Use of Social Media to Release Personal Stress

Abstract

This research discusses the Use of Social Media to Release Personal Stress. Social media consist of computer-mediated technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, career interests, and other forms of expression via virtual communities and networks. Many people today tend to release their stresses through social media. Hence this research is very timely. The research in consideration looks into the problem of ‘What is the use of social media in releasing personal stress?’ Accordingly, the research questions are as follows 1) do people release their stress through social networks? 2) how do people release their stress through social networks? And lastly, 3) what are the most commonly used social media platforms to release stress? The main purpose of this study is to identify ‘Why people are tempted to use social media to release personal stresses? The objectives are to identify the factors that affect personal stress? Does using social media to relieve stress reduce their stress? How does the use of social media to relieve stress affect society? In this study, it is hypothesized that social networks build/ strengthened through social media platforms as a mode to relieve personal stresses. The study also followed a quantitative methodology when conducting the research and collected qualitative data through surveys using the Random sampling method. Primary data was collected through a Google form questionnaire by sharing it on social media. For this, 100 responders in to 21-30 age limit were used as the sample. The study has analyzed data by SPSS. According to the data obtained, in the age group of 21-30, 84.56% of database users say that social media is used to relieve stress, and 96% of that percentage reported that stress is released without harming others and society. 92% of people say that Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram are the most used social media platforms utilized to relieve stress. The majority of the sample uploads statuses, posts, shares posts, and writes poetry as a way to relieve stress. 68% of the responders stated that engaging in such activities can reduce stress. It is noteworthy to identify that 97% of people use emoji to relieve their stress. Finally, this research concludes that there is a positive effect in terms of relieving a person’s stress through social media.