The Relationship Between Purpose of Social Media Use, Social Support, Loneliness and Depression: A Sample of First Year University Students.

Aim: This study was conducted to determine the relationship between the purpose of social media use, social support, loneliness and depression at university students. Method: This descriptive study was carried with the 541 first year university student in a university at Turkey. Sociodemographic Data Collection Form, Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, UCLA Loneliness Scale and Beck Depression Inventory were used to collect the data. The institutional permission, ethic approval and written consent were obtained. The descriptive statistical analyses and correlation analysis were used to assess the data. Results: More than half of the students were female. It was determined that almost all of the students had a social media account and they used the social media for about 4 hours daily. Most of the students used the social media to chat with their friends. A weak, negative, significant relationship was found between social support and social media usage purposes except for sharing photo and chatting (p<0.05). There was a statistically weak, positive, significant relationship between social media use for entertainment, chatting, spending time, information source and loneliness. A weak, positive, significant relationship was determined between depression and social media usage purposes for entertainment and following others (p<0.05). Conclusions: Significant and weak relationships were found between social media usage purposes, social support, loneliness and depression. It is recommended that the university counseling services can organize extracurricular social activities to reduce use of social media and support them in terms of social support, depression and loneliness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]