Social Media and Emotional Intelligence: A Modern-Day Interplay among College Students

Aim: To study the influence of social media on the Emotional Intelligence of college students.

Methodology: A convenient sampling method was used with 150 postgraduate college students from selected colleges in Bangalore, of which 78 were male and 72 were female. A survey instrument was developed to study the influence of social media on Emotional Intelligence, focusing on the self-management construct of the Emotional Competence Inventory (ECI). The instrument contained 22 variables across the 6 dimensions of the self-management construct and was administered online through Google Forms. The instrument achieved a reliability score of 0.9. Sixty-six hypotheses were formulated for one-sample t-tests, independent sample t-tests, and MANOVA.

Results: The one-sample t-test results highlighted that the sample mean values of all the variables were higher than the test value and significant (maximum mean difference of 1.352 at P=0.000). The independent sample t-test showed no significant difference in perceptions between male and female respondents. Similarly, no significant difference was found in the perception of respondents regarding the influence of social media on emotional intelligence based on the duration of social media use.

Conclusion: The usage of social media has a positive influence on the self-awareness and self-management of college students. Instagram, WhatsApp, and YouTube were the most used social media platforms. The top reasons for usage included knowledge and skill development, personal and professional networking, and entertainment. Further studies are necessary to explore the influence of social media on social awareness and social skills constructs of ECI. The influence can also be studied more deeply using other established instruments of emotional intelligence.