Obilježja Korištenja Snapchata Kod Zagrebačkih Srednjoškolaca

Abstract

CHARACTERISTICS OF »SNAPCHAT« USE AMONG ZAGREB HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS ABSTRACT In the last decade, social networks have become one of the most important »technological tools« in the lives of people around the world, used mainly by adolescents (especially girls). Currently, the most widely used ones are Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook. This paper aims to explore the characteristics of Snapchat use among high school students in the City of Zagreb, mainly due to its great popularity, the amount of time spent on this social network, and possible psychosocial risks, mainly due to its great popularity, but also due to the lack of domestic literature in this field. A total of 825 students participated in the study (NB=404; NG=418; 3 students did not provide gender information), and the age range was from 14 to 20 years (Mage=16.65; SDage=1.208). The results show that over 80% of high school students use Snapchat, and the differences in frequency of use were found in terms of gender, age, i.e., grade, and type ofschool. Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok are the most popular social networks among Zagreb high school students, and the use of one of these networks is moderately related to the use of the others, so the resultsspeak offor a preferred and dominantsocial network that is used more often than others. In conclusion, no differences in the severity of Internet addiction were found in relation to the frequency of Snapchat use. The results obtained allow a better understanding of the characteristics of the use of thissocial network among high school students and are interpreted in the context of the current challenges of scientific research and the possibility of developing psychosocial interventions. Key words: Snapchat; social networks; adolescents; high school students; Internet addiction.

Effects of Gender and Social Network Use on High School Students’ Emotional Well-Being during COVID-19

“…In addition to lifetime prevalence and because of the diversity of content and the opportunities they provide, it is important to explore the extent to which young people use particular social networks. The results show that Instagram (90.4%), Snapchat (72.9%), and TikTok (54.8%) were used most frequently (several times per week and daily) during the pandemic, which is consistent with other studies [42,85,87]. The above is not surprising, considering that these are newer social networks that, with their technical possibilities, offer young people a fun, creative, exciting, and innovative way to interact.…”

“…As elaborated in the previous text, research continuously confirms significant gender differences in both the characteristics of social network use [36,43,75,85] and the prevalence of mental health problems [48,55,[60][61][62][63][64]. There is also evidence that a more intensive use of social networks influences the presence of emotional problems and vice versa [68][69][70][71][72][73][74][75].…”

“…It can be assumed that adolescents do not find them interesting, which is not surprising since Twitter is mostly used for business and political topics, while Pinterest focuses mainly on art, design, and culinary recipes. Moreover, even though Facebook was the first SN to achieve global success, it does not offer attractive ways to communicate and share media content [85], and these results are consistent with statistical data showing that 25-34-year-olds form Facebook's largest audience [86]. Only a small proportion of high school students have not used other social networks: 37.8% of students have never used TikTok, 20.4% Snapchat, and there is almost no high school student who has never used Instagram (5.3%).…”

“…Moreover, females may use SNs to fill voids when depressed or when their social needs are not fully met [94]. Since the motivation to use SNs as a coping strategy is one of the significant predictors of a more intensive use and the development of severe problems [85], this finding implies the need to explore the importance of gender and intensity of SN use in relation to emotional problems, which is addressed in the following hypotheses.…”