Investigating University Students' Social Media Stalking Situations

Abstract

While the increasing use of social media today provides advantages in various aspects of our lives, the problems that these platforms bring also come to light. One of these is "stalking", which is a situation where a person uses social media to access more information about other people's private lives or experiences. Excessive stalking and sending unwanted, disturbing messages can lead to social media harassment. In addition, constantly checking people's social media accounts can lead to severe social media addiction. This study aims to investigate the situation of university students' stalking on social media. In the research, phenomenology design, one of the qualitative research methods, is adopted. Within the scope of the research, 27 students were interviewed using a semi-structured interview form. In the analysis of the data, content analysis was used. Participants' views on the effect of social media on stalking were coded by content analysis and presented in seven different themes, and their experiences were visualized with word clouds. As a result of the research, it was seen that the participants mostly act with a sense of curiosity and frequently stalk their inner circle on social media, and that stalking is more popular due to the accessibility of social media. It was also observed that individuals subjected to stalking are more anxious in their daily lives, and this makes them uncomfortable. It was concluded that excessive stalking can lead to addiction and that precautions should be taken. Based on these results, different suggestions are made about stalking on social media. As an alternative, before stalking turns into an addiction, measures such as seeking psychological support, limiting the time allocated to social media and conducting various awareness activities can be taken. As for future research, the phenomenon of stalking can be investigated in students at the high school-level, and a case study can be developed.

Keywords

• stalking
• social media
• university student
• persistent tracking
• social media addiction
• stalking
• sosyal medya
• üniversite öğrencisi
• israrlı takip
• sosyal medya bağımlılığı