Social Media Dependency: The Implications of Technological Communication Use Among University Students

Abstract

With the prevalent technological advancements, social media are ubiquitous. Such phenomenon has notably shifted and redefined the paradigms of communication. In the last decades, numerous studies have documented an increased number of social detachment attributed to the uprising utilization of social media and have linked it to the deterioration and mitigation of face to face interactions. In this paper, we postulated that computer-mediated communications, predominantly social media, are the widely preferred means of communication among students in which they have become too reliant on social media; thus, it influences and compromises the quality of face to face interactions. The data was collected via an administered online survey to probe on the postulated variables. Besides the survey, a field observation was conducted to facilitate the validation of the collected data through different means of sources. Findings from the online survey suggest that students prefer face to face interaction. However, students rely on social media because they can be portrayed differently and be less shy. When it comes to distant relationships, social media increases the quality of face to face interactions. As for the observation, the findings show that students were inclined to resort to social media when situated in social contexts.