SOCIAL MEDIA USE, MEDIA LITERACY, AND ANXIETY IN FIRST-YEAR COLLEGE STUDENTS Thesis Submitted to The School of Education and Health Sciences of the UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for The Degree of Educational Specialist in School Psychology By Anthony Dalpiaz, MS. Ed Dayton, OH August, 2020 SOCIAL MEDIA USE, MEDIA LITERACY, AND ANXIETY IN FIRST-YEAR COLLEGE STUDENTS Name: Dalpiaz, Anthony APPROVED BY: Elana Bernstein, Ph.D. Committee Chair Assistant Professor Department of Counselor Education & Human Services Sawyer Hunley, Ph.D. Committee Member Associate Professor Department of Counselor Education & Human Services Ronda Scantlin, Ph.D. Committee Member Associate Professor Department of Communication ii © Copyright by Anthony Dalpiaz All rights reserved 2020 iii ABSTRACT SOCIAL MEDIA USE, MEDIA LITERACY, AND ANXIETY IN FIRST-YEAR COLLEGE STUDENTS Name: Dalpiaz, Anthony A. University of Dayton Advisor: Dr. Elana Bernstein Anxiety is on the rise in the world today. The American College Health Association (2018) surveyed 31,463 college students and found that 60.9% of the respondents had experienced overwhelming anxiety at some point within the last 12 months. Social media use has become more and more rampant, with research suggesting that the majority of people in the United States use social media in some form. Media literacy, which incorporates the ability to critically assess and interpret digital content, is a topic are that is increasingly becoming of interest with the pervasiveness of technology. The present study examined the relationship between social media use, media literacy, and anxiety in first-year college students. A sample of (n = 82) first-year college students was surveyed to investigate these variables. Results indicated a significant relationship between social media use and anxiety as well as between social media use and media literacy. No significant relationship was found between media literacy and anxiety. Implications for how educational professionals can serve students based on these results are discussed in this paper. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First off, I would like to extend a sincere thank you to Dr. Ronda Scantlin. Her lessons were the genesis of this study. I am also deeply grateful to Dr. Elana Bernstein for her constant support and to Dr. Sawyer Hunley for her assistance in narrowing my research scope. Additionally, I would like to acknowledge Professors Heather Parsons and Laura Toomb for assisting me in my research. Lastly, I owe a deep debt of gratitude to Doctors Mathea Simons, Will Meeus, and Jan T’Sas. Thank you for developing a media literacy scale and for granting me permission to use it in this study. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS v LIST OF FIGURES ix LIST OF TABLES x CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW 3 Social Media 3 List of Relevant Terms 3 Impact of Social Media Use 6 The role of parents 11 The addictive nature of social media 11 Media Literacy 14 Assessing media literacy 15 Media education 16 The Present Study 17 CHAPTER III: METHODS 19 Research Questions and Hypotheses 19 Research Design 20 Participants and Setting 20 Materials 21 Media Literacy Scale 22 vi Social Media Use 23 Adult Manifest Anxiety Scale 23 Procedures 24 IRB approval 24 Recruitment 24 Data collection 24 Inter-rater reliability 25 Timeline 25 CHAPTER IV: RESULTS 26 Data Analyses 26 Descriptive Statistics 27 Media Literacy 27 Anxiety 28 Social Media Use 29 Research Question 1 30 Research Question 2 30 CHAPTER V: DISCUSSION 31 Interpretation of Findings Relative to Hypothesis 31 Limitations 32 Implications for Practice 34 Future Research 35 Conclusion 37 REFERENCES 38 vii APPENDIX A: Invitation to Participate in Research 46 APPENDIX B: Anxiety, Media Literacy, Social Media Use Survey 47 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 Distribution of Media Literacy Questionnaire Total Scores 28 Figure 2 Distribution of Total Anxiety Scores 29 Figure 3 Distribution of Social Media Use Scores 29 ix LIST OF TABLES Table 1 Student Scores on the Media Literacy Scale, AMAS, and Social Media Habits Scale 27 Table 2 Correlations Between Media Literacy Scale, AMAS, and Social Media Habits Scale 30 x CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Technology is ever-present in the world today. Social media has grown rapidly; checking social media sites has become a part of most individual’s daily routine. Despite this integration into human lives, the flow of research literature on the subject matter is not consistent with the pace of its expansion. Given the pervasiveness in which social media has penetrated humans’ lives, it is important to examine how it might influence their well-being. People who have social media accounts maintain an online persona. The world of social media is one that is manufactured, or at the very least, not a completely accurate representation of individuals’ lives. The responsibility of maintaining an online persona might impact young people’s wellbeing. Since adolescence is known to be a time fraught with self-discovery, confusion, anxiety, and stress, it is important to investigate the effects of social media to see if young people are adequately educated about the realities and nuances of the online world. Anxiety, in particular, is a focus that is becoming increasingly prevalent in the world. In the United States, in particular individuals are reporting higher and higher instances of anxiety. For example, in an opinion poll of 1,000 adult Americans, 39% of respondents stated they were more anxious at the time of filling out the survey than they were a year ago (The American Psychiatric Association, 2018). Furthermore, the American College Health Association (2018) surveyed 31,463 college students and found that 60.9% of the respondents had experienced overwhelming anxiety at some point within the last 12 months. A national study of 141,000 first-year college students in 230 1 schools in the United States found evidence to suggest that college students today experience more stress and depression than students in previous generations (Eagan et al., 2015). Previous studies have found a relationship between anxiety and social media use. For example, Vannuccci, Flannery, and Ohannessian (2017) found that increased social media use was correlated with increased anxiety through a web-based survey of 563 young adults aged 18 to 22 in the United States. Media literacy is a concept which incorporates accessing, communicating, interpreting, and evaluating messages across a variety of digitally-mediated forms (Goessling & Vadeboncoeur, 2019). It is becoming an increasingly important area of research and may be related to social media use in that social media platforms are digitally mediated. No known study up until this point has examined media literacy in conjunction with social media use or media literacy and its relationship to anxiety. Thus, the aim of this study was threefold. First, the study examined the relationship between social media use and anxiety to see if it corroborated previous research. Second, the study looked to see if there was a relationship between media literacy and social media use. Third, the study investigated to see if there was a relationship between media literacy and anxiety. In order to explore these areas, the researcher employed a quantitative survey design using first-year college students as the sample population. 2 CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW The following literature review explores the origins of social media, and types of social media use. Research on the impacts of social media use is also presented. Finally, the notion of media literacy is discussed. Social Media Social media is a phenomenon that is intricately tied to technology, and it has now become incorporated into many individual’s daily routines. Social media originated in 1997, when the Six Degrees website launched. The site allowed individuals to create a profile and connect with other users based on similar professional or social interests. During this early stage, from the late 1990s to the early 2000s, only 7% of adult Americans used social media. By 2006, that number rose to 65% (Perrin et al, 2015). The social media site Facebook may be partially responsible for this rise as the site was first launched in 2004 (Facebook, 2019). According to Edison Research (2017), the total proportion of social media users across all age ranges in the United States in the year 2017 was 81%. List of Relevant Terms Many of the concepts explored in this research have a variety of differing definitions depending on the source. To explore the research questions, the investigator has included a list of these relevant terms, each with one definition in order to provide context: 3 • Anxiety: an abnormal and overwhelming sense of apprehension and fear often marked by physical signs (such as tension, sweating, and increased pulse rate), by doubt concerning the reality and nature of the threat, and by self-doubt about one's capacity to cope with it (Miriam-Webster, 2018). • Fear of missing out (FOMO): fear of not being included in something (such as an interesting or enjoyable activity) that others are experiencing (Miriam-Wester, 2018). • Media literacy: the ability to access, communicate, interpret, and evaluate messages or texts across a range of digitally mediated forms (Goessling & Vadeboncoeur, 2019). • Problematic social media use: a continuum that ranges from mundane self-control failures to extremely problematic or pathological forms of social media use (Koningsbruggen & Kerkhof, 2018).