Happy, or Unhappy? That’s the Question: A Study on Social Media Use and Happiness of University Students

Abstract

Social media becomes a common communication tool for people to connect with the world. There are nearly 80% of Malaysian from different age have the experience of using social media. People use social media with various purposes. However, less attention has been paid on Malaysian university students’ social media use and happiness although they are categorized as the generation who adopt with technology gadgets.  This study aims to investigate the relation between social media use and happiness by detecting reasons of using social media, furthermore, to explain effects of social media to an individual’s happiness. Sequential explanatory of mixed method research design is implemented in this study. There are 340 university students participate in quantitative research, whereas 10 persons involve in qualitative research. A questionnaire with five Likert scale and in-depth interview is employed for data collection. Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient and in-depth interview are applied for data analysis. Result of this study reveals the relation between social media use to university students’ happiness. Different level of happiness is identified based on the purpose for example, looking for friendship or connection, and communication in social media use. Besides, emotional reaction of students would be greatly affected by types of online content. However, majority of respondents agree happiness should be practiced in human’s daily life activities but not retain solely in online platform.