SOCIAL MEDIA NETWORKS AND SOCIAL APPEARANCE ANXIETY
SOSYAL MEDYA AĞLARI VE SOSYAL GÖRÜNÜM ANKSİYETESİ

Author : Ferhat Gürkan ASLAN -- Ahmet ALTINDİŞ - Selma ALTINDİŞ - Neşe AŞICI - Mustafa Baran İNCİ - Hasan Çetin EKERBİÇER - Mahmut TOKAÇ
Number of pages : 227-235

Abstract

As the time spent for using social media increased, anxiety symptoms were observed to increase as well. This study aimed to identify the relationship between the usage and frequency of social media networks and social appearance anxiety in university students. The research data was collected through face-to-face survey method with 347 volunteer students who were 18-year-old or over, studying in different departments of the university and accepted to participate in the study. As the data collection tool, the social appearance anxiety scale in the data collection survey form created by the researchers was used. The data was assessed with the SPSS statistical program. The mean age of 265 (77.3%) female and 78 (22.7%) male study participants was 20.4 ± 1.7 years (min 18 years- max 31 years). 113 (32.9%) of the students were studying in the faculty of medicine, 89 (25.9%) in Medical Laboratory, 59 (17.2%) in Child Development, 50 (14.6%) in Medical Documentation, 21 (6.1%) in Geriatric Care, 8 (2.3%) in First Aid and 1 student (0.3%) in each of the following departments; Primary School Teaching, Optician and Physiotherapy departments. The most commonly used social network reported by the students was Instagram (% 50.4) whereas 0.3% of them reported that they did not use the social media. Of the participants, 47.6% stated that they checked their social networks constantly or more than 10 times a day, 32.4% stated that they cared about how much the photos shared by them in social media were liked, 56.3% stated that they preferred to share their photos taken with a good looking friend, 18.7% stated that they did not share their photo without editing it, 44.6% stated that they only liked their photos after they made editions on them. In the social appearance anxiety scale, % 8.7% of them stated that they did not feel comfortable about their external appearance, 47.2% of them stated that they felt nervous while their photos were taken, % 21.3 of them stated to have the anxiety that people would not like him/her because of their appearance, 11.1% of them stated to have the anxiety that their appearance would make their life difficult, 9.3% of them stated to have the anxiety that people would not like to spend time with them due their appearance and 13.4% of them said that they were experiencing nervousness while talking with people because of their appearance. In the conducted study, it was clearly observed that university students used social media effectively and how important it was as a field of self-expression. As is, how people looked in the social media started to be important and the increase in the social appearance anxiety became inevitable after being judged with the appearance.

Keywords

Social Media Networks, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, You Tube, Social Appearance Anxiety

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