PATTERN OF USING SOCIAL MEDIA AND ITS IMPACT ON PSYCHOLOGICAL WELLBEING OF SCHOOL GOING ADOLESCENTS: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

The social media has very much popular and impacted students' psychological wellbeing, daily routines. Students uses social media sites like Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and WhatsApp for academic, enjoyment, communication, information exchange, and friendship-building purposes. The researcher focused on the pattern of using social media and its impact on psychological well-being of school going adolescents. The researcher used the descriptive survey method to complete this study. The researcher also used a random sampling technique based on a Likert Five-point scale to collect data from 200 school going adolescents. For measuring the pattern of using social media and its impact on psychological well-being, the researcher used two self-made questionnaires, a questionnaire (10 items) on pattern of using social media and also used another questionnaire (16 items) on impact of social media on psychological wellbeing. For data analysis, the researcher developed a flow chart, graphical representation to represent the pattern of using social media and also used SPSS-23 to compute the Mean, S.D., t-test, ANOVA. Results of the study reported that the use of social media had a positive impact on psychological well-being of the school going adolescents. Additionally, it was discovered that 100% of school-going adolescents use various forms of social media in their daily lives. Besides, the study revealed that there is no significant mean difference in the impact of psychological wellbeing of school going adolescents based on some demographics such as gender, academic grade, age. The findings also revealed that there is no significant mean difference in the impact of psychological wellbeing of school going adolescents based on social media use in a week, social media use in a day. However, the results indicate that 93.5% adolescents use social media for academic purposes, and also enjoyment, communication, information exchange, and friendship-building purposes.