Social Media, Social Support and Solitude among College Students

2013 Mayers Summer Research ScholarshipsSocial support gained through social network and social media has been proposed to be a plausible buffer protecting college students from mental health problems. However, contradictory evidence has been found questioning whether social media indeed can help gratify college students’ social needs and cultivate social support for them. The current study reconciles existing findings by examining the role of solitude in this process. Through a longitudinal 4-week experience sampling study and dynamic panel models, the study revealed that the nature of solitude (loneliness and voluntariness) moderated the use and effects of social media. More specifically, an increase of social needs boosted social media use; but this effect was stronger when a person was lonelier during the solitude and when the solitude was non-voluntary. The effect of social media use on social gratification was moderated by solitude as well. For those who were voluntarily to select to be alone and did not feel high levels of loneliness, social gratification was higher and an increase of social media use slightly increased social gratification. In comparison, for those who were non-voluntarily to be alone and felt lonelier, social gratification was lower and an increase of social media use decreased social gratification. The implications for how to better use social media to improve college students’ social support and mental health is discussed.No embargoAcademic Major: Communicatio

Understanding domestic social media use among Chinese college students under the framework of uses and gratifications

Although China has the world’s largest population of social media users, little is known what drives Chinese users to adopt the country’s leading media platforms, like QQ, WeChat, and Weibo, and what gratifications are satisfied by using these fastest-growing sites. In light of the literature on the uses and gratifications theory, the study explored the essential pattern of computer-mediated communication phenomena and interaction behaviors in Mainland China. In this exploratory study, 258 college students from Chinese universities were asked about their uses and gratifications of these social media sites. The factor analysis reveals five key dimensions relating to gratifications obtained from social media are identified: relationship maintenance, amusement, style, information seeking and sociability. Moreover, a hierarchical OLS regression analysis shows that there is a positive relationship between frequency of social media use and the needs of relationship maintenance and amusement. Furthermore, among the five socio-psychological values, the social related factor is revealed to be significantly and positively linked with spending time on the social media

An investigation of uses and gratifications for using WEB 2.0 technologies in teaching and learning processes

Although the use of Web 2.0 in higher education has been a hot topic for the last decade, a lack of guidelines on how to use Web 2.0 tools has constrained their wider adoption. Therefore, understanding why and how educators use Web 2.0 is a necessary step towards promoting their effective use in teaching and learning. This study draws upon the uses and gratifications perspective to explore faculty members’ uses of Web 2.0 tools in instructional processes in an international higher education context. We gathered data from 15 faculty members via semi-structured interviews as part of a phenomenological study design applying maximum variation sampling. We analyzed the data using content analysis. The results indicated that the faculty members were selective in their use of Web 2.0 tools and utilized a variety of Web 2.0 tools to gratify their cognitive, affective, social integrative and personal integrative needs in relation to instructional processes

Study on the Continuance Usage of Mobile Health Management Application based on Uses and Gratifications Theory

In order to examine the influence effect of uses and gratifications of mobile health services. A research model was developed to study the influence of users’ utility gratification, hedonic gratification and social gratification from the perspective of Uses and Gratifications theory. SPSS and Smart PLS were employed to verify the research hypotheses using the empirical data collected via survey questionnaires. Research results show that utility gratification, hedonic gratification and social gratification all exert significant and positive effects on users’ continuance usage intention. Especially, gratification of health management, perceived fantasy, social image play important roles in users’ uses and gratifications. Providers of Mobile health management application should design and take personalized operating strategies and marketing strategies according to different needs

Carrying forward the Uses and Grats 2.0 agenda: An affordance-driven measure of social media uses and gratifications

Peer-reviewed journal articleThe notion of social media affordances has not been fully integrated into the uses and gratifications literature. Building on the MAIN (modality, agency, interactivity, and navigability) model, this study develops and tests a social media uses and gratifications scale with a sample of 393 college students. Results of the study support the MAIN model, as conceptualizing social media uses and gratifications as a second-order factor structure with 4 different types of affordances displays similar goodness-of-fit to a single-order factor structure. A confirmatory factor analysis with a second sample of 313 adults further confirms the applicability of the scale among the general population

Communication management on social networking sites: Stakeholder motives and usage types of corporate Facebook, Twitter and YouTube pages

Purpose – Over the last years, many corporations have started to maintain profile pages on social networking sites (SNS), but research on how and why organizational stakeholders use these profile pages has not kept pace. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – The study applies a combined perspective of uses-andgratifications (U&G) and social cognitive theory (SCT) to investigate the reasons why politicians and digital natives consume and interact with corporations on SNS. In total, 65 semi-structured interviews were conducted and analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Findings – Results suggest that the two stakeholder groups differ in their motivations, as well as behavior to use corporate profile pages. Digital natives seem to prefer Facebook to interact with companies, politicians prefer Twitter. Corporate YouTube pages are almost not important to any of the groups. Research limitations/implications – The qualitative nature of the study does not allow for generalizations of the findings to larger populations. Suggestions for further research are addressed in the discussion section. Practical implications – The study results have numerous implications for the practice of communication management. Fans on SNS do not tend to interact with corporations to a large extent, but are loyal followers. Once a connection between an individual and a company is established, it is likely to last. This enables corporations to gain rich information from their networks to be included in customer service, product development, issues management and recruiting. Originality/value – This is the first study in the field of communication management, which applies a micro-level approach to interviewing users of corporate communication; in order to reveal the reasons why and how they use corporate social networking profile pages

Wechat Addiction and Gratifications of College Students in China: Procrastination, Fear of Missing out and Perceived Social Support

微信自2011年问世以来，从单一的聊天工具发展成了现在的多功能社交媒体，在中国人的生活工作中越来越占据重要的位置。作为当前中国最为热门的社交媒体，微信一直为各个群体青睐，然而，人们使用微信的动机、使用微信的行为特点以及微信沉迷潜在的负面影响却鲜少为人所知。本文依托使用与满足理论，对大学生群体使用微信的原因和影响因素进行了探索，以问卷调查为主，辅以访谈与焦点小组的方法，从福州大学、华侨大学和厦门大学抽取了609个大学生样本。研究发现：（1）大学生群体的微信使用表现出高频率、短时间的碎片化的特点，有16.7%的大学生可以被认定为微信沉迷；（2）微信沉迷的症状表现有强迫性使用、对社交活动失去兴趣和缺...Since launched in 2011, Wechat has been successfully turned into a multi-functional app that inserts a great influence on Chinese people’s lives. Even though Wechat has been a favorite for all ages, the motives, behavioral patterns and the possible negative impact of addiction have been rarely known. This paper explores the reasons and predictors of Wechat use and Wechat addiction among college st...学位：文学硕士院系专业：新闻传播学院_新闻学学号：3062014115307

Social Media Use by the Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh: A Uses and Gratification Approach

The refugee crisis is one of the greatest problems in the world right now. Countries from both developed and developing parts of the world have faced this crisis for many years. Usually, refugees lost their home-relatives, income source and all meaningful aspects of life. Living in another country with the help of the foreign government and NGOs, the refugees spend a challenging time under many difficulties. This study concentrates on social media uses of the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh under the light of uses and gratification theory. The purposive sampling technique used to collect the data. This study focuses on what are the main reasons for using social media, attitude toward social media, and lastingness on social media by the Rohingya refugees. Data has been collected from 37 Rohingya refugees ranging in age of 19 to 32 years, gendering both male and female. Results indicate that Facebook is the most preferred social media. The majority of them (37.8%) are using social media for one to two years, (43.2%) of them are most active on social media at 7-8 PM and spend four to five hours each day. 62.2% of the respondents have only one social media account. The majority (32.4%) of the Rohingya refugees are using social media for getting the latest news update, sharing an opinion (29.7%), communicating with family and friends (24.3%). 70.3% of respondents think social media is a positive thing, their favorite topics to see on social media are a personal story (51.4%), and political facts (32.4%).  Finally, findings support that many paradigms of uses and gratifications theory are met by the Rohingya social media users

Generation X and Facebook: An Examination of the Behavioral and Cognitive Engagements of Generation X on Facebook

Mobile internet technologies and social media have radically altered the media landscape, and traditional media outlets are experimenting with ways to more efficiently reach and connect with audiences. Social media offers media outlets an opportunity and space to strengthen relationships with audiences while delivering content across multiple modalities and platforms. This study, through an online survey, open-ended questions, and focus group sessions, offers an examination of the cognitive and behavioral engagements of Generation X on Facebook through a uses and gratifications perspective. Results indicate Generation X uses Facebook for information seeking and to strengthen and maintain current relationships but seems willing to interact with media outlets in the same space. This willingness to connect represents an opportunity for traditional media managers to reach this socially and economically vital age group and develop brand-loyal relationships