SOCIAL MEDIA ADDICTION

AMONG GRADE 12 STUDENTS OF

CHINESE GENERAL HOSPITAL
COLLEGES

Angela P. Reyes
 INTRODUCTION
In a relatively short time social media such as Facebook, Snapchat, Youtube has
had positive mental health effects on empowering and connecting people. They also
provided new platforms for unhealthy and destructive behavior. In addition to social
media platforms, they nurture and expand relationships, increase productivity, multiply
. They also provided new platforms for unhealthy and destructive behavior. According
to (Wilson, 2013),Teens and young adults a generation raised on the Internet, social
media and digital technology are particularly at risk because they are impressively keen
to accept and have different ideas about what should be kept private and make up a
responsible attitude. Social media sites such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat
and other mobile instant messaging services like Viber, Telegram, and WhatsApp have
become a popular means of communication in the past few years. Statistics shows that
Philippines was number one worldwide regarding of the use of social media as the
number of Internet users in the country attain 67 million people, according to a new
report London, United Kingdom-based consultancy We Are Social. According to
(Santos, 2014) Filipinos spent an average of 3 hours and 57 minutes a day on social
media sites, mainly on Facebook.
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
According to (Kuss and Griffith, 2011) cited social media as
“virtual communities where users can create individual public
profiles, interact with real-life friends, and meet other people based
on shared interests.” It stated that any website you create enables
social interaction among users is considered a social media site.
Sites with the ability to allow all users worldwide to communicate
interact and share information to each other online. The
development of social media sites, combined with the increase
number and advancement of technology used by the people
worldwide, connect with the ease access have created a large-scale
of channel for daily social interactions. People can log in their
accounts wherever and whenever they are by their devices, making
it a common habit every day.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
According to (McQuail, 2014), the Uses and Gratification theory is generally
seen as a theory that is closely linked to research on media effects. It is an approach
to gaining insight on how and why people look for particular media to satisfy
particular needs.
The theory basically has to do with what audiences do with the media. It
explains users’ motivation in choosing media and the behaviors associated with it.
The theory postulates that “people are not passive receivers of media messages but
active influencers of the effects of the messages the media communicates.” In other
terms, receivers of media content are at liberty in choosing and determining their
use of media and how they are affected by it (Rae, 2015). Theorists have stated that
users look for a media source that best satisfies their needs although they may have
alternate choices that can meet their needs. McQuail (2014), states that the theory
“seeks to explain the uses of media and the satisfactions derived from them in
terms of motives and self-perceived needs of audience members.” As active
influencers of the effect media has on them, users of media identify, choose, and
retain media messages.
RESEARCH PARADIGM
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The addiction of social media among users have
confirmed in many studies around the world. There is a
proven existence of social media addiction in our
country, Philippines, which is number one in the world in
terms of social media usage in 2017. This study therefore
attempt to examine the addiction among users of social
media in Philippines by studying Senior High School
students of Chinese General Hospital Colleges, Mania.
The objective of this study is to find out the social media
platforms they use, what they use social media for and to
determine the extent or level to which students of
Chinese General Hospital Colleges are addicted to social
media. This research will provide the possible elements
that might affect students' addiction on social media.
 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
A. Students
This study will help the students to be aware about social media addiction, using
social media sites daily will have a negative impact to their health and sometimes
affects the student’s academic performance in school. It will be relevant in assisting
students in understanding the diversity of social media. It will provide relevance
material for students and other researchers undertaking similar research. And learn to
limit the number of social networks you use to those most relevant to your life, popular
networks include Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
B. Teachers
This study will help the teachers of the school to know the influence that social
media has on their students, so as to assist them to enlighten and create awareness to
the students on the possible influence it has on them.
C. Parents
The study is of significant to parents in the sense that they will know the possible
effects these social media usage has on their children, so as to serve as monitor to their
children on the usage of the social networking site.
D. Future Researchers
The study will help the future researchers with more information on the influence
of social media addiction among youth.
SCOPE AND DELIMITATION

This research attempt to find out the level of addiction to social

media among 26 members of Grade 12 Senior High school students of
Chinese General Hospital Colleges, Manila, school year 2018-2019.
Moreover, it was only focused on identifying which social media
platform they use the most, what they use of social media for and to
determine the level of addiction to social media among Grade 12
students of Chinese General Hospital Colleges. Grade 12 students were
given an Original Internet Addiction Test (IAT) by Dr, Kimberly Young .
The Internet Addiction Test is the first validated test for Internet
Addiction to measure Internet use in terms of mild, moderate, to several
levels of addiction.
FOREIGN LITERATURE
There are a lot of cause why young students use social media. According to
(Nyland ,2015) recognized the five purposes of using social media as
communicating to meet new people, entertainment, sustaining relationships,
community events and media establishment. These purposes are the most
common engagement of students who use social media as findings of some
studies. But, students mostly used were entertainment. (Hinson ,2014) publicize
that the social use of Internet includes sending and receiving of email, chatting
and making new friends. It is noticeable that the significance of social media in
our lives is increasing gradually. Another study of (Winneba,2013) identified
that students use social media for “connecting with old friends and family
members, finding new friends, obtaining or sharing learning materials,
receiving update of events, posting information and whiling away time.” Not
surprisingly, its effect on individuals, especially young people like students is
undeniable.
Social activities are implementing basic area that are created through social
media. This virtual reality provoke a face-to-face social interaction and
communication in real life and real places. All types of content display in the
virtual environment, has a big impact or appeal for all individual’s vision, it
attracts them over time, and people begin to spend more time using social
media, making them get addicted to the Internet (Sucu, 2012)
 LOCAL LITERATURE
According to (Santos,2014, p.35), social media addiction is
the integration of all application software as a part of a person’s
daily activities like waking up, getting dressed, using the
telephone, or checking e-mail. Instead of accomplishing certain
tasks, social media addicts use application software as an escape.
He also added, “One of the ironies is that the very people who
might otherwise be working with people professionally to treat
addictions, social isolation seem to be themselves among the
most active social media users.” Evidently, the addiction of
social media has become a serious problem in the society,
particularly in the Filipino community, but Filipinos seem to
neglect its effects. Although no absolute empirical data can
determine the new form of addiction, it is apparent that it is
worsening in terms of social media usage.
FOREIGN STUDIES
(Turne & Serenko ,2015) identified publicly the three
different aspect to explain the development of social media
addiction : Cognitive-behavioral model; this model indicate the
thoughts and beliefs of a person that influence the behavior and
emotions of individuals. It is the abnormality of a person that
leads to being uncontrollable or addictive use of social media.
Social skill model; it occurs to the social interaction of
individual that prefers to use social media like chatting, calling
and etc. in Messenger, WhatsApp and etc. instead of having a
face-to-face conversation to each other. Socio-cognitive model;
it rises in which a child learns through social shared experiences
in the society. Like for example, almost all of the pre-schoolers
ages 2 to 5 years old know how to use gadgets and Internet
which is being addictive to their age. Parents should limit the
time of their child using any gadgets (Griffiths, 2013).
LOCAL STUDIES
The widespread addiction of social media in the country can be
explained by varied factors which constantly influence
Filipinos. (Elvin,2012) and (Radwan ,2013) cited in their
articles that unfulfilled social needs and social approval are
some of the cause of social networking addiction.
In addition, Filipino culture has a great implication on the status
of social media addiction in the country. The country has
obviously a young population, based on the age distribution of
population, which is why the Filipino youth are fragile to these
kinds of phenomenon. For example, when some students sign
up on Facebook, others are obliged to join as well because of
strong ties with peers and the concept of barkadas who greatly
influence one’s hobby. Another significant factor which
worsens addiction of social media in the country is our
attraction to modern technology.
RESEARCH DESIGN
According to (Orodho ,2014), a study that seeks to
acquire information by interviewing or administering
a questionnaire to respondents is a descriptive survey.
The study employed the quantitative methodology of
research under which a descriptive survey was used
to investigate the phenomenon of social media
addiction among Grade 12 students of Chinese
General Hospital Colleges. Descriptive studies are
aimed at finding out "what is," so observational and
survey methods are frequently used to collect
descriptive data (Borg & Gall, 2013).
RESEARCH INSTRUMENT
For this study, data was collected through self-administered
questionnaires made up of 20 questions in two sections; A and B
where Section A covered questions under social media use and the
internet Addiction test and Section B covered personal information of
respondents. The questionnaire was partly modeled after the Internet
Addiction Test (IAT) developed by Dr. Kimberly Young to enable the
researcher test for the level of addiction among students. It consists of
20 items that measures mild, moderate and severe levels of Internet
Addiction. However the researcher did not use all the 20 items. The
IAT was chosen because social media is a subtype of the internet
(Turel, O. & Serenko, A., 2015) and the items it has for measuring
addiction covers all sites unlike the other scales that have been
modelled for specific sites like the Facebook Addiction Symptoms
Scale (FASS) and Facebook Addiction test (FAT) for Facebook. For
this study, the researcher used 13 out of the 20 items from the IAT due
to the relevance of the items to respondents and also because of its
relativity to the setting of the study.
STATISTICAL TREATMENT
Pearson R will be the appropriate statistical tools
used in this study to validate data compliance
reliability. The best method for measuring the
association between variables of interest is known as
covariance. It provides information on the scale and
direction of the association.