Master of Arts (Counselling & Guidance)

This study aims to understand the nature of the relationship between social media use and self-esteem, loneliness, attachment and social skills among a sample of Indian students and professionals. Much of the research in this area has been conducted with a Western sample, while focusing particularly on adolescent social media use. This study aims to examine social media use among an Indian population within a much wider age range. Secondly, this study examines to what extent use of social media predicts self-esteem, loneliness, attachment and social skills as well as the presence of gender differences in this relationship.

Participants were 200 Indian students and working professionals between the ages of 21 and 47. They were administered a questionnaire to measure the extent of their social media use as well as their ratings of measures such as self-esteem, loneliness, attachment and social skills.

Results obtained suggested that online gaming was significantly correlated with attachment in the positive direction. Thus, the higher the score on attachment, the more frequent is the individual’s reported usage of online gaming. Secondly, the study surfaced a gender difference, suggesting that men use online gaming significantly more than women. Finally, it was found that the correlations between social networking, online gaming and self-esteem, loneliness, attachment and social skills were insignificant.

This study contributes to a growing body of research in the area of social media use. With staggering rise in the use of social networking sites and online gaming and with the increasing number of Indians who are choosing Singapore as an educational and vocational destination, it is crucial to understand the impact and the nature of its relationship with constructs of psychosocial wellbeing on this population. This study also discussed the implications of the research findings, limitations of the study and recommendations for further research.