Psychological Effects of Social Media among Pre-University Adolescences in Bangalore, India

Abstract

For feeling safe and developing trust adolescences need a stable and caring environment. Their basic emotional and physical needs must be consistently met. Adolescences those are not properly guided and are not aware of proper use of social media may become distressful and avoid social contact. Some adolescence may also show signs and symptoms of the psychological effect caused by social media. Psychological effects like sleep disorder, sexual problems, attention deficiency, hyperactivity disorder, addiction, eating disorder, anxiety and depression may vary among adolescents as per the exposure of media. This study focused to assess the exposure of social media and its psychological effects among pre-university adolescences in Bangalore, India. This was institutional based cross-sectional descriptive study design. We carried out this study in purposively selected colleges in Bangalore City. We involved 80 adolescences using non-probability convenience sampling technique. We adopted quantitative method and used structured self-administered questionnaire for collecting required information. We consulted supervisors and experts in the field of nursing and medicine to assure content validity of the tools. We performed descriptive as well as inferential statistical analysis using SPSS 20 version for drawing and interpreting the findings. We assessed adolescences knowledge on social media whereas more than half (55.0%) were average, nearly one third (33.8%) had high and 11.3% had low knowledge. Similarly regarding the attitude of adolescents more two-thirds (71.3%) had constructive attitude, nearly one-third (28.8%) had positive attitude. The overall mean scores and standards deviations (SD) of knowledge and attitude were 15.11 and 2.38 out of maximum possible score 48 and 48.47 and 4.20 out of maximum possible score 60 . The total scores of knowledge and attitude were statistically significant(r = 0.348, P<0.05). We further assessed association of knowledge and attitude with socio-demographic factors. All almost all factors were not found to be associated with knowledge and attitude. Psychological effects of social media among pre-university adolescences in Bangalore, India varied considering their knowledge and attitude. However knowledge and attitude were significantly associated each other. Social media had constructive as well as destructive effect among adolescences. Family and academic institutions should closely monitor the adolescents and focused them on to use social media for academic purpose rather than entertainment.

Keywords: Knowledge, attitude, psychological effects of social media, adolescences