Psychological Impact, Coping Among College Students using Social Networking Sites: A Comparative Study

Abstract

Social networking sites give a good platform for discussion on various topics and issues and that helps to do messaging, blogging, sharing photos, audio & videos and generates for social interaction, making dialogues and exchange their thoughts and views. Especially youngsters recognized as I-generation, who are the keen users of social media. The current social media revolution is impacting on demonstrating the changing mindset of the youth. The aim of the study was to understand the positive and negative effect, psychological impact and coping among college students and comparing between the genders which are using social networking sites. The purposive sampling method was used for recruitment of 100 undergraduate students (male= 50, female=50) from the degree college of Bangalore urban. Semi-structured questionnaires and self-reported standardized inventory has been used for the data collection. Study reveals that male students are more users than female students, and a mild level of psychological distress was found in the higher number of users. And it also concluded that there was both positive and negative impact of social networking sites usages among the college students and male students are more users and prone to get addicted as well. Male students are found psychologically distressed but in terms of adopting coping styles, there were no differences among both respondents using social networking sites.