The Attitudes of the Young towards Social Media

This study aimed to investigate the attitudes of young individuals towards social media. The study sample consisted of 391 university students studying at different faculties (172 males and 219 females) and with an age average of 22.47±2.29. The participants were selected using the appropriate sampling method, which is one of the non-random sampling methods. The data collection tools involved a personal information form and the “Social Media Attitude Scale” developed by Otrar and Argın (2015). Descriptive statistics were applied to determine the distribution of personal information ( e.g. , frequency, arithmetic mean, standard deviation) and the Shapiro Wilks normality test to check whether the data had a normal distribution. Since the data were appropriate for parametric tests, an independent t-test and ANOVA were applied to find the differences in social media use by specific demographic characteristics. According to the study findings, there was a significant difference in social media use by gender and faculty (p < 0.05), but no significant difference was found by age (p > 0.05). It was concluded that the participants' attitudes towards social media varied by only gender and faculty.

relationship between social media use and academic success, motivation, and interaction (Ajjan et al., 2008;Mazman, 2009;Matney & Borland, 2009;Hytten, 2010;Schroeder et al., 2010). In their study, Brady et al. (2010) stated that many lecturers benefitted several social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn in distance education. This study aimed to examine the students' attitudes from different faculties towards social media by certain variables.

Research Group
The study sample consisted of 391 volunteer university students (172 males and 219 females), with an average age of 22.47±2.29 years. The participant students studied at different faculties and selected with an appropriate sampling method from non-random sampling methods.

Data Collection Tools
A "Personal Information Form" and the "Social Media Attitude Scale" were used as the study's data collection instrument.

Personal Information Form
The researcher developed the form and used to collect data on participants' gender, age, faculty, class level, and social media use.

Social Media Attitude Scale
The "Social Media Attitude Scale" was developed by Otrar and Argın (2015) to measure the social media attitude levels. It is a 5-point Likert type scale consisting of 23 items and four sub-dimensions: sharing necessity, social competence, social isolation, and relation with teachers. The Cronbach Alpha internal consistency coefficient of the scale was 0.85, and it was 0.80 for the current study.

Data Analysis
Statistical analysis was carried out with the SPSS 20. Descriptive statistics were applied to determine the distribution of personal information (e.g., frequency, arithmetic mean, standard deviation), and the Shapiro Wilks normality test was to find out whether the data had a normal distribution. Once the suitability of the data was confirmed, an independent t-test and ANOVA were performed to describe the differences in social media use of the participants by certain demographic characteristics.  Table 2 demonstrates the scale scores by gender. In this sense, a significant difference was found "Social Competence," "Sharing Necessity," and "Social Isolation" sub-dimensions (p < 0.05). The average scores of female participants were higher than male participants in these sub-dimensions.  Table 3 includes the distribution of scale scores by age variable. According to the analysis results, although the 21-23 years old participant had high average scores in all sub-dimensions, no statistically significant difference was found (p > 0.05).  Table 4 presents the distribution of scores by social media use. There was a significant difference only in the "Social Competence" sub-dimension (p < 0.05). The average scores of the participants who did not use social media were higher than the other participants.

Discussion and Conclusion
Social media is a means of entertainment, relaxation, and leisure activity, offering many opportunities such as sending or receiving messages, following the agenda and accessing information. Daily errands have become dependent on the Internet and social media. According to the results of the current study, males used social media more than females. According to Yetiş (2018), Koçer (2012), and Batıgün and Kılıç (2011), male university students used the Internet more frequently than females, which supports the current findings. However, in their studies, Kaymak (2012), Balcı and Tiryaki (2014), Altunbaş and Kul (2015), and İnce and Koçak (2017) found that females used social media more frequently than males. Besides, Akyüz (2018), Doğruluk (2017), Akçay (2011), and Toruk (2007) emphasized that the attitudes towards social media did not vary by gender.
According to the analysis results, there were significant differences in the sub-dimensions of "Social Competence," "Sharing Necessity," and "Social Isolation." The average scores of female participants were higher than male participants. Argın (2013) and Akyüz (2018) found a statistically meaningful difference in social isolation and social competence sub-dimensions and indicated that females' average scores were higher than males by social isolation sub-dimension, which is parallel to the current study. They also showed that males scored ISSN 2377-22632020 higher than females in the social competence sub-dimension. According to the study data, 82.1% of the participants used social media. This rate was 97.6% in the study by Solmaz et al. (2013). İnce and Koçak (2017) investigated university students' social media habits at Necmettin Erbakan University and concluded that the more university students spent time on the Internet daily, the higher dependence on social media they developed. It is found that young individuals considered certain websites or computer and mobile phone applications as social media means. That proves that they did not fully grasp the concept of "social media." They also suggested that Facebook was the most popular application among participant university students (93.3%) (Erol & Hassan, 2014;Solmaz et al., 2013). In his study, Güney (2018) listed the most frequently visited social media application among the teacher candidates as Instagram, Whatsapp, and Facebook, respectively. A large part of Turkey's population consists of young individuals, and Internet use and social media applications have remarkably risen. Since young people mostly use those applications, it is not surprising that Turkey has become the top country in the world by social media usage rates. However, it is stressed that young people should be assisted to benefit these networks for beneficial purposes (Aydın, 2016). The increasing frequency of social media use among students for many useful purposes such as chat, game, and sharing objects/news also increased social media addiction. Thus, it is concluded that high rates of social media use to achieve specific goals and get satisfaction among students leads to social media addiction (Tutgun Ünal, 2015). It is suggested to use the challenges and criticisms shared on social networks to improve and develop those applications (Yağmurlu, 2011).