Nature of social media usage by university students in Sri Lanka: A survey

Social media is rapidly spreading among the university communities in order to establish a good link between them with technological advances. Today, most Sri Lankan university students use comprehensive electronic devices, such as notebooks, tablets and smartphones, and have easy Internet connectivity. The lack of understanding of its use and its impact on the academic activities of consumers, especially among students at university, is one of the major constraints of current Sri Lankan social media literature. Empirical analysis is important to help understand why and how knowledge and appraisal of social media are useful on the numerous social media platforms. Therefore, objective of this research is to investigate the Nature of social media usage by university students in Sri Lanka. The survey method was used to address the research objectives, the population of the study consisted of students of the Faculty of Arts in the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. A structural questionnaire was emailed to 500 university students at the faculty of Arts with a brief background to the research. Convenient sampling technique was adopted to administer the research tool (questionnaire) on 500 students (N=500). The response rate was 71.2% (as (n=356 responses complete in all respects were received). The data collected through questionnaire was analyzed through MS-Excel Programmed and the results are presented in tabular cum graphical form. Research found that, the majority of Sri Lankan university students use extensively electronic devices such as smartphones to access to the social media. Study found that, university students use numerous social media resources and apps. Facebook is described by university students as the most frequent and powerful social media site for networking purposes. The variables that affect students on the use of social media based on gender disparities are defined in the following order, based on their importance. In line with priority: male student’s, convenience, costs, credibility, time, legal risk, copyright and permanency. For female students these variables are the following: convenience, legal risk, cost, Privacy, credibility, time, and copyright. Research is important in this regard and enlightens the social networks of Sri Lankan students and their impact in the social media of Sri Lanka on education and academic growth. A study reveals that, considering the comparatively new field, social media rapidly spread through university societies to establish a strong relation with technical developments and to propose further research.