Running head: SOCIAL MEDIA AND PSYCHOLOGICAL DISORDERS 1

Social Media and Psychological Disorders

Phase II: The Focus Group Report

RCLS 425: Evaluation in Recreation and Leisure Services

Danica Denny, Leah Edens and Madison Hart

Eastern Washington University

June 5th, 2018

Introduction

For this portion of the evaluation, we utilized a focus group to gather qualitative data to

create a survey instrument. We sat down with three other groups from the RCLS 425 class, and

conducted the focus group with five participants. Then, we used the data we collected during the

focus group to analyze, summarize, code, and develop themes. The focus group discussed their

opinions about social media usage and the potential relationship with psychological disorders.

The information we gathered from the focus group was successful and useful by presenting us

with ideas and opinions to incorporate into a survey later.

Methodology

Method

The interview guide we used for this focus group was an open ended, structured

interview guide. It was open ended because the participants were free to express their opinions

with respect from their peers, to the time we moved on to the next question. It is structured

because we had a set of fourteen (14) question. Three were guiding question accompanied by

three to four sub-questions we planned and asked during the focus group. In the questions, the

interviewer must “fit their experiences and feelings into researchers categories; may be perceived

Process of the Interview Questions

To develop the final set of interview guide questions, we researched about why certain

individuals may use social media in their everyday lives. We then researched potential effects of

using social media that may cause disturbances in people’s moods, productivity, and

relationships. We pulled our information from peer reviewed articles, and from the book,

Evaluating Leisure Services: Making Enlightened Decisions. Based on the research we collected,
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as a group we formed questions circulating around the topic of social media use and

psychological disorders.

Focus Group Questions

Introduction

We welcomed everyone by introducing our group members and majors.

Purpose statement: The purpose of this focus group is to explore the students of RCLS 425 views

about the potential relationship between social media and psychological disorders. In this focus

group

Consent statement: This focus group is completely voluntary and if at anytime you feel

uncomfortable about answering a certain question you do not have to answer. This session will

be recorded but will not be publicly reported or reproduced. You can leave at anytime if you feel

uncomfortable.

Ice breaker: “if you could have one animal switch noises with another animal, what would it

be?” (For example, a cow meow and a cat moo.)

Ground Rules for Discussion

1. One speaker at a time.

2. Do not speak while others are speaking.

3. Be respectful and listen to everyone's points of views.

4. Do not attack other points of view.

5. Everyone will try to participate the best they can.

6. Do not use cellphones or other distracting items while the focus group is in session.

Tone of the focus group: Structured and informational, yet respectful and open.

Guided Questions
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1) How long have you had social media?

a) How many hours are you on your phone per day?

b) How many of those hours are spent on social media?

c) How many social media apps do you have?

2) How does social media make you feel?

a) Does social media positively or negatively affect your life?

b) How would you feel if there was no social media?

c) Do you rely on social media as a source of excitement, or to cope with boredom

or loneliness?

3) How do you value social media?

a) How has it affected your relationships with family or friends?

b) Has social media affected your relationship with yourself?

c) Has it affected your ability to focus in school?

d) Has social media affected your mental health?

Conclusion

Thank you for your participation.

Member Roles

For the focus group we assigned member roles voluntarily. The roles were assigned as

the following, Leah Edens as the moderator, Madison Hart as the notetaker, and Danica Denny

as the recorder and additional notetaker. We all additionally took turns to probe the interviewees

for further input. The group used a cellphone as a recording device to capture the discussion.

Tape recording the discussion was useful because it allowed us to revisit the data later on.

Logistics
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The preparation for the focus group went smoothly. We contributed equally to the

interview guide questions. We made edits to the questions as necessary, and also reached out to

other groups for opinions on questions for wording and clarification purposes. We met early on

the morning of May 11th, 2019 and promptly started the focus group at 8 am. We provided

donuts and treats an incentive for participating in our focus group. Some of the participants were

more quiet than others, but for the most part each participant spoke at least twice during the

duration of the focus group. We did have to probe further for certain participants who weren’t as

eager to participate. There was no push back with the probing, and it did seem to get more

thoughts out of them. We had five (5) participants total, with a ratio of four men to one female,

therefore data was not represented equally within our gender ratio.

Reflective Comments

Starting with an interesting icebreaker like we used woke the group up since it was early

in the morning, and loosened up the participants. When we got there, everyone was quiet and

you could sense the tension in the room. The icebreaker got people to laugh and feel more calm.

Then we started the focus group. The focus group over all went very well. As stated earlier, some

of the participants were less talkative than others, but we were able to capture the data we

needed. We were able to pick up on several recurring themes throughout the focus group, which

was very helpful in our analysis. The group was very introspective and was willing to speak

personally of themselves and their lives. They were willing to be open, which overall led to the

success of our focus group. They expressed more negatives than positives about the topic. We

also had more male participants than female, which made our data unequal. The fact that there

were more males than females also could have swayed the comments. We feel that if the group
SOCIAL MEDIA AND PSYCHOLOGICAL DISORDERS 6

had more females we would’ve had a wider range of opinions and the conversation would’ve

been different due to societal views.

Analysis

The following are each of the questions asked followed by the summary of responses.

1. How long have you had social media?

The range of this answer went as far back to 5th grade all the way up to high school.

Majority of the participants have had social media since they were in junior high (7th-8th grade).

2. How many hours a day are you on your phone?

Responses: Participants estimated around 1-5 hours were spent on their phone. How many of

those hours were spent on social media? A couple of the participants only spent around 1-2 hours

on social media, while the others it was more 4-5 hours. If they were on their phones, the

majority of the time was spent scrolling through or checking social media.

3. How many social media apps do you have?

Responses: Four out of the five participants have 3 social media apps. One had a total of 5 apps

for social media.

4. What do you use social media for?

Responses: Communication was the first answer for all the participants. Communication with

friends, family, work and news. A couple participants do not post anything to social media but

use it strictly for keeping up with the events of their family. Another participant responded

saying they used it to keep updated with sports and news.

5. How does social media make you feel?

Responses: Common responses were that social media makes them feel good when they share

positive or comical posts. But there is always a negative outcome to all the positivity that they
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input on social media. One participant said that they question their body image negatively which

puts them down. Another response was that it gives an opportunity for people on social media to

have two sides to themselves; the best portrayal of their life, and the side where they can criticize

and bully others.

6. Does social media negatively or positively affect your life?

Responses: Majority of participants said that social media has more of a negative impact on their

life. Even if there is a positive aspect, negative outcomes follow.

7. How would you feel if there was no social media?

Response: Many of the participants felt they would be more disconnected from others if there

was no social media. Social media helps them keep in touch with society, friends and family.

However, one participant mentioned that it would be hard at first to not have social media, but

eventually people would adapt and go back to communicating face to face.

8. Do you rely on social media as a source of excitement or to cope with

boredom/loneliness?

Response: Participants all answered that they use social media as both a way to cope when they

are bored or lonely as well as it adds excitement.

9. How do you value social media?

Response: Some participants responded that they valued social media positively because it gives

them a connection with others and able to communicate. However, one response said that it was

more of a nuisance because people use it when they are bored or in an awkward situation.

10. Has social media affected your relationship with friends and family?

Response: This answer was split of having a negative and positive effect on the relationships

with friends and family. It was mentioned that it is positive in the way that if they are feeling
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down or there is something worth celebrating, friends and family will support them and cheer

them up. A participant said that the negativity comes in when politics get involved.

11. Has social media affected your relationship with yourself?

Response: Participants said that being on social media leads them to question themselves

because they get backlash for having a different opinion, but also, if you post something of

yourself or something positive, they are always wondering what people will think of them. Even

before you post, you must think of how others will portray you.

12. Has social media affected your ability to focus in school?

Response: Every one of the participants said that social media distracts them when they are

trying to work on assignments or projects. They cannot study without having the urge to check

their phone even if they know that no one has messaged them, or that anything new is on social

media. Papers that should take 30 minutes end up taking hours to complete.

13. Has social media affected your mental health?

Response: There was a variety of answers to this question. One participant said that it did not

affect his mental health, but his girlfriend has more insecurities because of social media. An

interesting comment was made that social media affects them short term but not long term. In the

moment they are upset but then after a few hours they forget about it.

Coding
The table below provides a list of codes that we have gathered from our data. The column on the
left consists of the open codes, where as the column on the right consist of axial codes.
OPEN CODING AXIAL CODING

Communication SOCIAL
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Body Image EMOTION

Boredom EMOTION

Source of Excitement EMOTION

Second ‘Self’ SOCIAL/EMOTION

Positive Input EMOTION

Negative Output EMOTION

Friends SOCIAL
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Family SOCIAL

Productivity SOCIAL

The way that we ended up coding our data was organizing codes for each separate

question. Each question has its own theme and then we went through to collect the overlapping

themes and the themes that only was present once. Many of our questions lead to similar answers

as especially when talking about the positives and negatives of social media and how it affects

each participant.

Approach
The approach we used in order to develop patterns, categories and themes was the

grounded comparison. Grounded comparison is an analysis technique for coding and analyzing

qualitative data. However, it is a process rather than the result (p.344). The meaning of this is

that results are already grounded in the data and the process is emerging themes based on our

data that we collected. Within grounded comparison, we used constant comparison in order to

find our codes. Constant comparison is used to continually compare statements within an

interview in order to develop open and axial codes (p.344). The process of constant comparison

is to read and reread through all the data collected from our focus group, so we can form codes.

Each member from our group would need to analyze and read through notes so we can

continually compare the data which would help us find more themes and relationships amongst

the data. Having each member do this, helps us see if the themes or interpretations of the

relationships are consistent (p.345). “The goal of grounded comparison is to maximize credibility

through the analysis and comparisons of groups and data” (p.345).

The stages that we took was first to organize the data that we collected from our interview

guide. We organized the responses by identifying, reducing and coding the categories within the

data (p.346). Secondly, we organized our responses to fit into certain themes we discovered.

Reading through the interview guide and comparing the responses is crucial in this stage (p.347).

The third stage, we need to emerge our criteria and focus on how our data all combine. It is

important to go through all the data in case there are other themes or categories being excluded

that could impact your data. If more are discovered, then we must compare them to the current

themes we have and start the analysis process again. “The final stage involves going back to the

original data and pulling out quotes, phrases or anecdotes that support the themes” (p.347).

Adding this material will let us show that the project was analyzed (p.347).

Patterns
After each group member wrote three different summaries, and listening to the recording

of the focus groups, we were able to highlight through and analyze the responses. After picking

out repeated key words or common responses that were throughout our summary portion of our

qualitative data, themes and codes began to appear. These codes include communication, body

image, productivity, boredom, excitement, friends and family. These codes are open codes, and

from these codes we were able to identify each of them as an axial code. These consisted of

either emotion or social codes.

Themes
The overall themes of our focus group project that we felt fit best were; positive inputs on

social media have negative outcomes, reasons for using social media, and communication is

convenient through social media. These themes were created after analyzing the criteria that we

collected throughout focus group interview. From our summaries that we each wrote, we found

our codes from repeated words or phrases. From these codes and responses we got from the
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participants thought the interview, we were able to come up with themes that grouped the codes

together.

Reasons for using social media was one of the first themes that emerged from our

responses to the guided interview guide. Some key words that we found in our responses that

support this theme were boredom, excitement, distraction, keep in touch with friends, family and

society, and to read or see news. With these responses, it all went back to why the individuals

would get on social media in the first place. An interviewee stated, “I usually go on social media

before I go to bed or right when I wake up, just as something to do but also, to see what is going

on in the world.” This theme led closely to another theme that we have which is communication

is convenient through social media. The most common response from the participants was that

they got on social media to keep connected with friends and family. Social media was a platform

for them to talk with distant family members or to view what their friends were doing. One

interviewee mentioned, “I usually get on facebook because when I post about not having a good

day my friends and family can easily reach out to me. And if they post something I can reach out

to them easily.” For the last theme, positive inputs on social media have negative outcomes, was

a tricky theme at first to come across. Many key words or phrases we heard througout the focus

group were, negative body image, politics, bullying, nuisance, and distraction which are all

words that resemble of outcomes that social media has. Participants said that they like to to go on

social media to see positive posts, but do not always feel good after being on social media. An

response from a interviewee was, “I like to go on Twitter to watch funny videos but then I

usually get pissed off because there are always negative or stupid comments so then I get in an

annoyed mood.”

Conclusion
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Overall the focus group went well. Most of the individuals participated when asked what

they thought about certain questions that were asked. After picking our own themes, group

eleven came together and found that there are similar recurring themes that we all heard from the

focus group. Are that the purpose that the individuals use social media for communication with

friends and family, entertainment and boredom. While the outcome after using social media is a

negative body image for women, negative political views, and that social media is an overall

nuisance to the individual using them. Not having an equal gender ratio differently skewed our

focus group information towards the male’s point of view. We then looked for certain patterns

that was repeated throughout our focus group and made those our overall themes for the survey

questions that we were going to ask more in depth in our surveys that will be distributed

throughout RCLS 425 spring quarter students.

Recommendation

Based on the themes that we deducted from the focus group we want to further discuss

the areas of positive input which results in negative emotion and positive input which results in

negative productivity. Why our group decided to further probe those areas are because in our

focus group. They continually were bringing up those central themes when we asked our focus

group our interview guide. Positive input meaning that they are going on social media to see

positive messages and post about their lives but coming across negative feedback like politics,

reduction and self esteem and more. Positive input resulting in negative productivity would be

them going on social media to escape from the worlds reality but not accomplishing school work

or other tasks.
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Source

Henderson, K. A., Bialeschki, M. D., & Browne, L. P. (2017). Evaluating recreation services:

Making enlightened decisions. Urbana: Sagamore Publishing.