SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES AMONG TEENAGERS – CHARACTERISTICS OF USAGE
Keywords:
SNS apps (social-networking system applications), socialization, teenagersAbstract
The aim of the article is to present part of the results, conducted in a national-wide survey in Bulgaria about the main characteristics of social networking sites and application’s usage among teenagers. The survey was conducted in October and November 2022 in all districts in the country. The sample include 1182 teenagers on age between 12 and 18 years old. The goal of the survey was to identify the temporal, contextual and content characteristics of usage of social networking sites among teenagers. The theoretical frame in the article is based on the classic definition of social networking sites as a tool for connectivity and socialization. The contemporary analysis suggests that nowadays’ teenagers spent more time in social networking sites due to the increases usage of digital devices during the pandemic of COVID-19. Furthermore, in the theoretical frame it is emphasized on the negative effect of overuse such as lower self-esteem, networking individualism and communicative deficits. The results show three preferred social networking sites and applications – Instagram, YouTube and TikTok; all of them are known for their visual and aesthetic representation of the content. It was identified that the main purpose of usage of social networking sites is entertainment as a coping mechanism to boredom and loneliness. The data indicates a significantly large amount of time spent in social networking sites - average daily time of 4 hours and 12 minutes for the sample. Furthermore, we also registered intensive frequency of usage – 85% of the respondents enter the social networking apps and sites several times a day (3 or more times a day). The results suggest problematic and unhealthy usage, even signs of addiction. Beside the pervasive time spent on the social networking sites, the results highlight the avoidance of physical and body representation though photos (especially selfies) and high preferences to edit them before posting especially among girls. Despite the declared large amount of friends and followers in the social networking sites (almost half of the sample have between 100 and 500 friends online), the respondents communicate with extremely small part of them (55% of them communicate with only 1 to 5 people in the social networking apps on daily bases). Moreover, 61,3% of all respondents said that they want some change in their list of friends, which is considered as an indicator for dissatisfaction in online communication. A little more half of the respondents use the social networking applications as a source of information about their friends, which indicates deficits in face-to-face communication too. However, these results contradict the declared results about preferred usage – 88% said that they use the social networking sites to communicate with friends and 81% used them as entertainment source. The limitations of the quantity approach toward the problem does not allow us to give an unconditional explanation. At the end of the article it is recommended a quality approach for examining the problem in order to identify the ration between those to uses as a key to proper analysis of the characteristics of social networking sites and applications’ usage among teenagers.
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