AMITY UNIVERSITY

A PORTFOLIO ON
EFFECTS OF SOCIAL MEDIA ADDICTION

Submitted by

Pranjal Sharma

B. Tech CSE Section ‘C’

Enrollment No: A91005219165

2019-2023

2021
 INTRODUCTION
Overview In the century we live in, which is called the Digital age, computer and internet have
gained an absolutely central importance in human life, and social media had a prominent role in
this picture. Besides easy, cheap and fast access to information through computers and the
Internet, the expansion of the communication network is one of the factors that lead
individuals to use social media. It is obvious that the importance of social media in our lives is
increasing day by day, and social media is even able to lead global movements. Not surprisingly,
its effect on individuals, especially young people is inevitable.

The rapid advancement of media technology has had a great impact on the way people
communicate on a daily basis. The growing dimension of the use of the social media among the
youth of today cannot be over emphasized. Over the years, social networking among students
has become more and more popular. It is a way to make connections, not only on campus but
with friends outside of school. Social networking is a way that helps people feel they belong to
a community. Due to the increased popularly of it, economists and professors are questioning
whether grades of students will not be affected by how much time is spent on these sites. It is
believed that the use of technology such as internet is one of the most important factors that
can influence educational performance of students positively or adversely. Many parents and
guardians are worried that students are spending too much time on Facebook and other social
media sites and have not enough time to study. Though parents are worried about students’
constant use of the social media sites, many students continue to utilize these sites on a daily
basis (Kirik et al, 2015). Where passing notes, meeting at the local burger joints, and calling our
friends via a landline used to exist, now cell phones, apps, and social networking sites control
our teen’s days and lives. Teens today do not know what a landline telephone is, Facebook and
Instagram have taken the place of meeting friends at a burger joint, and text messaging has
replaced note passing during class. Through network data collection and analysis study it is
found, that there is an increase in teen depression, self-mutilation, dysfunctional families, and
promiscuity in today’s youth than ever before. A systematic review was completed to gather
Page | 2 the effects of social networking sites on teens. One would assume that these social
media sites have a huge impact on our teens; because of the way they have inundated their
lives to a degree that appears incomprehensible to yesterday’s youth. The current tools of
teenage communication go by a peculiar set of names. Wall Posts, Status Updates, Activity
Feeds, Thumbs Ups, Profiles are just some of the ways that youth today communicate with one
another .

Social Media The concept of Social Media is top of the agenda for many business executives
today. Decision makers, as well as consultants, try to identify ways in which firms can make
profitable use of applications such as Wikipedia, YouTube, Facebook, Second Life, and Twitter.
Yet despite this interest, there seems to be very limited understanding of what the term “Social
Media” exactly means; this article intends to provide some clarification. We begin by describing
the concept of Social Media, and discuss how it differs from related concepts such as Web 2.0
and User Generated Content. Based on this definition, we then provide a classification of Social
Media which groups applications currently subsumed under the generalized term into more
specific categories by characteristic: collaborative projects, blogs, content communities, social
networking sites, virtual game worlds, and virtual social worlds. Finally, we present 10 pieces of
advice for companies which decide to utilize Social Media.

History of social media The roots of social media stretch far deeper than you might imagine.
Although it seems like a new trend, sites like Facebook are the natural outcome of many
centuries of social media development.

Social media in 20th century Technology began to change very rapidly in the 20th Century. After the
first super computers were created in the 1940s, scientists and engineers began to develop ways to
create networks between those computers, and this would later lead to the birth of the Internet. The
earliest forms of the Internet, such as CompuServe, were developed in the 1960s. Primitive forms of
email were also developed during this time. By the 70s, networking technology had improved, and
1979’s UseNet allowed users to communicate through a virtual newsletter. By the 1980s, home
computers were becoming more common and social media was becoming more sophisticated. Internet
relay chats, or IRCs, were first used in 1988 and continued to be popular well into the 1990’s. The first
recognizable social media site, Six Degrees, was created in 1997. It enabled users to upload a profile and
make friends with other users. In 1999, the first blogging sites became popular, creating a social media
sensation that’s still popular today.
Social media today After the invention of blogging, social media began to explode in popularity.
Sites like My Space and LinkedIn gained prominence in the early 2000s, and sites like
Photobucket and Flickr facilitated online photo sharing. YouTube came out in 2005, creating an
entirely new way for people to communicate and share with each other across great distances.
By 2006, Facebook and Twitter both became available to users throughout the world. These
sites remain some of the most popular social networks on the Internet. Other sites like Tumblr,
Spotify, Foursquare and Pinterest began popping up to fill specific social networking niches.
Page | 7 Today, there is a tremendous variety of social networking sites, and many of them can
be linked to allow cross-posting. This creates an environment where users can reach the
maximum number of people without sacrificing the intimacy of person-to-person
communication. We can only speculate about what the future of social networking may look in
the next decade or even 100 years from now, but it seems clear that it will exist in some form
for as long as humans are alive.

Addiction to social media The invention of the Internet makes information sharing and
transmission more and more convenient and popular in our daily lives. However, excessive
dependence over the Internet turning into addiction often results in serious problems affecting
one physically, mentally or interpersonally. We attribute this Internet addiction as an impulse-
control disorder, i.e., Internet Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (IOCD). Comparing to teenagers
or adults, university students have higher chances to access the Internet for class assignments
or projects Internet addiction is a psychological disorder Ivan Goldberg developed in 1995. This
diagnosis of the disorder is inspired by the first pathological gambling diagnosis given by the
American Psychiatric Association. The association defines sub-categories of this addiction.
Pornography, enthusiastic and unreasonable passion for games, excessive consumption of time
on social networking sites or web sites, and online shopping craze are among these sub
-categories. Internet is not an addiction source by its own. Addiction is defined as the excessive
use of Internet that it begins to ruin daily, social and working life. Addiction lies in an idea or an
action that is previously tried, has led to a certain satisfaction, and anticipated to provide new
fulfillment. Hazar defines three main factors in social media addiction: cognitive content
addiction, emotional addiction and behavioral addiction. Many of the social activities are
performed in virtual spaces that are created through social media. This virtuality caused a
moveaway from the face-to-face social interaction in real-life and real places. All kinds of
content presented in virtual environment, that has appeal for people's imagination, attracts
them over time, and people begin to spend more time on the content, making them get
addicted to the Internet. One of the reasons for the tendency of young people towards social
media is the effort to express their personality in order to make sense of their existence, to
exude self-confidence and to earn approval of their social circle. Thus, young people generally
behave so as to create a positive impact on people around them. They can announce their
personalities through social media in order to leave a good impression. The young who have to
explain their existence wants to raise awareness via the feeling of loneliness. They feel the need
to tell their close circle and friends their emotions, thoughts and every experience they have.
Young people are seeking to interact with groups of people who share their feelings in order to
talk and share whatever they Page | 11 want. Young people, who are turning to social media
inordinately, are not aware of the increased time they spent on these sites, and begin to ignore
the responsibilities of real life over time. Minds which begin to interpret the real life and
relationships from the virtual perspective are broken out of real life after a point. A young
person who has difficulty in making friends in his real life may have a great deal of friends in
social media. Another young person who has difficulty in maintaining communication with his
family and friends may establish a good communication with an individual he met in social
media. They try to satisfy their need to establish dominance by taking control of everything
behind a mask of virtual identity and away of the true identity through these platforms

OBJECTIVES
The main objective of the survey was to find out the the effects of social media addiction on
students life and their academic performance. The specific objectives of the study were as
follows:

1. To examine the impact of social media on academic performance among the students.

2. To identify the impacts of social media on social life of the students.

3. To ascertain the reasons behind using social media.

4. To determine the addiction level of the students.

The survey was conducted among 60-65 students from department of CSE in Amity University.

It was a survey based study.

Data Collection Method The data was collected through questionnaire that is formed in English
language. It consists of multiple choice type questions to find out the use, engagement and
addiction of social media of students.

Development of The Questionnaire The questionnaire was developed based on different

DETAILS FOR THE SAMPLE: I have collected the name ,age and gender of the persons
participating in filling the form.

Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria

Inclusion criteria:

Both male and female are included.

Undergraduate students of Btech are included.

Exclusion criteria:

Students of age below 16 are not included.

Students of other department are also not included.

Instructions :

There are questions which are to be filled compulsorily and at the same time there are some
questions which is not required to be filled ,depending upon the participants.The form starts
with the name and age which is not compulsory to fill up ,its upto to the choice of an individual.
 ANALYSIS Of DATA
AGE:

In this survey 30.2% are 19 years of age and 28.6% are 20 years of age and rest of them were
16 years(3.2%),17 years(3.2%),18 years(19%),21 years (4.8%), 22 years(4.8%),25 years(1.6%),31
years(1.6%).

Gender:

In this survey 68.3% were male and 31.7% were female.

Marital Status:
In this survey 98.4% were single and 1.6% were married.

Types of social media people use:

In this survey 84.1% use social networking sites such as Facebook,Instagram,whatsapp and
Twitter.

61.9% people use Video hosting sites such as Youtube,Netflix and amazonprime.

6.3 % use Linkedin

Age at which people start using social media:

Time usually spent on social media:

In this survey 31.2% spend 2-4 hours.30.2% spend 4-6 hours. 20.6% spend 1-2 hours and rest
spend more than 6 hours.

Reasons of using social media:

In this survey 90.5% use for Entertainment.69.8% use for movie and music and rest of them use
for making friends(22.2%),academic work(65.1%),video games(20.6%),chatting(68.3%).
Number of times people usually visit social media:

In this survey 36.5% people always visit throughout the day.33.3% visit 6-10 times.28.6% visit 3-
5 times and rest visit 1-2 times.

Types of social media user:

In this survey 75.9% people are Listener and Sharer.13.8% are content creator and rest are
blogger and bonder.
Reason for frequent use of social media according to people:

In this survey 60.3% people use social media frequently as they can interact with people
easily.66.7% people use social media to relieve boredom.39.7% people use as most of their
friends use it and rest use it because its cheaper(14.3%),can chat with multiple
people(31.7%),chepaer(14.3%).

Impact Of social media on Academic performance:

In this survey 79.4% people have negative impact on academic performance while rest of them
do not have negative impact on academic performance.
Negative impact of social media on relation with family members:

In this survey 34.9% people have negative impact on relation with family Sometimes and rest
have always(14.3%),very often(15.9%),rarely(19%),never(15.9%).

Discussion
This survey was based on social media addiction as predictors of academic performance .It was
conducted on the students of Department CSE and other branch of Btech of Amity
University.Among the participants 68.3% were male and 31.7% were female.

In this survey 74.6% were Undergraduate students and rest were from postgraduates.Though
the survey was for Btech students many students from other departments showed interest on
filling up the survey form.Among the students 98.4% were single and rest were married.

During the study we came to know that most(84.1%) students usually use social networking
sites such as Facebook,Instagram,Whatsapp etc and rest of the students use video hosting
sites(61.9%) and community blogs.It means that Facebook and Instagram are the most popular
social media as almost every participants of the studies were user of it.

From the study we noticed that 55.6% of students started using social media from the age of
15-17 . 33.3% of students started using social media from age of 10-14 and 11.1% of students
started using social media from the age of 18 and above.
Among the population most (46%) students live in urban area , 30.2% of students live in sub
urban area and rest live in rural area.As in Urban area internet facilities are better than sub
urban and rural areas ,most of the respondents started using social media in Urban area.

According to the survey 31.7% of students use social media for 2-4 hours ,30.2% of students
use social media for 4-6 hours and 17.5% of students use social media more than six hours.

It has been shown from our study that most(90.5%) of the students use social media fro
entertainment , chatting(68.3%),movie and music(69.8%),making friends (22.2%),
videogames(20.6%) and 65.1% of students use social media for academic works

We have found that 36.5% of students use social media almost all the time.33.3% of students
visit 6-10 times and rest of the students visit 1-2 time.

According to the study ,75.9% of students are listener and sharer, 13.8% of students are
content creator and rest of the students are blogger and bonder.

We have come to know that among the students about 60.3% frequently visited social media
because it has easy interaction, 39.7% did as most of their friends used,66.7% use to relieve
boredom and for feeling lonely.

In the study about 79.4% of the students agreed that social media had negative impact on their
academic performance and 20.6% disagreed.

Among the participants about 35% students said social media had sometimes negative impacts
on relation with their family, 15.9% said it never had any impact and 19% said it had impact
rarely. So it means sometimes social media had negative impact on relation with their family.
 Conclusion
Based on all the facts it can be concluded that there is a relation between social media usage
and academic performance. This study investigated the effect of social media usage,
engagement, and addiction on academic performance. Results show that the amount of time
one spends using social media affects academic performance in a negative way. The amount of
time one spends using social media is negatively correlated with their academic performance.
So students should be aware of this fact that excessive engagement with social media can harm
their academic carrier as they can become addicted to it. They should spend their leisure hours
doing productive works other than keeping themselves busy with social media. After the
discussion it can also be said that a few students of the participants were addicted to social
media and a large number of them had not shown any addiction towards social media.
Combined approach is needed to create knowledge and awareness among young generation
about the negative impacts of social media addiction. It is however needed to mention that this
research was conducted on a single department of a university and in a very small scale. So it
doesn’t reflect the whole idea. Therefore it is suggested that if a conclusive result about the
social media use, engagement and addiction as predictors of academic performance is desired,
further large scale researches should be conducted.

References
.Acheaw, M. O. & Larson, A. G. (2015) Use of Social Media and its Impact on Academic
Performance of Tertiary Institution Students: A Study of Students of Koforidua Polytechnic,
Ghana. Journal of Education and Practice. [Online] 6(6). p.94-101. Avalable from:
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1083595.pdf .

Boyd, D. M. & Ellison, N. B. (2007) Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship.
Journal of Computer Mediated Communication.

Cabral, J. (2011) Is Generation Y Addicted to Social Media. The Elon Journal of Undergraduate
Research in Communications.

Dunn, J. (2011) Edudemic. [Online] Available from: http://www.edudemic.com/socialmedia-

Appendix
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/18vwvTgurvNcT-DFy653Utq3JOZ8rEGT45mjL84R85GY/edit