The Influence of Social Media Use on Social Connectedness Among University Students

ABSTRACT

The pandemic of Covid-19 has changed the lifestyle of people nowadays. Students has to adapt to the new norms in which they need to rely on the digital mediums to interact with others. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between social media use and the connectedness among the university students in Malaysia during this pandemic of Covid-19. It also aims to investigate connection between the purposes of social media use (academic, socialization, entertainment and informativeness) and the level of social connectedness. Thirdly, the genders difference between social media use and social connectedness are investigated. The measurement used include the online social networking usage questionnaire and the social connectedness scale, and were distributed through snowball sampling method via the online platforms. A total of 300 respondents were recruited in this study with the mean age of 22.26. The results indicate that no significant relationship between social media usage and social connectedness. However, there was significant relationship between the purposes of using social media and social connectedness. Thirdly, no difference was found between females and males on the social media usage and social connectedness. Finally, this study highlights that the purpose of using social media could enhance the social relationship. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.