A Study of Mental Health of Light and Heavy Indian Undergraduate Social Networking Sites users

Social networking sites (SNS) have become an important part of majority of the world’s inhabitants. Manjunatha (2013) documented that social networking sites are popular among students. The objective of research paper is to compare mental health of light and heavy Indian undergraduate SNS users. Descriptive method of research with ex-post-facto design and survey method was used to collect data. The sample comprises of 793 Indian undergraduate SNS users pursuing Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) and Commerce (B.Com). Social networking sites Addiction Scale by Shahnawaz et al. (2013) were administered on participants to collect quantitative data.Q1and Q3 (Quartile cut-points) was used as basis to find out light and heavy SNS users from 793 Indian undergraduates. Implementation of Quartile cut-points locates 188 light and 189 heavy (those who score less than 70 and more than 90 on Shahnawaz’s SNS addiction scale respectively) Indian Undergraduate SNS users. Descriptive statistics and t –test was employed on quantitative data which exposed that light SNS users have good mental health as compared to their opposite counterparts. Findings of research paper can be beneficial to psychologists, educationists and policy makers to have an understanding of how mental health of Indian undergraduate differs with light and heavy SNS usage so that accordingly counseling sessions and policy modifications can be planned and implemented.

Author(s): Birender Kaur

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