The effect of soci̇al medi̇a atti̇tudes on the self-esteem of the adolescents

Our age is called the "internet and technology age". As a result of the structure of people who are curious and need to communicate, social media accounts have entered to our lives rapidly and have become a part of our lives day by day. However, the use of social media for adolescent students and their attitudes towards social media use are of great importance. Because, in this period that is adolescent, the personality development and the self-perception of the person are occurring. This study is a descriptive research study applied to a total of 368 students, 181 male and 187 female students, who are studying in 2015-2016 academic year, in İstanbul/Güngören. "Personal Information Form", "Social Media Attitude Scale", "Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale (RSES)" and "Coopersmith Self Esteem Inventory (CSEI)" were applied to participants. SPSS 22.0 program was used to analyze the data. Numbers, percentage, mean, standard deviation were used as descriptive statistical methods when the findings are obtained. In addition, t-test and one way Anova test were used to compare quantitative continuous data between two or more independent groups. The Scheffe test was used as a complementary post-hoc analysis to determine the differences after the Anova test. Pearson correlation and regression analysis were applied among the continuous variables of the study. When the findings were evaluated, according to the results of one way variance analysis (ANOVA), there was no significant difference in social media attitudes of the students in terms of perceived income level, parents' marital status, whether parents are alive or not, education level of mother, mother's attitude variable, number of siblings and how to connect to social media (p>0.05). When the results of variance analysis (ANOVA) made for the Rosenberg and Coopersmith Self-esteem scales were evaluated, significant differences were found (p <0.05) in terms of income level of the family, parents' marital status, whether parents are alive or not, mother's attitude, father's education level, time spent on social media and the place to connect to social media (p <0.05). Keywords: Adolescent, social media attitude, self-esteem.