Social media, which has become a kind of addiction especially for the younger generation, has a serious impact on users. Without even realizing it, we can reflexively throw our hands on the phone and dive into the world of social media to see the latest posts. A study conducted in partnership with ExpressVPN and Pollfish also examines the effects of social media on Generation Z. A total of 4,500 participants aged 16-24 from the USA, France and Germany were examined. The results obtained are quite interesting.
It was learned that all of the participants had at least one social media account. While this isn’t surprising, some of the respondents said they were able to spend up to five hours a day ‘in just one app’. However, half of the participants stated that they envied those who did not use social media, and 61% said they feared the addictive effect of social media. 20% of respondents say they should be offered more than $1 million to give up on social media.
Social media has a huge impact on the psychology of young people:
While 62% of the participants stated that the ‘hide the number of likes’ feature added to Instagram and Facebook reduced their feelings of anxiety, half of the participants stated that they deleted their posts at least once because they did not receive enough likes. 86% of the surveyed group said that social media directly affects their happiness levels. It has been determined that the platforms where the most time is spent are the applications where video content is concentrated. The applications that Generation Z participants aged 16-24 spend the most time with are as follows:
- YouTube
- TikTok
- Snapchat
Two out of every five respondents say they have “finsta”, that is, fake Instagram accounts, while 36% say that they will not be dating if the other party does not have a social media account. 33% of the participants wanted to make personal posts as the reason for opening a fake Instagram account; 26% of them made special posts for their family and friend groups; 25% of them enter and browse other people’s profiles anonymously; 17% say they open it to watch what their ex is doing.
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