Maya Douglas

Professor Zhang

JOMC 303

Literature Review
 Social Media & Gentrification

I. Introduction

The purpose of this literature review is to provide an in-depth insight on how college students

use social media. Also, the use of the gentrification theory will be elaborated on as well. To go

more in depth on social media, it is a form of websites and applications that enable users to

create and share content or to participate in social networking. Social media definitely has its

pros and cons, but which one outweighs the other? There have been many controversies on if

social media is ruining this generation, and is plaguing the minds of youths and even some

adults. At the same time, as previously stated, it can be a way to brand yourself by showcasing

your talents, work samples, etc. in hopes to get your foot in the door. Pertaining to college

students, social media is a huge impact on their lives due to them always being on their phones.

A new study survey from researchers at Baylor University has found that women college

students spend 10 hours on their cell phones, men students spend eight hours on theirs. Eight and

10 hours are nearly half of a day, so what are they doing with the other 14-16 hours in a day? As

far as the gentrification theory, which is a consumption theory caused by the middle class’ taste

for urban amenities. Some negative impacts of gentrification are forced displacement, and it

excludes low-income citizens. Benefits from gentrification may include less violence in

neighborhoods and the children are around a mixed-income of individuals.

II. Literature Review

How Social Media can Affect College Students and Their Mental Health

Mental health is a big issue for college students, and social media is one of the effects of it. One

of the most common issues associated with college students and social media is anxiety. In a

survey, about 41.6 % of college students have stated that anxiety is big concern for them when it

pertains to social media. Twitter and Instagram are arguably the top two social media platforms

in today’s age. Social media can be a factor that aids in depression or anxiety and 1 out of 5

college students have one of the two. Another big issues, and probably the biggest, is people

comparing themselves to what they see on social media. Seeing models, celebrities, etc can make

people feel that that’s the way that they should be living. For example, there are a plethora of

models on social media. There are women who pay for surgery and things of that nature to obtain

those bodies, like models, just so they can take nice pictures and videos for clarity. People live

for likes and retweets and will go through drastic measures to obtain them. Another effect of

social media is the comparison of ones real life to their virtual lives. There are people who are

one person in real life and a completely different person on social media. They may have a lot of

popularity on different applications, but, in real life, they could be an introvert and stay to

themselves. Dr. Anne Marie Albano explained that social media can act as a “counterfeit

reality,” meaning that their lives on social media aren’t the real them. “Social media and other

technologies can give an individual a false sense of having true relationships, they never cross

over to make engaging relationships with people in the real world,” said Albano. Studies show

that most college students who use social media more than others are more prone to doing drugs,

drinking, and having lower grade point averages in school. As compared to the students who use

social media a lot, there are some students who only use it to connect with family and when

they’re bored.
Why People Use Social Media: A Uses and Gratification approach

This article is looking to demonstrate the significance of the uses and gratification theory for

college students when it pertains to social media. In most cases, we would just talk about how

consumers in general use social media, but we are going to concentrate on college students for

this article. Social media is so important in the world today, that companies depend on social

media to help promote their product. College students also use social media as another media

outlet for news. Instead of watching the news on Tv they download news apps, or obtain most of

the news from Twitter and Instagram. A recent research showed that 88 percent of marketers are

using social media and they are spending over 60 billion dollars on advertisement (Whiting). A

lot of people say that the younger generation use social media more than any other generation,

and that today’s generation is letting social media control their life. Social media has became an

addicted tool to interact with all types of people and to find out different information. College

students use different social media apps and other forms of social media to help assist them in

school. In the article the approach they took was to a 25-in depth interview was conducted with

people who use social media. The theory use is the uses and gratification, and it is being used to

help explain the many reasons why college students use and why they like social media. The

outcomes of this experiment is that the uses and gratification of social media is social interaction,

information seeking, entertainment and to pass the time, relaxation, expression of opinion,

information sharing and learning knowledge about other people. Past studies do agree with this

finding, and it is very clear that college students use social media for all these reasons, and this

research also provides both academics and the business community with the knowledge about

the use of social media.

Uses and Gratifications of Social Media: A Comparison of Facebook and Instant Messaging
In this article, the author conduct comparative work between Facebook and Instant messaging.

College students in particular use Facebook for multiple reasons like for entertainment and to

catch up with old friends. One of the main reasons why a lot of people use facebook is to find out

what is going on in today’s world. Facebook provides another news outlet that younger people

can go to get certain news and entertainment. This article is comparing the two medias to draw

conclusion about how different social media fulfil users needs. The data was collected by a series

of undergraduate students based on 70 plus surveys and 21 interviews. Facebook revealed that

undergraduate students use the site for pastime, affection with other people, fashion news, being

social, and sharing information. The article also says that facebook is more geared towards

having fun and learning information, and different social activities, while instant message is

more for relationships and simply communicating. The results is that college students are more

favored to use Facebook because of the fact that it is more entertaining and easier to find

information and news. The research method that was found is uses and gratification theory,

basically why people are using facebook and the possible outcomes that come with using

facebook.

Understanding Internet Usage: A Social-Cognitive Approach to Uses and Gratifications

In this article, the author talks about the uses and gratifications on internet usage. This research

talks about different variables from social-cognitive theory that might further go into detail about

internet usage in the research. The research conducted a survey with 171 college students, the

social cognitive model projected up to 60 percent in internet usage among multiple analysis,

which is a significant improvement when talking about uses and gratifications. The hypothesis is

expecting activity, pleasing sensory, novel sensory, and social outcome expectation will be

positivity related to the internet usage rate. The second hypothesis is the expectation of negative
Internet outcomes will be negatively related to Internet usage and the third hypothesis will be a

positive internet usage as well and independent of the effects of the outcomes. In the survey 35

percent were freshmen, 22 percent were sophomores, 18 percent were juniors and lastly 25

percent were seniors. 60 percent of the college students were male and 40 percent were female

and the questionnaire were administered over a 2 week period (Larose). The research method

that is being used is the uses and gratifications theory. The gratification of a positive internet

usage is being able to use the information that was given to you to help with work or any

problems.

Being Immersed in Social Networking Environment: Facebook Groups, Uses and

Gratifications, and Social Outcomes

In this article, the researchers found that individuals who join social networking sites such as

Facebook as a means of socialization. Facebook allows its users to join “groups”, special

timelines, that cater to the specific interests. For example, you can join a local gardening group

to connect with gardeners in your area or you can join a global gardening group that would allow

you to connect with gardeners across the globe. These researchers found that there are four needs

fulfilled by joining Facebook groups: socialization, status, entertainment, and information.

Groups fulfills socialization by allowing you to talk to others with the same or similar interests as

you. The need for status is met by being able to display your knowledge/success as it relates to

the topic of the group. Entertainment comes from reading and viewing posts related to your

interests. And finally, you gain more information about your interest from the members in the

group and their different perspective. This study also found that the increased usage of facebook

groups is connected to increased civic engagement. Those that seek more information about their

specific interests online often do so offline.

Online Social Networks: Why do students use Facebook

In this study, the researchers narrowed the reasons people use social media down for: purposive

value, self discovery, maintaining interpersonal interconnectivity, social enhancement, and

entertainment value. The uses, social presence theory, and social influence theory are all

examined to answer the question: Why do students use social sites? Their study found that social

presence theory was the leading reason students use facebook. Social presence is the importance

or magnitude of one’s involvement and/or interaction with others online. The more

involved/interactive one is the greater their social presence. Social presence can be tied to uses

and gratifications. Increased social presence increases the gratifications that come from using

social sites. Social influence is tied into both social presence and uses & gratifications. Social

influence is defined as the change in a person that is caused by another person. Usually the larger

your social presence the larger your social influence. The gratification in social influence is

social enhancement thus bringing us back to social presence.

News sharing in social media: The effect of gratifications and prior experience
This study refers to news sharing on social media as a phenomenon of “increasing social,

economic and political importance” and examines how social cognitive theories coupled with the

influence of gratifications ( specifically information seeking, socializing, entertainment, status

seeking and prior social media sharing experience) affects how people share news online. They

crafted a survey and then gave said survey to 203 students at large university. The results from

the survey were that those who used social media for the above listed gratifications were more

likely to share news on their social media. The leading influence was prior social media sharing

experience. Users with more experience were more likely to share news because they were aware

of the impact of social media. Familiarity and routine begin to develop as usage increases.
Someone who is an avid user of social media that shares news on their platform is more

susceptible to regularly sharing news as it becomes part of their social media experience/routine.

A dynamic longitudinal examination of social media use

This study examines the U&G theoretical perspective to account for the situated, adaptive, and

dynamic nature of mediated cognition and behavior. It explores the dynamic uses and

gratifications of social media use in the everyday lives of college students by using sampling

data over a 4 week span. The study quantifies reciprocal causal relationships between needs,

social media use and gratifications. The study finds that social media use is driven by all four

categories of needs examined (emotional, social, cognitive, and habitual), but only gratifies some

of them. It found that ungratified needs accumulate over time and drive subsequent social media

use. Certain types of interpersonal environments may also affect social media use. The study also

moderates the effects of needs on social media use.

Getting Healthy: The perceived influence of social media on young adult health behaviors

Taking into account the relevance of technology and health during young adulthood, this study

explored young adults perceptions of social media’s influence on their health behaviors. It

collected data through eight focus groups and four individual interviews. It determined that

young adults perceived that technology could be both a barrier and a motivator for exercise. It

credited social media with expanding food sources through creating access to a variety of

recipes, providing a venue for showcasing the foods young adults eat or prepare and distracting

young adults from making positive food choices. Participants in the study reported that it is

common to post statuses or pictures relating to exercise. Study participants indicated that these

posts could be inspirational or misused depending on the context. The results of the study are

discussed in terms of theory and preliminary implications.

Media Multitasking Behavior: Concurrent Television and Computer Usage

In this study a laboratory experiment recorded both younger and older individuals as they used a

computer and television concurrently, multitasking across television and internet content. Results

indicated that individuals were more attentive to the computer during multitasking. Although

gazes lasted longer on the computer when compared to the television, the overall distribution of

gazes is strongly skewed toward very short gazes only a few seconds in duration. People

switched between media at an extreme rate averaging 4 switches per minute and 120 switches

over the 27.5 minute study exposure. Younger individuals switched more often than older

individuals but other individual differences such as stated multitasking preference had little

effect on switching patterns and gaze duration. The pattern of the results highlighted the

importance of exploring new media environments.

III. Bibliography

1. Albano, M.A. May, 4th 2018. How Social Media can Affect College Students and Their

MentalHealth.https://medium.com/@ibrah096/how-social-media-can-affect-college-

students-and-their-mental-health-edf7dd3acab9.

2. Anita Whiting, David Williams, (2013) "Why people use social media: a uses and

gratifications approach", Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, Vol. 16

Issue: 4, pp.362-369, https://doi.org/10.1108/QMR-06-2013-0041

3. Brasel, S. A., & Gips, J. (2011). Media multitasking behavior: Concurrent television and computer

usage. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 14(9), 527-534.

4. Cheung, C. M., Chiu, P. Y., & Lee, M. K. (2011). Online social networks: Why do students use

facebook?. Computers in Human Behavior, 27(4), 1337-1343.

5. Larose, R., Mastro, D., & Eastin, M. S. (2001). Understanding Internet Usage: A Social-

Cognitive Approach to Uses and Gratifications. Social Science Computer Review, 19(4),

395–413. https://doi.org/10.1177/089443930101900401

6. Lee, C. S., & Ma, L. (2012). News sharing in social media: The effect of gratifications and prior

experience. Computers in human behavior, 28(2), 331-339.

7. Park, N., Kee, K. F., & Valenzuela, S. (2009). Being immersed in social networking environment:

Facebook groups, uses and gratifications, and social outcomes. CyberPsychology & Behavior,

12(6), 729-733.

8. Quan-Haase, A., & Young, A. L. (2010). Uses and Gratifications of Social Media: A

Comparison of Facebook and Instant Messaging. Bulletin of Science, Technology &

Society, 30(5), 350–361. https://doi.org/10.1177/0270467610380009

9. Vaterlaus, J. M., Patten, E. V., Roche, C., & Young, J. A. (2015). # Getting Healthy: The

perceived influence of social media on young adult health behaviors. Computers in Human

Behavior, 45, 151-157.

10. Wang, Z., Tchernev, J. M., & Solloway, T. (2012). A dynamic longitudinal examination of social

media use, needs, and gratifications among college students. Computers in Human Behavior,

28(5), 1829-1839.
 Research Questions/ Research Hypothesis

RQ1: Has the influx of social media, blogs, and other news platforms changed and/or affected the method

of news consumption for young adults, more specifically college students?

H1: The more students use platforms the more trustworthy the platforms become to them. Increased usage

and trustworthiness of news platforms causes an increase of political engagement.

H2: The growing number of available information channels and sources as well as greater possibilities for

interaction and co-creation among consumers of information, has fundamentally affected the consumption

of news for college students.

H3: As college students get further in college and older they start to consume more news and go to social

media and/or news apps for their source of news.