International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) |Volume VI, Issue IX, September 2022|ISSN 2454-6186
Charles Chaka
Mpilo Central Hospital, P.O. Box 2096 Bulawayo, Zimbabwe
Abstract: The explored the impact of social media on university students’ self-esteem. The research was limited to 120 Great Zimbabwe University (GZU) students who were surveyed, and a self-administered structured questionnaire was used. The students were selected from the Faculty of Social Sciences in the Department of Psychology. Stratified random sampling which is a probability sampling technique was used to select the participants. The data was analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 21.0. Spearman correlation test and the Chi Square test were used. Findings indicate that there is a negative relationship between social media usage and self-esteem, self-confidence, and feelings of competence. The study indicate that the more frequent the students visit social media sites the lower their self-esteem, self-confidence and feelings of competence tend to be. However, students who spend an average of 3 hours per day on social media recorded high levels of self-esteem, self-confidence, and feelings of competence. This led to the conclusion that social media is a double-edged sword whose impact can be either negative or positive depending on time spent on it. This study recommends that universities conduct awareness campaigns aimed at exposing the negative psychological effects of excessive use of social media with a view to reduce curb same. Furthermore future studies may need to focus on the causal relationship that exists between each social media site and various psychological conditions as little research has been done in that regard despite the unprecedented concurrent surge in psychological disorders and social media usage among the 21st century’s young adults.
Key Words: Social media, Self-esteem, WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram
I. INTRODUCTION
The aim of this study is to find out the impact of social media usage on university students’ self-esteem following the discovery that the 21st century is overwhelmed by widespread use of internet and social media sites, mostly by young people particularly university students.
The 21st century has witnessed a vast emergence, growth and widespread use of social media globally – a development which has negatively impacted on users’ mental health, notably by lowering their self-esteem and increasing anxiety owing to social comparisons. Social media which can be defined as computer-mediated technology that allows one to create and share information and other forms of expression through virtual communities, such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram has become the most common global