Abstract
<p style="text-align:justify">This study examined the relationship between being members of social network sites (SNS) and the reasons for their use among individuals who are between 20-66 years of age. Social networking status and virtual loneliness are examined according to reasons for using SNS of participants. Researcher did a web-based questionnaire upon Facebook (FB) and reached a volunteer group of FB users and gave Social Networking Status Scale ( SNSS) and Virtual Loneliness Scale (VELS) in order to measure participants networking status and virtual loneliness according to socio-demographical variables. SNSS, gender, and age are the strongest predictors of virtual loneliness. Also, male participants, SNSS scores are significantly higher than female participants which indicates that male participants are more dependent on SNS. When time spent online increases individuals get convergence to usual habits in the virtual world. Individuals SNS usage habits effects their normal lives and make them escape to the virtual world.</p>
Highlights
According to We Are Social and Hootsuite 2017 global digital report; half of the population of the world uses the internet and over 3,75 billion people are online
In order to investigate the differences between categorical variables t-test was used, one-way ANOVA is used to determine whether there are any statistically significant differences between independent groups and linear regression is used to predict the value of a dependent variable over independent variables
Pearson cross-product moment correlation was calculated in order to find the relationship between age and SNSS and Virtual Loneliness Scale (VELS) scores
Summary
According to We Are Social and Hootsuite 2017 global digital report; half of the population of the world uses the internet and over 3,75 billion people are online. According to same report one-third of the world, population uses social media and two-thirds of the world's population have smartphones. 37% of total population of the world are active social network users and 34% of them are active mobile social network users. Global growth of social media users increases by about 21% globally every year. FB Messenger, and WhatsApp are key global social platforms which have over 1 billion of active users monthly (We are Social & Hootsuite Global Digital Report, 2017). In the light of these statistical indicators almost half of the world's population dependent or addictive to social media networks
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