Browsing by Author "Kuvaja, Emma"

Aims. The aim of this study was to identify different profiles of social media use among Finnish 9th graders (N=833), and to compare these profiles on academic well-being measured as schoolwork engagement and school burnout. Furthermore, the aim of this study was to compare these profiles on the Big Five personality traits and gender. The research of connections between social media use and academic well-being among adolescence is limited, and this is presumably the first research to combine personality traits, social media use and academic well-being in adolescence. Methods. The theoretical framework was the demands-resources model and the DC-DDR-model (Developmental-Contextual Model of Digital Demands and Resources). The profiles of social media use were formed on a two-step cluster analysis. In the clusters, social media was described by social activity and hanging out, information-oriented activity and creative activity, which were measured determining the type and amount of use. Differences on academic well-being and personality traits between each profile were analyzed using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). Differences on gender were analyzed using chi-square test of independence and cross-tabulations. Results and conclusions. The two-step cluster analysis identified four clusters, and the profiles were named as following: the profile of low social media use (23.3 %), the profile of versatile social activity (28.1 %), the profile of unilateral social activity (18.1 %) and the profile focusing on learning, information seeking and creativity (30.5 %). The profiles differed in terms of both schoolwork engagement and school burnout. Boys more often than girls belonged to the profile of low social media use, which also highlighted the lowest school burnout. Schoolwork engagement was reported to be highest in the profile focusing on learning, information seeking and creativity and lowest in the profile of unilateral social activity. Moreover, school burnout was reported to be highest in the profile of versatile social activity, which was characterized by high social activity and hanging out in addition to high social media use in other aspects. The profiles also differed in all the Big Five personality traits except agreeableness, and openness to experiences showed to be the most be distinguishing personality trait. The profile focusing on learning, information seeking, and creativity reported the highest amount of openness to experiences but also highest neuroticism, while the profile of unilateral social activity reported the highest amount of extraversion and the lowest conscientiousness. Regarding these results, individual differences in personality traits should be taken into consideration, since connections between social media use and academic well-being vary from adolescent to adolescent. This contributes to better understanding of adolescent's individual needs and the use of social media which promotes academic well-being.