Social media use and existential issues: A qualitative research

With the fast infiltration of the Internet and social media into human life, they have become widely used. Understanding their effects on individuals and the drivers of social media use has been a subject of several researches in recent years. The existential approach aims to analyze the individuals' humanitarian aspects, their meaning in life and the core and existence of the human being. Literature review revealed no research reporting the direct correlation between these two issues. The purpose of this research is to understand the existential issues encouraging the individuals to use the social media and to reveal the existential issues that emerge during social media use. The sample group of research consisted of 10 female students studying at Hasan Kalyoncu University who were using social media in an active manner. An individual and face-to-face interview was performed with each participant and the interviews were voice recorded. Then the interviews were analyzed through interpretative phenomenological analysis method among the qualitative research methods. According to the findings of analysis, there were 4 super-themes related with the individual, which are; "the others", "social media as a tool of establishing a bond with life and as a substitute tool of existence", "paradox and dilemmas" and "social media as a form of non-authentic existence". Each super theme has several sub themes. All the themes were studied in combination with literature data, theories and studies.