Effect of Selfie, Social Network Sites Usa ge, Number of Photos Shared on Social Network Sites on Happiness among University Students: A Model Testing

Abstract

This study aimed to explore the relationship between university students’ happiness levels and their daily number of selfies, daily duration of social networking sites (SNS) usage and daily number of photos shared on SNS. The study was carried out with 360 university students attending Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University in Turkey.  At the end of the statistical procedures, a model was achieved to include variables of happiness and daily number of selfies, daily duration of SNS usage and daily number of photos shared on social networks. It was understood from the model that daily number of selfies and daily duration of SNS usage predicted daily number of photos shared on social networks positively and significantly but did not predict happiness directly. In addition to this result, it is seen that daily number of selfies and daily duration of SNS usage has an indirect impact on happiness through daily number of photos shared on social networks. It can be said that the achieved Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) has good fit index values (X²=3.76, sd=2, X²/df=1.88, P=.15, RMSEA=0.050, NFI=0.97, CFI=0.99, GFI=0.99, AGFI=0.97, SRMR=0.032).

Keywords: Social network sites, selfies, photo sharing, happiness, structural equation modelling