kind    Don't know/use    Have account   Post/use occasionally    Post regularly

Facebook         ____               ____            ____           ____

Twitter             ____              ____            ____            ____

YouTube         ____              ____              ____            ____

Instagram       ____              ____              ____            ____

Pinterest          ____             ____              ____            ____

Snapchat         ____             ____              ____             ____

Ello                 ____             ____             ____              ____
Vine                ____            ____              ____              ____

Google +        ____            ____               ____             ____

1. Do you believe it's wrong & unsafe to text or check social media while driving?
___ always             ___ usually             ___ no

2. Do you ever check your social media while you are driving?

___ often            ____ sometimes               ____ rarely               ____ never

3. Do you check your social media in bed before you sleep?

___ often            ____ sometimes              ____ rarely             ____ never

4. Do you believe checking social media at bedtime is bad for your sleep?

___ yes, it's bad    ____ mild effect on sleep, not bad      ____ no effect on sleep

5. Do you think social media is good or bad for friendships?

___ overall good                        ___ overall bad                        ___ neutral

6. What effect does social media have on your grades?

___ no effect              ___ bad for grades               ____ good for grades

7. If Facebook insists on a "real name" policy, is that ok with you?

___ yes, no problem                        ___ disagree with "real name" policy

8. Do you use real name on all social media accounts?

___ yes, no problem       ___ no, I use some pseudonyms/nicknames

9. What do you know about the ice bucket challenge?

___ participated in it        ____ know about it          ___ don't know about it

10. How do you feel about the ice bucket challenge?

___ good for ALS, good for people     ___ pointless, ridiculous     ___ no opinion

11. Do you know what hashtags (#) are and why people use them?

___ yes                                    ___ a little, not sure                        ___ no

12. How much time do you spend on Facebook every day?
___ 0-30 mins.    ___ 30 mins.-1 hr.     ___ 1 hr. - 90 mins.    ___  >90 mins.

13. How many times do you check your Facebook in a day?
___ 0-3            ___ 4-7            ___ 8-12                    ___ >12

14. Has your Facebook use gone up or down in the last year, compared to previous years?
___ up, use it more   ___ down, use it less    ___ about the same     ___ don't use it

15. Has your Twitter use gone up or down in the last year, compared to previous years?
___ up, use it more   ___ down, use it less    ____ about the same     ___ don't use it

16. How often do you use emoticons?
___ always               ___ usually                    ___ sometimes          ___ never

17. How often do you use word abbreviations?
___ always              ___ usually                     ___ sometimes          ___ never

18. What kind of information do you look for or want to see on social media? (check any)
___ friends' photos
___ friends' status updates
___ family interaction
___ professional development
___ politics

19. Do you publish your relationship status and updates?
___ yes       ___ no           ___ only under pressure

20. Do you think females use more emotional words than males in social media?
___ yes       ___ no

21. Do you think males use more possessive (like my girlfriend) words than females?
___ yes       ___ no

If you use Facebook, please answer the following questions about your use of it:

Which do you do the most on Facebook?

                                       never       rarely    sometimes   often   usually

post pictures                     ____        ____        ____     ____     ____

share feelings                    ____        ____       ____     ____     ____

connect with old friends     ____       ____      ____     ____       ____

use apps (Farmville, etc.)    ____      ____       ____    ____      ____

connect to public figures    ____       ____        ____    ____      ____
message people

use hashtags                   ____            ____       ____     ____      ____

If you use Twitter, please do the same for your use of Twitter:

post news, like football scores     ____     ____      ____    ____      ____

post pictures                            ____        ____       ____     ____      ____

connect to public figures     ____            ____       ____     ____      ____

use hashtags                        ____            ____       ____     ____       ____

If you use YouTube, please tell us about your use of it:

use it for entertainment      ____         ____        ____     ____         ____

use it for up-to-date news    ____       ____         ____      ____        ____

teacher assigns it               ____         ____        ____        ____       ____

use it to learn more about topic  ____    ____    ____      ____        ____
fix problems, software, etc.  ____      ____     ____       ____        ____

put clips up myself             ____       ____     ____      ____            ____