Social Media Use

For this class we were asked to conduct a survey pertaining to undergrad college students and their social media use. We discussed how they define social media and if their usage is potentially positive and productive, or if they find it to be a problem. I composed the survey and posted it as my status on Facebook (ironically). I asked four multiple choice and one open ended question, so as to keep it simple and quick. The five questions I asked were:

1. How often do you visit social media sites?
2. What social networking sites do you use?
3. Do you have access to social networking sites on your phone? If so, do you use it?
4. Do you use these sites to interact with strangers or keep in touch with people you are already familiar with?
5. Do you think your social networking use is a problem? If so, please describe why. (open ended question)

One thing that I found interesting was all respondents to my survey associate with using social media sites more than once a day, yet most of them claim to only use Facebook and Twitter. This indicates a high percentage of time spent solely on these two sites. All but one also say they have access to social media on their phone and say they use it. Not everyone responded to the open ended question either, which I find to be very interesting considering the survey was only five questions. However, for those that did most said if they use it responsibly that social networking use is not a problem. Some felt sharing private info and maintaining relationships that probably wouldn't be there outside of Facebook could pose a potential problem.

I found it to be intriguing that most respondents felt the same way about social media use. This could be because the respondents were similar age and demographics. I would be interested to see how a different generation would respond to the survey.