Social anxiety and usage of online technological communication tools among adolescents

With the growing popularityof Internet communication among adolescents, the Internet, social media, instant messaging and cell phones have become important social tools in their life. This study examines teens’ use of social interactive technologies and the role that social anxiety plays on how adolescents communicate with others (technology or face-to-face). A questionnaire was designed and distributed to selected sample in the cities of Afyonkarahisar, Manisa and uşak in order to analyze the relationship between adolescents’ social anxiety and their preference of communication tool. The data were gathered from 544 respondents among High school adolescents (ranged from 15-18; freshman, sophomore, junior and senior). findings show that adolescents rarely use messenger sites and mail addresses. They generally send instant messages with their cell phones. They spend 1-2 hours for listening music and averagely 30 minutes for facebook in a day. More than half of teens have hi-tech cell phones that enable to call, send message and access to Internet. The findings of the present study also reveal that females use text messaging more than males. However, males spend much more time than females to play games. In addition, females feel themselves more uncomfortable than males for face-to-face talking with others. And, on the contrary to males, females also prefer to some extent, to communicate with other on internet instead of face-to-face talking. similarly, females prefer more than males to make new on internet.

social Anxiety ,

communication tools ,

technology ,

Adolescents ,