Perception of Social Media in Secondary Students

Abstract

Communication has always been a basic need for human beings throughout the history. The Internet, which became widespread in the late 20th century, provided new and improved opportunities in communication. Social media, one of these communication opportunities, has become an indispensable means of communication. The aim of the current research is to determine which social media accounts the middle school students use and why they use social media. The sampling of the study is comprised of 211 students attending a state middle school in Turkey. In the current study, the participating students were asked to write an authentic composition with the title “use of social media” and the collected data in this way were analyzed by using the content analysis method. According to the results obtained in the current study, it can be argued that the participating children are aware of the negative effects of the use of social media on their social life, academic achievement and health. However, despite these negative effects, they find it difficult to keep themselves away from social media. According to the participating students, social media is a harmful communication tool that makes it easy to get information and news, is entertaining, addictive and not suitable for children.