Pacific B usiness R eview (International)

A Refereed Monthly International Journal of Management Indexed With Web of Science(ESCI)
ISSN: 0974-438X
Impact factor (SJIF):8.603
RNI No.:RAJENG/2016/70346
Postal Reg. No.: RJ/UD/29-136/2017-2019
Editorial Board

Prof. B. P. Sharma
(Principal Editor in Chief)

Prof. Dipin Mathur
(Consultative Editor)

Dr. Khushbu Agarwal
(Editor in Chief)

Editorial Team

A Refereed Monthly International Journal of Management

Factors Affecting the Usage of Social Media of the University Students in Bangladesh

 

Chanchal Molla

Lecturer

Department of Management

Faculty of Business Studies

Jashore University of Science and Technology(JUST),

Jashore-7408, Bangladesh.

 

ABSTRACT

This research paper aims at identifying different factors that influence university students to use social media in Bangladesh. It also identifies the degree of associations among these factors leading to the usage pattern of social media of the university students. Social media has reached to all people who are using internet and has become the most remarkable communication tool. To know the factors affecting the usage of social media by the students and different aspect of usage pattern, a survey has been conducted among the 500 students of the different universities of Bangladesh. Both qualitative and quantitative research method have been applied to analyze the surveyed data. Based on the conceptual framework developed having 3 constructs (educational purpose, social needs fulfillment and availability of resources) the study revealed a significant relationship between the construct variables and actual usage of social media.

Keywords: Social media, Educational purpose, Social needs fulfillment, Availability of resources.

INTRODUCTION

Social media refers to networking tools and technologies that enhances social aspects of the web like medium of communication, collaboration, and intense expression. Facebook, YouTube, twitter, blogs, wiki, whats app, Instagram etc. are the best examples of social media. Social media has gained popularity among all groups of people including students all over the world.  Pemperk et al. (2008) mentioned that in this information age, social media sites seem to be growing in popularity rapidly among young adults. Not only in academic arena, but also among researchers, policy makers, and academicians, usage of social media has gained popularity. Social media helps students to fulfill different purposes. The usage of social networking tools for education and teaching is abandon at both basic and higher education levels (Veletsianos & Kimmons, 2012). Students are using social media for fulfilling their educational purposes like content sharing, enhancement of learning, availability of educational materials, job information etc. Social media also helps to fulfill their social needs like family and friend’s identification, entertainment, communication, self- representation. Usage of social media requires ensuring availability of time, availability of money and internet facility. Usage of social media is identified by hours spend on social media, internet usage, investment in digital devices.  Day by day students are becoming social media intensive. University students are often found to be obsessed with their Facebook profile or Twitter page (Williams & Merten, 2008). Most of the leisure period and even in their academic time schedule they are found to be engaged in social media. Students spend an average of 47 minutes a day on Facebook where more than 50% of college students (sample 250) go on a social networking site several times a day (Sheldon, 2008). Further research need to be conducted to determine the role of social media in the academic life of students (Junco, 2012). That is why it is a great concern for students, academicians, and parents to understand the usage pattern of social media by students. Like how much time they spend on social media, how much money they spend in using social media, which sites are mostly visited, which factors influence them to use social media, what is the interrelationship structure among the variables factors. This research paper will provide the answer of these questions.

 

LITERATURE REVIEW

This literature review covers social media, usage of social media, factors influencing usage of social media, methodological issues, research gap, identification of research objective and hypothesis. Social media includes different SNS like Facebook, YouTube, twitter,and blogs that enables content sharing, communication, collaboration, self- representation, community building, entertainment, participation, social interaction etc. Social media are networking tools and technologies that fulfill educational purpose and social needs with availability of resources. Social media is a group of Internet-based applications that is built on the ideological foundations of Web 2.0 and allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content (Kaplan and Haenlin, 2010) and comprised of mobile and web based technologies that provide interactive platforms for the public to share, create, discuss, and modify content (Kietsmann et al., 2011). Social network sites (SNS) are public web-based services that allow users to develop a personal profile, identify other users (friends) with whom they have a connection, read, and react to postings made by other users on the site, send and receive messages either privately or publicly (Boyd and Ellison, 2007).Social media applications include social networking sites, video sharing sites, blogs, message boards, virtual communities, massively-multiplayer online games, and instant messaging (Bulik (2008).These are networked tools or technologies that stress the social facets of the web like a medium of communication, collaboration, and inventive expression (Dabbagh & Reo, 2011) and these are a collection of internet websites, services and practices that support collaboration, participation, community building and sharing (Junco & Mastrodicasa, 2007). The usage of social media increased from 2004- 2009 and allow students to collaborate easily on academic project and to connect with their peers of professionals more readily (Rideout et al., 2010). Smartphone, Skype, face to face communication devices and easier access to internet sites allow information to be shared more easily than eight years ago, (Henry, 2012). Social media are technologies that facilitate social interaction, make possible collaboration, and enable deliberation across stakeholders (Bryer and Zavattaro, 2011). 16 different types of social media tools that included Facebook, Wiki, YouTube, Bulleting Board, LinkedIn, Blogs, Twitter, Podcasts, Virtual Worlds, RSS, StumbleUpon, Netlog, Delicious, Digg, Plurk, and Jaiku (Lieu, 2010). About 57% of social network users (sample 200) are 18-29 years old and have a personal profile on multiple social media websites (lenhart et al., 2010). It empowers users to take an active role in their own socialization process and in constructing their self-identity (Urista et al., 2009) and increase students' perceptions having a diverse social support network during their first semester at college even when controlling for other potent predictors (David et al., 2012). Usage of Facebook has a strong association with maintaining or solidifying existing offline relationships as opposed to meeting new people (Ellison et al., 2007).  Students are much more likely than faculty to use Facebook and are significantly more opened in using Facebook and similar technologies to support classroom work (Roblyer et al., 2010).Students use electronic media to multitask and a regression results indicate a negative relationship between the usage of various types of electronic media and first-semester grades (Wade et al., 2010). Interaction with peers and teachers, engagement, perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness explain the positive effects and benefits of using social media to enhance collaborative learning and improves student academic performance (AL-Rahmi & Othman, 2013).  The time is spent on social media, the frequency of visiting and the total numbers of online friends have a significant relationship with a student’s academic performance (Iorliam & Ode, 2014). Social media applications are frequently used by the students for communication, class activities, online learning and connecting with instructors (Shao & Seif, 2014).Background and reputation of system, basic idea and target, usage needs, functionality, content, usability, layout, technical sustainability and flexibility, moderation are the issues that can increase or decrease motivation towards usage of social media (Silius et al., 2009). Both genders are found wasting time and editing photos before posting to social media. (Tajuddin et al., 2015) and all the sampled college students (sample 96) were using at least one form of social networking website (Sponcil & Gitimu, 2010). There was a .586 Pearson correlation between usage of social media and communication with family and friends. Usage of social media can be classified in the issues including communication, sharing, publicity, recognition, education, and enlightenment (Atali et al., 2014).Facebook usage can reinforce existing ties and community by keeping users constantly updated (Hargittai, 2007) and there are positive relationships between intensity of Facebook usage and students’ life satisfaction, social trust, civic engagement, and political participation (Valenzuela et al., 2009). Usage of social media (SM) by students and a knowledge portal (KP) for assessments by lecturers can improve academic efficiency (Dzvapatsva et al., 2014). Young people are motivated to join social media sites to keep ties with friends and to strengthen ties with new acquaintances but not so much to meet new people online (Ellison et al., 2007). Empirical studies revealed that We-Intention to use online social networks is strongly determined by social presence (Chung et al. (2011), usage of Facebook and the three types of social capital which include psychological well-being, self-esteem and life satisfaction are strongly (Ellison et al., 2007) even though the number of strong ties a person may have is not increased (Donath and Boyd, 2004). Social media intervention is intended to increase connections among incoming college students with the goal of augmenting their feelings of connectedness to the university, increasing perceptions of preparedness and efficacy, providing a peer-driven forum for students to ask and answer questions (Deandrea et al., 2011).According tothe most obvious motive to join a SNS is the need for integration and social interaction, identifying others and gaining a sense of belonging, finding a basis for conversation (McQuail, 2005) and supporting professional careers (Mike et al., 2011).

 

There are several researches on usage of social media among students, but most of them are from western countries perspective. Only a few researches are from Bangladesh students’ perspective which are descriptive in nature. Other gaps among previous researches are lack of proper justification, limited objective, weak research method etc. So, these research papers cannot truly reveal the actual scenario of social media usage pattern. Because we need to know whether they are using social media for academic purpose, what is their social needs for using social media, which social media sites are mostly visited, how much money they spend for purchasing digital device and their internet expense for using social media for a specific period, which factors influence them for using social media and what is the interrelationship structure among these factors. We need to know the answer of these questions separately. So, this research paper will find out the true usage pattern of social media among students by providing answer of these questions.

Development of study framework

The study framework has been developed based on the variables identified through literature review as noted in observed variable.  The framework shows the independent variables and constructs influencing the use of social media for outcomes.

Source: Literature Review

Description of the study framework

The theoretical framework consists of 2 types of variables which include independent variable and dependent variable. Three (3) constructs related to independent variable are educational purpose, social needs fulfillment, availability of resources and 1 construct related to dependent variable is the actual usage of social media. There are 11 observed variables for measuring 3 constructs. These factors will determine the actual usage of social media by students.

 

Educational purpose of using social media (Independent variable)

Educational purpose of using social media is identified by some variables discussed here under. i.Content sharing: Social media is widely used for sharing educational content by students around the word (Bosch, 2009) and revealed a high degree of readiness to embrace social media portals is to deliver course content (Browning et al., 2011), which has been further supplemented by the study of Cassidy et al. (2011) where he found that daily, students use digital devices to actively engage in social networking, content sharing, online learning and much more.

  1. Enhance learning:. Social networking sites have positive impact on student’s academic performance (Cheung et al., 2011). Social networking tools enhance learning in the Mauritian education system which is beneficial to their studies (Kavi et al., 2012) and it have all components for fostering modern learning process of acquiring knowledge (Raihan et al., 2013),

iii. Availability of educational materials: Some social media sites are enriched with educational materials. Users can search for content, download and use the content available on social networking sites without cost (Baruah , 2012) and it has many ways of usage related to learning (Tarantino et al., 2013). Students use YouTube videos to help them understand materials outside of the boundaries of a traditional class room setting, to find answer and to supplement traditional learning technique. Creoghton et al. (2013)

  1. Job information: Social media help students to find job related information. Study found that organizations use social media to gather information about job applicants (Clark & Roberts, 2010); students to search for job (Tham & Ahmed, 2011) where it is used in advertising, communication, marketing, and public relations (Khang & Ye, 2012) and to prevent risks for career (Dreher, 2014).

 

Social needs fulfillment (independent variable)

Social needs fulfillment is identified by family and friends’ identification, entertainment, communication, self- representation.

  1. Family and friend’s identification: Users are engaged in searching for people with whom they have an offline connection than stranger to meet (Study of Lampe et al., 2006).They use it to stay in touch with friends and family members as well as relatives (Kaveri et al. (2008) and keeping touch in aneasy and convenient way (Quan-Hasse &Young, 2010) where usage rate and networking with friends, family members, and professionals are positively co-related (Tham & Ahmed, 2011).
  2. Entertainment: Social media is widely used as a tool of entertainment. Students use social networking sites to play online games, chatting with friends (Helou & Rahim, 2014) and becoming increasingly important in sports and entertainment venues (Rothschild, 2011). About 71% students (sample 289) use social networking sites for entertainment purpose, 37.2% for discovering new music, films, books, and other entertainment (Ezumah, 2013),

iii. Communication: The usage of social networking sites increase levels of communication and collaboration (Bradly et al., 2010), helps to communicate with friends and find former friends (Triyakioglu & Erzurum, 2011). About 56% (Sample 221) use social media for communication (Guy, 2012) and for communication and information dissemination (Gruzd et al., 2012).

  1. Self–presentation: In SNS, profile contains different information about the individual. SNS are based on profiles, friends, comments and a form of individual home page that describe each member (Boyd, 2007). Self-representation by creating profile helps to find friends (Lampe et al., 2007), to identity and explore (Manago et al., 2008) and it empower users in constructing self- identity (Urista et al., 2009).

Availability of resources (Independent variable):

Availability of resources is identified by availability of time, availability of money, internet facility.

  1. Availability of time: Usage of social media is dependent on availability of time. Student’s usage of social media requires time and effort they purchase to perform educationally purposeful activities (Chretien et al., 2009). The time is spent on social networking site decreases as the age of the respondent increases (Tham & Ahmed, 2011) and users spend leisure time in social networking sites without benefit (Khouli, 2013),
  2. Availability of money: Purchase of digital device and internet usage depends on availability of money. Using social networking sites require spending money (Helou & Rahim, 2014). Experiencing economic prosperity and a rapid advance in instant communication technologies, social networking and globalization are closely related (Park and Gursoy, 2012) and differences in disposable income are associated with social media usage. (Chu & Choi, 2011),

iii. Internet facility: As internet access from home increases, school children increases opportunity to use the internet in a variety of settings (Fishman & Kupperman, 2002).  Students were not using the internet due to the inadequacy of computer with internet access, lack of skills to use internet and slow computersspeed (Luambano& Name, 2004). Internet facility encourage to use e-journals, e-libraries, e-books, and online databases as academic resources for courses(Shahinet al., 2010).

Actual Usage of social media (Dependent Variable)

Actual usage of social media is identified by hours spent on social media, internet usage, and investment in digital device.

  1. Hours spent on social media: Users spend time on social networking sites reading comments, writing comments, and responding to comments or messages (Subrahmanyam et al., 2008) and to gain more social support (Baker & Oswald ,2010) where user spends 20 minutes on the site per visit (Buzzetto-More, 2012) and users waste valuable time using social media networking (Baruah, 2012).
  2. Internet usage: Social media requires usage of internet. But available internet usage is dependent on internet facility. There are internet addictions among students and they spend many hours a day on the internet (Chou & Hsiao, 2000) and Internet service should be provided around the clock for its maximum use (kumar & Kaur, 2006).

iii. Investment in digital devices: Students invest money in internet usage and purchasing digital devices (smartphone, Laptop, Tablet etc.)  to get themselves connected with social media and academic issues. Eleven out of the twelve students use smartphones and Facebook as the most prominent social   media site that increased their motivation (Backer, 2010) where another study indicates 91.92% of students (sample size 324) purchase smartphones for social networking communication (Jusoh & Alfawareh, 2014). Students use desktop computers, laptops, E-readers, tablets, and cell phones to actively engage in social networking, text messaging, blogging, content sharing, online learning, and much more (Cassidy ,2011)

OBJECTIVES AND HYPOTHESES

Broad Objective: The main objective of this research is to address the actual usage pattern of social media by students.

Specific Objectives: This study focused on some specific objective. These are to:

  1. know the amount of time and money students spend for using social media
  2. identify the mostly visited social media sites
  • identify the common factors that influence them to use social media and the pattern of relationship among the factors
  1. estimate the degree in which factors are influencing the actual usage of social media.

 

Study Hypotheses

Based on the study framework in section 2.1, the following null hypotheses were developed.

Ho 1. There is no relationship between availability of time and hours spend on social media.

Ho 2. There is no relationship between availability of money and investment on internet usage.

Ho 3. There is no relationship between Internet facility and internet usage.

Ho 4. There is no relationship between Educational purpose and actual usage of social media.

Ho 5.  There is no relationship between Social needs and actual usage of social media.

Ho 6: There is no relationship between availability of resources and actual usage of social media.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This study has two phases from the methodological point of view. One is qualitative analysis phase and another is quantitative analysis phase. Methodological triangulation is suggested when both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods and analysis are used in studying the same phenomenon (Thurmond, 2001). At the first stage, the identification of common factors along with associated observed variables is done based on adopting certain qualitative research methods such as secondary data analysis, literature review and exploratory research. An exploratory design is conducted about a research problem when there are few or no earlier studies, gaining insights and familiarity for later investigation or undertaken when problems are in a preliminary stage of investigation (Eugene & M Christine E. Lynn, 2015). Exploratory research aims to uncover the boundaries of the environment in which the problems, opportunities or situation of interest are likely to reside and to uncover the salient variables in qualitative manners (Webb, 1992). Later the study is carried out to know the pattern of interrelationship structure among the factors, the degree of dependency of actual usage on the independent usage factors, mostly visited sites, time and money spend on using social media by students, hypothesis test using quantitative research approach. It is conducted by descriptive statistics, correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis. Quantitative research approach is used to explore the level of association as this method entails the use of systematic and sophisticated procedures to test, prove, and verify hypothesis (Glaser & Strauses, 1967). Generally quantitative research is conclusive in its purpose as it tries to quantify the problem and understand how prevalent it is by looking for projectable results. Here data are collected through a structured survey questionnaire. Survey can note conditions of the respondent, probe with additional questions and gather supplemental information through open ended questions (Wheatley, 1973). Data has been collected from both primary and secondary sources. Stratified sampling (probabilistic sampling) technique is used to collect samples of 150 students. A survey questionnaire was designed to know the answer of questions made in the objective. In terms of measures, in this research paper, 5 points Likert scale has been used for dealing with ordinal level data. A summary of the study objectives and methodologies is shown in the following table-1.

 

 

 

Table I: Research objectives and methodological issues

 

Objective

Methodology

1

To know the time and money students spend for using social media.

Descriptive Statistics

2

To know the mostly visited sites.

Descriptive Statistics

3

To identify the factors influencing social media usage and their patterns of relationship.

Field Survey, Literature Review, exploratorystudy, and Correlation Analysis

4

To identify the degree to which factors are influencing the actual usage.

Regression Analysis

5

To validate Research hypotheses

Correlation Analysis

Data Analysis and Discussion

After collection, data were processed using software SPSS version 20. For analyzing data and testing hypothesis, descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and multiple regression analysis were conducted to report the following study result.

Study Results

 

Time spent in social media

The study revealed that a significant number of students (46%) spent below 1 hour a day on social media with mean 1.71 and std. deviation of .805 hours as shown in table 2.

 

Table 2: Time spent on social media per day

 

 

Frequency

Percent (%)

Mean

Std. Deviation

 

Below 1 hour

230

46.0

 

 

1-2 hours

207

41.3

 

 

3-4 hours

040

8.0

1.71

.805

Above 4 hours

023

4.7

 

 

Total

500

100.0

 

 

Source: Field Survey

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Money spent to purchase digital device and monthly internet for using social media

 

Table 3: Investment for digital device    

 

Frequency

Percent (%)

Mean

Ϭ

 

Below TK.10000

208

41.3

 

1,579

TK.10000-20000

087

17.3

TK. 24,900

TK. 21000-30000

068

13.3

TK.31000-40000

040

8.0

Above TK. 40000

097

19.3

 

 

 

Total

500

100.0

 

Source: Field survey

Table 3 shows that a large number of students (41.3 %) investedbelow TK. 10,000 and 19.3% above TK. 40,000 for purchasing digital device to use social media and others purposes with mean 24,900 and standard deviation Tk.1,579. Table 4 shows that nine-twentieth the of students (44%) spend below TK. 200 per month for using social media and 38% between TK.200-500 with mean 177 and standard deviation TK.82.9.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table 4: Monthly internet expense

 

 

Frequency

Percent (%)

Mean

Ϭ

 

Below TK. 200

220

44.0

 

 

TK. 200-500

190

38.0

 

 

TK. 501-1000

076

15.3

177

82.9

TK. 1001-1500

010

2.0

 

 

Above TK. 1500

004

.7

 

 

Total

500

100.0

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5.1.3 Most visited sites

                        Table 5: Mostly used social media sites

 

Frequency

Percent (%)

 

Facebook

366

73.3

YouTube

037

7.3

Twitter

015

3.3

Blogs

004

.7

Facebook and YouTube

070

14.0

Facebook and  Twitter

004

.7

Facebook, YouTube and twitter

004

.7

Total

500

100.0

Source: Field Survey

It is seen that an overwhelming majority of the students (73.3%) used   Facebook as the most popular social networking site and 14% used both Facebook and YouTube.

5.1.4 Relationship among the factors.

 

Table 6: Correlation matrix among factors

 

EP

SN

AR

AU

EP

1

     

SN

0.781836487

1

   

AR

0.250989459

0.246145949

1

 

AU

0.790290568

0.690702614

0.826605824

1

Source: Field Survey

The relationship of actual usage of social media with educational purpose, social needs and availability of resources was found significant. Here all the values for actual usage of social media are above .50. There are positive relationships between actual usage of social media with educational purpose, social needs, and availability of resources. That means high educational purpose, social needs and availability of resources increases actual usage of social mediai.e. has positive influence on actual usage of social media.

 

Result of Hypothesis analysis

 

H01.  Relationship between availability of time and time spent on social media has been proved through co-efficient of relationship. Even though students have on average 1.9 hours of leisure time with standard deviation of 1.08 hours but they spent on an average 1.71 hours of time in social media with a standard deviation of .81 hours.   Since the observed significance level is smaller than .05 (sig. value .012< .05), we can reject the null hypothesis (Ho) and accept the alternative hypothesis i.e. availability of time and hours spend on social media is highly correlated.

 

Table 7: Descriptive statistics and Correlation matrix between leisure time and hours spent on social media

Descriptive Statistics

Correlation Matrix

 

Mean

Ϭ

N

 

Leisure time (per day)

Hours spent(per day)

Leisure time

 (per day)

1.9

1.08

500

Leisure time(per day)

Pearson Correlation

1

.78**

Sig. (2-tailed)

 

.012

N

500

500

Hours spent

(per day)

1.71

.81

500

Hours spent (per day)

Pearson Correlation

.78**

1

Sig. (2-tailed)

.012

 

N

500

500

 

Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

Source: Field Survey

 

H02. Relationship between availability of money and investment on internet usage. The null hypothesis that there is no relationship between monthly income of the students and the monthly expenses for internet is rejected.  The average monthly income of the students Tk. 2,007 with a standard deviation of Tk. 1,674. They spent on an average Tk. 177 per month for internet with a standard deviation of Tk. 82.9. Since the observed significance level is smaller than .05 (sig. value.017< .05), we can reject the null hypothesis (Ho) and accept the alternative hypothesis to conclude that student’s monthly income is correlated to their monthly internet expenses for using social media.

Table 8: Descriptive Statistics and Correlation between monthly income and internet expense

 

Descriptive Statistics

Correlation Matrix

 

Mean

Ϭ

N

 

Monthly income

Monthly internet expense

Monthly income

2007

1674

 

500

Monthly income

Pearson Correlation

1

.195*

Sig. (2-tailed)

 

.017

N

500

500

Monthly internet expense

177

82.9

 

500

Monthly internet expense  

Pearson Correlation

.195*

1

Sig. (2-tailed)

.017

 

N

500

500

 

Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

Source: Field Survey

H0 3. Relationship between Internet facility and internet usage.To assess the relationship between the types of internet service and hours spend on social media both the descriptive and inferential statistics has been used.  The mean average of the types of internet used 2.69 implies that most of them used service provider’s internet in their smart phones on an average 1.71 hours per day.  The relationship between these two variables also has been calculated to be .67 and the observed significance level is smaller than .05 (sig. value.023<.05), we can reject the null hypothesis (Ho) and accept the alternative hypothesis to conclude that the relationship between availability of internet service and hours spend on social media are related.

Table 9: Descriptive Statistics and Correlation between Types of internet and time spent on social media.

 

 

Descriptive Statistics

Correlation Matrix

 

Mean

Ϭ

N

 

Types of internet service used

Hours spend (per day)

Types of internet service used

 

2.69

 

 

1.718

 

 

500

Types of internet service used

Pearson Correlation

1

.67

Sig. (2-tailed)

 

.023

N

500

500

Hours spend (per day)

 

1.71

 

.805

 

500

Hours spend (per day)

Pearson Correlation

.67

1

Sig. (2-tailed)

.023

 

N

500

500

 

Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

Source: Field Survey

 

Level of influences of the factors on the actual usage of social media by students.

Table X: Regression Result

                 
                 

Regression Statistics

             

Multiple R

0.95

             

R Square

0.84

             

Adjusted R Square

0.72

             

Standard Error

0.17

             

Observations

500

             
                 

ANOVA

               
 

Do

SS

MS

F

Significance F

     

Regression

3

3.837

1.279

2.002

0.116

     

Residual

495

93.263

0.639

         

Total

498

97.099

           
                 
 

Coefficients

Standard Error

t Stat

P-value

Lower 95%

Upper 95%

Lower 95.0%

Upper 95.0%

Intercept

2.433

0.405

4.459

0.000

1.007

2.609

1.007

2.609

Educational purpose

0.762

0.134

0.461

0.003

-0.203

0.326

-0.203

0.326

Social needs

0.891

0.136

-1.407

0.002

-0.459

0.077

-0.459

0.077

Availability of resources

0.779

 

0.087

2.055

0.017

0.007

0.351

0.007

0.351

Source: Field Survey

 

In this model, actual usage is the dependent variable which depends on the independent variables educational purpose, social needs fulfillments and availability of resources. Here the p value indicates high degree of significance of each independent variable with dependent variable (actual usage of social media). Here p value is less than .05 means that there is at least 95% chance that there is a true relationship between these variables in the population.The value of R^2 =.84 means that 84% changes in the action of actual usage of social media are explained by the factors or the model.

 

On the other hand, based on the model output, the following estimated regression equation can be derived:

Ŷ = 𝜷𝟎+ 𝜷𝟏𝑿𝟏+ 𝜷𝟐𝑿𝟐+ 𝜷𝟑𝑿𝟑

 

Whereas Xi = Independent variables, βi =Regression coefficient, βo =Intercept (constant), Y= dependent variable. The estimated regression line for the study is

AU = 2.433+.762EP +.891SN + .779AR

The beta coefficient for the factor EPis .762 means that change in AUfor each unit change in EP is statistically significant(P= .003 < α =.05), that means there are strong positive relationship between educational purpose and actual usage of social media.So, the null hypothesis 4 is rejected.

The beta coefficient for the SNis .891 means that change in AUfor each unit change in SN which is also statistically significant (P= .002 < α =.05), that means there are strong positive relationship between social needs andactual usage of social media. Thus, null hypothesis 5 is rejected. The beta coefficient for the factor ARis .779 means that change in AUfor each unit change in AR which is also statistically significant (P= .017 < α =.05), that means there are strong positive relationship between availability of resources and actual usage of social media. So, null hypothesis 6 is rejected.

FINDINGS

The relationship of actual usage of social media with educational purpose, social needs fulfillment and availability of resources is significant. Content sharing, enhancement of learning, availability of educational materials, searching job information are the major indicators of educational purpose that influence actual usage of social media. Family and friends’ identification, entertainment, communication, self- representation are common social needs fulfillment reasons for using social media among students that influence actual usage. Availability of time, availability of money and internet facility are the indicators of availability of resources that influence actual usage of social media. Hours spend on social media, internet usage, investment in digital device are the indicators of actual usage of social media. Most of the respondents have positive attitude towards usage of social media in respect of educational purpose, social needs fulfillment and availability of resources. There is positive relationship between availability of time and hours spend on social media. Availability of money (income) and investment in social media (internet expense) is positively related. Types of internet service and hours spend on social media are positively related. There is positive relationship between internet facility and internet usage. Monthly income and internet expense are inter-related. Facebook and then YouTube are the mostly used social media sites. Most of the students spend below 1 hour or 1 to 2 hours per day on social media. Most of the respondents spend below TK.10000 for digital device and below TK.200 or TK.200 to 500 as monthly internet expense for using social media.

Implication of the Study

This research paper will be very helpful for the University authority, parents, and students and for the government to trace implications of social media usage by students and develop policy framework regarding social media. Firstly, University authority will be able to take the decision regarding social media based services for students. Parents will be aware about their children’s activities on the web and their academic performance. Students will be conscious about the positive usage and aspects of social media. Government will be able to develop social media policy to improve socio-economic, educational, cultural development of the country.

 

CONCLUSION

The primary objective of this research is to know the usage pattern of social media by students. It relates to several factors, such as Educational purpose, social needs fulfillment and availability of resources that influence the actual usage of social media. The results of analysis provide strong support for the proposed conceptual framework and reveal that a high degree of educational purpose, social needs fulfillment, availability of resources enhance actual usage of social media. According to the result of the study, those who say that they use social media for educational purpose are found in sharing their educational content, learning enhancement, availability of educational resources, quickly recognizing job information. Those who say that they use social media for social needs fulfillments are found in easily identification of friends and family members, using social media as a tool of entertainment, easy device of communication and self -representation. Those who say that they use social media for availability of resources are found in availability of leisure time, availability of money and internet facility. The findings of the study show that all the three factors along with their associated variables influence the actual usage of social media. Finally, it can be concluded that by implementing the above recommendations those are major outcomes of the study, users and concerned authorities can expect the best payoff from the usage of social media.

 

RECOMMENDATIONS

Students should consider all the influential factors to ensure the appropriate usage of social media. They must use social media not only for any specific reason, but to fulfill their multiple purposes. Students can use social media to find job information that will mitigate their job risk.

Authority should ensure available internet facility and other resources for utmost usage of social media considering ethical, security and privacy issues. Price of digital device should be reasonable and non-academic usage of social media should be limited within idle time. Students should enhance their academic knowledge through available academic contents on different social Media. They are getting addicted and wasting time on social media that hampers their academic results and other normal tasks. So, they should restrict over usage. Social media should be used to get updated information and for academic, social and communication purpose. Students can use social media for entertainment purpose to remove loneliness but in limited extent. They should develop their communication skills and social ties through social media. Students should find out innovative ways of using social media (e.g. doing research) to satisfy their academic purpose as much as possible. There should be proper law and regulatory environment for using social media.

FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTION

Due to the fund and time constraints this research project has been conducted in University of Dhaka area of Bangladesh. A further research may be conducted to include variables like   doing research, publishing class or academic notice, using modern technologies, reading daily news, network building, passing leisure time, doing social responsibility, sharing own ideology, sharing photos, improving reading, and writing skills etc. Further research can be conducted in following areas like usage of social media by teachers, social media for removing communication gap between teachers and students, social media as a tool of publication, relationship between social media usage and students’ academic performance, physical and psychological implications of using social media, safety and security issues in social media, regulatory environment of using social media etc. In case of further research, researchers may conduct research by covering more geographical areas and sample in other educational level like usage in secondary and higher secondary level in both rural and urban areas. Besides, further study must measure the influence of some mediating variables as well as some control variables on actual usage of social media. Moreover, researcher should conduct the cross-sectional study (i.e. assimilation of data from a similar kind of developing countries) to improve generalization of outcomes and to understand usage pattern in different countries Furthermore, potential study should appraise additional crucial issues regarding safety and security for using social media.

 

 

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