Analysis of Social Media Corrupts the Minds of Youth

Siow, Jing Ling (2022) Analysis of Social Media Corrupts the Minds of Youth. Final Year Project (Bachelor), Tunku Abdul Rahman University College.

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Abstract

The Internet or social media has slowly turned into a daily need in society today. People are able to select various types of platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, in order to share or gain information. The majority of young people believe that social media has had a beneficial impact on various elements of their lives, but it will provide viewers with diverse perspectives depending on how they interpret the material. As technology advances, it introduces various concerns, such as social media addiction. They can communicate their emotions on social media and obtain feedback from others by using social media. The stuff circulating on social media will readily alter their emotions, behaviors, and attitudes. Users of social media have the potential to develop depression or FOMO symptoms. This research is aimed to find out to what extent social media has corrupted the minds of youths and to be supported by social comparison theory. People prefer to compare themselves to others, whether utilizing upward or downward comparison, which has links to social comparison, FOMO, and melancholy. FoMO refers to the fear of missing out, in which a person believes or believes that others are having or enjoying better lives than they are, whereas depression is a prevalent mental condition. The researcher has distributed the survey to 200 respondents who live in Klang Valley through Google form links on social media such as Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp using a convenient sampling method. People who use social media often will experience less FoMO and depression as they will feel more connected and they are able to express their feelings online. Hence, the benefits and disadvantages of social media depend on the usage of the individual. Mixed method research could be conducted for similar studies as it could provide a better understanding and more credible results from the samples as it requires a mixture of quantitative and qualitative research. The mixture of both types of research involves open-ended and close-ended questions which provide a larger space for the samples to express themselves better.