Social media as; an agent for behavioral change among young people: case of Facebook usage among Mass Communication students of Uganda Martyrs University

Abstract

The advent of internet based technology has resulted into border-less communication. This has led to free circulation of information in the world. Uganda being a free market of ideas attributed partly to internet-based technology, the young people constantly participate in the creation, exchanging and sharing different content on social media platforms. According to social media stats in Uganda(August 2018-August 2019), the majority of the Ugandan modern youths seem to heavily use social media as their main source of information, education and entertainment. However,according to the study findings,as the youths become heavy consumers of social media content, they become addicted and develop different habits like; self isolation from relatives, eating habits, imitation habit, liking habit,and spreading rumour. The habit changes maybe either negative or positive depending on the nature of social media content consumed. Therefore, this paper intends to find out the different kinds of habits youths acquire from consuming social media content,identifies conditions through which youths acquire different habits from social media and examine the kinds of information youths share on social media and give reasons for sharing such information. A sample size of 50 students was selected from the department of Journalism and communication studies,Uganda Martyrs University. This was a case study research approach focusing on facebook usage and research methods for collecting primary data included; questionnaires, interviews and participant observation.I majorly used facebook content analysis and descriptive statistics while interpreting the data collected regarding the research questions.