A research on the relationship between social media usage purposes and personality traits and moral maturity in Faculty of Theology students: The case of SDU Faculty of Theology

The primary aim of this research is to examine the relationship between uni-versity students' purposes for using social media and their levels of moral maturity, considering socio-demographic variables such as gender, age, type of education, class, and economic status. The study holds potential for providing valuable infor-mation for awareness and policy development concerning digital ethics. The sample of the study consists of 458 randomly selected students from the Faculty of Theolo-gy at SüleymanDemirel University. During the data collection process, the Personal Information Form was used to determine participants' demographic characteristics, and the Moral Maturity Scale along with the Social Media Usage Scale were em-ployed to assess participants' moral maturity and social media usage habits. The col-lected data were analysed using various statistical methods such as independent sam-ple t-test, anova, Pearson correlation test, regression analysis, correlation analysis, normality, and reliability tests in the SPSS statistical program. These analyses play a critical role in understanding the relationships between students' social media usage and their levels of moral maturity. The research findings indicate that a majority of the participants, who were female students, scored higher on the moral maturity scale. Additionally, first-education students participated more actively in the survey, and second-year students were more prominently represented in the sample. Regard-ing age groups, students aged 24 and older constituted a majority in the sample. Sta-tistical analyses have shown that socio-demographic variables such as gender, age, economic status, and type of education did not significantly influence the students' purposes for using social media. However, a clear relationship was found between class level and purposes for using social media. These analyses particularly identified a positive correlation between the purposes of social media use and levels of moral maturity. In conclusion, this study demonstrates that the purposes of social media use among students at the SüleymanDemirel University Faculty of Theology positively influence their levels of moral maturity, with female students notably excelling in moral maturity. These quantitative findings can assist educators and policymakers in developing strategies to promote ethical behaviour in digital environments and can also provide a foundation for further research.