Status of School of Health Students’ Social Media / Internet Usage and Related Factors

Abstract

Aim: Uncontrolled social media/Internet use resulted in digital addiction phenomenon. Aim of this study is to determine the relationship between social media/internet usage, associated factors and socio-demographic variables. Material and Methods: Study universe consisted of all students of a School of Health. The data were collected through a questionnaire and evaluated by statistical package program, whereby p<0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: 79.4% of the students were female while 20.6% were male. Students who consider that they have internet addiction have a rate of 56.6% and rate of using social networks is 77.7%. 34.1% of the students stated that what comes about social media in the first place is sharing and 49.9% stated that they mostly shared photographs. 78.8% of the students stated that they neglect their jobs due to social media usage and 72.9% that their social or school performance was affected by their school or work performances. Gender, department, marital status, availability of internet connection at home, daily internet and social media usage time were found to be statistically significant. Conclusion and Suggestions: Social media/internet use is common among university students. Consideration should be given to the factors that trigger the use of internet/social media and to identify preventive factors.

Keywords

• internet
• social media
• student
• addiction