Investigation of the attitudes of secondary education students about social media in the context of usage habits

Social media, which is the most authoritative name in the internet, which enables the real world to live in a virtual environment, is constantly updating itself and being actively used by young people who are open and have a high learning speed. It is thought that many of the needs of the individuals, especially in adolescence, are met through the social media today, when the attitudes of the youth towards social media are wondered. In today's world where virtual support is important. For this reason, the research aims to reveal the usage habits of the attitudes of the secondary school students towards the social media. In the survey prepared in the screening model, the sample group is 575 secondary school students selected by random secondary school sampling method from official secondary education institutions in Gemlik district of Bursa province in the academic year 2015-2016. The Social Media Attitude Scale developed by the authors, Otrar, Argın (2013) and the Personal Information Form prepared by the researcher were used to collect data. The applications were carried out directly by the researcher at the schools where the students were educated, and the verbal and written instructions of the application process were given for the purpose of researching before the application. Practices lasted for an average of 40-45 minutes (1 lesson hour). The obtained data were tested on SPSS 15.00 program with minimum p <0.05 level, other significance levels were also specified and tabulated according to the purposes of the findings. Independent Groups T-test, ANOVA, Kruskal Wallis and Mann Whitney-U analyzes were conducted to compare social media attitudes with demographic variables. Scheffe, Tamhane T2 or LSD tests were used in cases where there were differences in ANOVA. Mann Whitney-U test was used in cases where there were differences in Kruskal Wallis. The attitudes towards social media are classified according to the class, type of school, whether the parents are alive or not, the social media platform followed, the duration of social media usage, the average daily usage time of social media, the use of social media as a support tool, the change of the membership in the social environment differs according to the usage variables of the social media. Key Words: Social media, Internet