Serbest Zamanda Sosyal Medya Kullanımının Mutluluk Üzerindeki Etkisi Konusunda Kültürlerarası Bir Araştırma

Abstract

Enjoying one’s leisure time is one of the significant factors that provides happiness to people. Apart from the obligatory times that we need to work to gain a better life, we try to enjoy and relax in our leisure times. As many studies demonstrate, the primary activity that young people do to enjoy their leisure times today is to navigate in social media platforms. However, young people are mostly mentioned with addictive social media usage which damages their psychology and well-being. This study, on the other hand, aims to measure whether there is a direct relationship with the social media usage of college youth and their happiness levels. For this reason, we took the concept of happiness at the center, specifically focusing on what makes today’s youth happy, and their social media use as a leisure activity which may have impact on their happiness levels. As a result of applying surveys that include Social Media Use Integration Scale and Oxford Happiness Questionnaire on 387 college-aged students in total from Turkey and Pakistan, we found that there is no direct relationship between social media use and happiness levels of youth. Possible explanations of these findings will be discussed throughout the article.