Investigating social media statistics of usage and its determinant factors in students of Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences in 2018: A cross-sectional study.

Abstract

Background and Aim: the present study was conducted to investigate social media statistics of usage and its determinant factors in students of Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences in 2018.Materials and Methods: This study is a cross-sectional-analytical study. The total of 380 students of Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences were randomly selected by Probability Proportional to Size Sampling method, from the lists of the students in each faculty. The data collection tool was a researcher-made questionnaire, organized in four sections. Data analysis was done using descriptive and inferential statistics by SPSS software version 21.Results: Based on the results of this study 373 (98.2%) of the sample students were on social media, which the most popular ones among them were Telegram (94.1%), Instagram (78.8%) and Whatsapp (61.9%), respectively. The average time spent on social media among students was reported to be 2.78 hours per day and is a significant difference between age groups in terms of attitudes toward using social media (P = 0.031).Conclusion: the results of this study suggested that the majority of students use social media. Since improper use of social media can exert unfortunate effects on different aspects of life of students, and negatively influence their education.