Navigating the Social Landscape: An Exploration of Social Networking Site Usage among Emerging Adults

This study explores how emerging adults (Arnett, 2000) in their first- and second-year of undergraduate study make use of social networking sites (SNSs) for their day-to-day sociality. This study compares emerging adults’ use of Facebook, which is the most popular and widely used SNS among this particular demographic, to increasingly popular SNSs Twitter and Instagram. This project seeks to discover how the use of different SNSs supplements, changes, or replaces the use of Facebook, considering social capital exists on each platform, and if and how each sites’ uses and gratifications differ. This study employs face-to-face semi-structured interviews to pursue the proposed research questions, using a grounded theory approach informed by social capital and uses and gratifications theory.

Name thesis:degree_name

MA

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Media Studies

Grantor dc:publisher

The University of Western Ontario

Year dc:date.issued

2015

Author dc:creator

• Colbeck, Kristen

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Anabel Quan-Haase

• social networking sites
• social capital
• uses and gratifications theory
• emerging adults
• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter

Language dc:language.iso

en_ca

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14721/35745

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:uwo.scholaris.ca:20.500.14721/35745