Social media represents an increasing part of the most people's lives, both young and old. With its rapid development (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) its content has become an important part of everyday life of the younger generation. Despite its positive effects on our lives, more and more researchers in Slovenia and over the world also discovered many negative consequences. The graduation thesis discuss addiction to social media and the correlation between the use of social media and self-image, life satisfaction and control over one's own life among Slovenian students. The techniques that students use to reduce the time spent on social media are also presented. The graduation thesis consists of two parts. The first part is theoretical - it presents theoretical basics with key concepts related to the subject matter. The second part is empirical - it presents the problem, the methodology, the results, the discussion, the conclusions and the proposals.
A quantitative survey was carried out on a non-probability sample of 159 Slovenian students aged 19 to 25. It involved 123 women (77, 4%) and 36 men (22, 6%). The data were obtained through an online poll.
Almost all of interviewed students have a social media profile. The most popular social media is Youtube, followed by Facebook, Facebook messenger, Instagram, Snapchat and others. Most students consider that they are able to control their time spent on social media. Filling the daily schedule with other activities and walk in the nature or other physical exercise are the most common techniques used by students to reduce the time spent on social media. The majority of interviewed students do not notice signs of social media addiction. Almost half of the respondents haven't yet experienced unpleasant emotions with a low response (a small number of "likes") to their photo (a photo of themselves) that they published on their social media profile while less than a third of students had already experienced such feelings. The average number of "likes" that students receive on photos of themselves on their social media profile is not in correlation with general self-image of students. The same is with time spent by students on social media on a daily basis. Time is also not connected with social self-image and control over one's own life. There is a weak negative correlation between time spent by students on social media on a daily basis and their physical self-image and life satisfaction. More time spent daily on social media reflects in lower physical self-image and less satisfaction with life.
In the future, it would be important to carry out a similar survey on younger (primary, secondary school) and older (adults) population and to use a different way of measuring self-image. Trainings on positive and negative aspects of social media use on the lives of young people should be also organised for social workers in this professional field as well as parents.
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