Bahir Dar University

Bahir Dar institute of technology

Faculty of computing

Department of computer science

Title: - FACEBOOK ADDICTION AMONG FEMALE UNIVERSITY

STUDENTS

By

Tesfahunegn Minwuyelet

G-mail: -tesfahunegn.minwuyelet@gmail.com

i

Abstract Facebook is used widely by the students in fulfilling their basic needs and interaction. It is

becoming a popular medium for socializing online and tools to facilitate friendship. Female

students used Facebook for different kinds of motives form social interaction to communication.

The frequent use of Facebook brought an addition towards the site and simultaneously influence

students’ daily life at large. The phenomena of Facebook addiction in Ethiopia is rising among

university students especially females. The study is designed to identify the relationship between

female students’ motives for Facebook use and Facebook addiction. The five motives identified

are social interaction, passing time, entertainment, companionship, and communication. It is hoped

that the result of the study will be applicable to service providers, current users, and potential users

of Facebook.

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Contents Abstract .......................................................................................................................................................... i

Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 1

Background of the study ............................................................................................................................... 2

Statement of the problem ............................................................................................................................ 3

Objective of the Study .................................................................................................................................. 3

General objective ...................................................................................................................................... 3

Specific object ........................................................................................................................................... 3

Research Question/ Hypothesis .................................................................................................................... 3

Scope/delimitation of the Study ................................................................................................................... 4

Research Methodology ................................................................................................................................. 5

Application/ significance of the Research ..................................................................................................... 6

importance of the study ........................................................................................................................... 6

beneficiaries of the study ......................................................................................................................... 6

Budget schedule ............................................................................................................................................ 7

Time Schedule ............................................................................................................................................... 8

CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................................................. 9

References: ................................................................................................................................................. 10

List of table

Table 1 budget schedule ............................................................................................................................... 7

List of Figure

Figure 1 Time schedule ................................................................................................................................. 8

1

Introduction Facebook is the most popular social networking website which becomes the global phenomenon

for the past few years (Foregger,2008). It was created by Mark Zuckerberg, a student at Harvard

University in 2004 as the network to access college students’ information. At the beginning,

Facebook become a virtual medium for students of Harvard in identifying each other and making

new social relationship (Markoff, 2007). Later, the use of Facebook was spread to other

universities students and becoming a public domain in 2006 (Boyd & Ellison, 2007). In 2007,

Facebook was reported to have more than 21 million active users generating 1.6 billion page views

each day. The website currently has more than 300 million users worldwide (comScore, 2010).

An in-depth report on social networks in Asia-Pacific revealed that Facebook.com was the most

engaging Social Networking Sites (SNS) and largely use in Ethiopia, Singapore, Australia, and

South Korea (comScore, 2010). This shows that all Asian countries are experiencing new wave of

communication technology. Limyh (2009) found that the Ethiopian love to use social networking

site. Based on Alexa (2010), Facebook is the top networking site in Ethiopia with more than 4.2

million active users regardless of age and background.

The use of Facebook was dramatically increased especially among female university students aged

18-24 years old. Up to today, many students in Ethiopian universities sign up for Facebook account

at large, suggesting that most college students do use the site (Shanaz, 2010). Female students and

social site is synonym. According to Joiner (2008) female students like to socialize online and

they use Facebook more as a tool for social connection. Overall, female students primarily used

Facebook as a way to keep in touch with high school friends.

Female students basically use Facebook for more social purposes, to communicate and socialize

with colleagues, friends and family through the interactive features offered by this social site

(Laurie and Paula, 2007). Foregger (2008) in her study on the uses and gratifications of Facebook

found that there were nine motives relate to the use of social network site such as passing-time,

social information, utilities and upkeep, channel use, marketplace, maintain, and establish old ties,

social comparison, attractiveness, and interconnectedness. Facebook seems to be a strong

attraction for students to go online because the web support the motivations like self-discovery,

social enhancement, and interpersonal connectivity for them to join the site.

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Background of the study Worldwide studies revealed that almost 90% of students are using Facebook, the amount of time

average student spend is 106 minutes per day, the average student visit Facebook 6 times a day,

and stay for 24 minutes each visit. [Internet Reference – USA Today Educate]

Like any other country, Ethiopian’s students are also addicted to Facebook so do Bit computing

students, although situation in Ethiopian is bit change than rest of countries as not all of students

in Ethiopian are in easy access of modern technology like smart phones, I pad, but still they are

capitalizing most of their time in browsing internet and using social media networking technology,

specially Facebook. In the Bit computing, Students are observed decline in their class performance

and studies as miss-use of Facebook among students increased which is distracting students from

their studies, Students are killing most of their time using Facebook, finding friends, chatting on

Facebook (text messages, voice chatting or video talks), posting updates regarding their daily life

activities, uploading photos and videos, checking in likes and comments of their posts, playing

online games on Facebook, making conversation on various groups and pages, the time which they

should give to their studies, this results in low interaction with their relative subjects, keeping

student knowledge at low, with up to no practical experience, students are not even willing to

complete their assignments and projects.

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Statement of the problem Bit Students are observed using more and more Facebook which is distracting them from their

studies. After university classes and having lunch and doing some rest students are left with very

little time to study which most of them spend on using Facebook, this seriously affects their studies

and over all class performance, it is a serious issue which cannot be neglected, as it is already

observed in various studies worldwide that more time a student spend on Facebook less will be the

grades and it is not only matter of grade, it’s a matter of overall student’s performance, his career

building and job market.

Bit Students are victims of miss-use of Facebook, less concentrated on their studies and low job

market; this addiction can lead to their future destruction.

Objective of the Study General objective To determine female students’ motives for Facebook use and to examine the relationships between

female students’ motives for Facebook use and Facebook addiction.

Specific object To find out the relationship between time spent on Facebook and studies.

To find out the prior motives that influence female students to use Facebook site.

To assess the level of Facebook users.

To identify factors that affect Facebook users.

To evaluate the impact of Facebook on studies of student.

To Categorized those factors.

Research Question/ Hypothesis The relationship between female students’ motives for Facebook use and Facebook addiction

shows that there is significant relationship between social interaction, passing time, entertainment,

companionship, and communication with Facebook addiction due to these five motives of

Facebook use do influence students’ addiction toward the site and that influence their study.

Q1. Is an individuals’ personality associated with their addiction to Facebook?

Q2. How can the urge to meet new people, find friends, and meet those who have similar

interests on the Internet act as a facilitator toward a Facebook addiction or FAD?

Q3. What other factors influence an individuals’ likelihood of becoming addicted to

Facebook?

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Q4. How often do Bit students use Facebook each week?

Q5. How frequent do male and female Bit students upload photos and comment on other

user’s photos on Facebook each week?

Q6. What proportion of Bit female students use top 1 social networks?

Q7. What are the difference in usage behavior on Facebook between Bit female and male

students?

Q8. Is there a difference in the weekly photo uploads on Facebook between Bit male and

female students?

Scope/delimitation of the Study The study related to Facebook use and Student’s study is already conducted worldwide in different

countries and there is tens of study highlighting side effects of Facebook on studies, but there is

no such study which is conducted in reference to Facebook, especially on university level,

targeting Bit Students in University of Bahir Dar, the researches made on worldwide basis are very

much different from this in Ethiopia as education system and student approach to Facebook and

study is very different in Ethiopia, especially in University of Bahir Dar, so this is going to be a

very new approach made in this perspective and in comparison to a specific class, with a limited

universe of research, a comparison between Facebook addiction and study of Bit Students.

There can be various possible limitations to this study, depending upon the situation and nature of

the respondent; few possible limitations are listed as follow;

The respondent may not give true answers.

The respondent might be interested in studies himself; even he will not be using

Facebook.

The education can also be effected by one’s personal understanding level.

The distraction from education can possibly be from some other un-determinable

factors, like physical health, personal life problems or any other factors.

The decrease in job market share can be due to various other factors like inflation, un-

stable economic and political conditions, decreasing good will of university due to

unstable education environment.

Thus, these possible limitations can create hindrances to accumulate true data and to analyses the

data so that to reach on true conclusion

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Research Methodology The Study will be conducted on qualitative as well as quantitative basis, from students in Bit

faculty of computing. The data which is to be collected will be primary data, through interviewing

semi structured questionnaires for the purpose of completion of class assignment for Business

Research Methodology, under the supervision of our Subject Teacher Sir: Abnew Ali, and several

central tendency measures will be applied to analyze data including like mean, median, mode etc.

Data will be collected through sampling, total sample size would be of 274 students from Bit,

college of business and economics, and University of Bahir Dar computing only, comprising of

176 male students and 98 female students. survey method. A set of Self administrative

questionnaire was distributed to the selected respondents during the class time using “drop and

collect” method. The respondents are given 10 to 15 minutes to complete the questionnaires and it

will be collected by the researcher as soon as possible to avoid class interruption. The data

collection takes weeks to finish. The sample was choosing based on simple

random selection techniques by following to the Krecjie and Morgan table (1970). Survey

questionnaire were used to collect the relevant information related to the issues of the study.

According to Berger (2000), survey design is widely used because of its inexpensive cost, ability

to obtain current information, and ability to obtain a great deal of information at one time. The

design of the study required data to be collected from female students from Bahir Dar university

in Ethiopia. The respondents consisted of undergraduate students of Faculty of computing at

University Bahir Dar Ethiopia. The survey questionnaires were randomly distributed among 98

female respondents from both universities. Responses were voluntary and those who never had a

Facebook account did not participate in the survey.

The instrument used in this study is a survey questionnaire which was designed to achieve the

research objective. A set of questionnaire consist of questions was developed to investigate female

students’ motives for Facebook use. A pool of gratification items was assembled from Sheldon, P.

(2008): The relationship between unwillingness-to-communicate and student’s Facebook use. The

questionnaires are divided into three sections: Part A contains questions design to capture the

demography background such as age, gender, race, name of university, current level of education,

year of study in the university, and discipline of study. Part B contains questions design to

understand the users’ motives for Facebook (social interaction, passing-time, entertainment,

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companionship and communication) and Part C contains items structured to investigate the

Facebook addiction level among female students.

The pretest of questionnaire was carried out to determine the clarity of instruction, face validity

and reliability of the research instrument. There were 30 respondents involve in this research. The

results of the test on the variables in the pre-test met the requirement of 0.70 Cronbach’s Alpha

value for reliability test in social science studies ranged from 0.65 to 0.95. Validity and reliability

were obtained by means of following procedure First, the pre-testing of the questionnaire was

carried out on 30 female students of University Bahir Dar and the respondents were not included

in the actual study. Second, the Reliability tests on all items in the form Likert Scale were done.

It was found that the Alpha Cronbach values on most of the questions were relatively high (0.7-

0.8). Therefore, the reliability of research instrument was acceptable.

The data for this study consisted of nominal, ordinal, and scale. They were analyzed using

computer software of Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS version 19.0). Descriptive

statistics, Correlation and Regression test were used to analyze the data with regard to the

objectives of the study. Descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentage, mean, median, range,

and standard deviation were used to determine demographic characteristics of the respondents,

motives for Facebook use, and Facebook addiction. The Pearson’s Correlation was used to

determine the direction and strength of relationship between motives for Facebook use with

Facebook addiction. ANOVA and multiple regression analysis were used to examine the strength

of the association between Motives for Facebook use and Facebook addiction. For this study, a

five percent (0.05) level was determined as the accepted level of significance for statistical analysis.

Application/ significance of the Research importance of the study The study will dig out all factors which is related to the addition of Facebook specially on females

then after identifying those factors and prioritize to help them to leave their addiction and focus on

their main objective to be qualified on all courses which gives in their campus in order to become

competent with others students which use their time properly.

beneficiaries of the study The female students theme self since they will get counselling and they will have spent

more time on their study here after they will come fruit full.

The university because if the student get advising and leave out from their addiction there

result becomes good and they will competent worldwide.

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The students parent because the main objective of the student when they come to the

university is to study their courses and graduate and back to their community to serve.

The community that needs more elite persons.

The country itself will be benefited from those who are not addicted in such things

because the country needs empowered woman’s.

Budget schedule Proposed Financial Requirement

S.N Item Unit Quantity Unit

Cost

Total Cost

(ETB)

Remark

1 Personal expenditure

Per dime:

Field substance

Fee for expertise

number 7 I-1700

s-460

33,900

2 Service:

Computer and data

production

Photocopy

Binding etc...

number 1- Computer

1-desta paper

15

13,900

120

45

14,065

3 Equipments

For experiments:

Data collection

4,200

4 Consumable:

Accessories used for

experimental

6,000

5 Communication:

Fax:

Tel:

Postage:

10,500

6 Dissemination of results:

Poster:

National conference:

18,000

7 Others (Justifiable) 13,335

Total amount 100,000

Table 1 budget schedule

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Time Schedule

Figure 1 Time schedule

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CONCLUSION As a conclusion, students’ motives for Facebook use have become the main influences to the

addiction of the social site. Female students largely used Facebook for these following motives;

social interaction, passing time, entertainment, companionship, and communication. However,

passing time, entertainment, and communication were among the motivational factors that

contribute more toward students’ Facebook addiction. There is no doubt that female students were

among the active users of Facebook site in Ethiopia and this was an indication of good ICT skills

and good use of technology. In fact, female students tended to view Facebook as a powerful tool

of communication and the place for socialized with friends and family. The existence of Facebook

seemed to satisfy the basic human need for connectedness and community. The results of the study

will be applicable to service providers in giving the best services and opportunity to the current

users and potential users of Facebook in identifying the negative and positive impacts of social

networking site as well. Therefore, the greater use of Facebook would tend to create a problem of

addiction to the site and it is recommended that these young generations should be educated on

any danger that this new trend may lead to.

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References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/facebook.com

http://www.usatodayeducate.com/staging/index.php/ccp/facebook-helps-student-

grades-study-says

BOYD, D., ELLISON, N., Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship, in

Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Vol. 13(1), 2007, article 11.

http://jcmc.indiana.edu/voll3/issue1/boyd.ellison/jhtml.

CHANDRA D., R,Do you have Facebook Addiction Disorder?, 2010, Retrieved August 1,

2010, from www.newstraitstimes.com.my.