Profile of adolescent social media user in rural area

Dr Mohan A Patil,Dr Amit Amte,Dr Bhuvan Kumar Singh,Dr Manjiri Desai,Dr Hemant Bharti

doi:10.17511/ijpr.2019.i01.04

Abstract

Background: With the widespread accessibility of internet in India over last decade, use of social media has become more popular especially in teenage children. Social media can be used for variety of reasons. It can be useful or may have adverse effects. In urban area use of social media is expected to be more however data regarding use of social media by adolescent children in this area is lacking. This study is conducted to know various aspects of social media use by adolescent children in rural part of Kolhapur district. Method: 650 students, with equal sex distributionin the age group of 15-18 years studying in 11th & 12th class from two rural areas of Kolhapur district were selected by simple random sampling technique. Data was collected by validatedquestionnaire. Data was analyzed by SPSS 23.0 version. Result: 87.86% rural adolescent children were found to use social media. Most of them were using it for entertainment and communication than for educational purpose. 30% children expressed negative feelings and more than half reported social media affecting their life style adversely. Conclusion: Accessibility to electronic gadgets, internet and social media is rapidly increasing to rural area. Along with good aspects of social media, negative aspects are also affecting rural adolescent children significantly. This highlight need for timely interventional strategies.

Highlights

Time spent on social media was more than one hour in 64% children; 9% of them spending more than four hours
Findings from the current study suggests use of social media for constructive positive purpose, is not being used in practice by rural adolescent population under study
Increasing access to internet and exponential growth in the use of social media by Indian youth is progressing from urban area to rural area

Summary

Introduction

Along with his basic needs of food, clothes and shelter he needs socialization. He needs to connect and communicate with others. With the widespread accessibility of internet in India over last decade, use of social media has become more popular especially in teenage children. This study is conducted to know various aspects of social media use by adolescent children in rural part of Kolhapur district. Result: 87.86% rural adolescent children were found to use social media. Along with good aspects of social media, negative aspects are affecting rural adolescent children significantly. This highlight need for timely interventional strategies

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion