The effects of online interactions on the Youth's psychological well-being: A case study of Daystar University - Nairobi campus
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Date
2016-05
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Daystar University
Abstract
This study aimed at exploring the psychological effects of online interactions on the youth. Thiswas because online interaction has increasingly assumed an important role in everyday life in the recent years. Reprehensibly, it has resulted to variety of effects in the lives of the youth. These effects are age dependent, and the effects depend on the amount of time spent online and the quality of the relations formed online. The study was conducted in Daystar University, Nairobi campus among the students aged between 18 and 35 years. Approximately, 140 respondents were selected through stratified random method from the various programmes and years of study. The study was guided by the following specific objectives: to establish the psychological effects of online communication, to find out if these effects vary with social demographic characteristics, such as age, level of study, sex, and course being undertaken,and to recommend intervention measures for any negative effects.The research applied both quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection, using questionnaires and interviews. The findings revealed that the youth derived varied satisfactions from online interactions, such as self, social and security satisfactions. For this reason, the youth preferred the online interaction to the real-time face to face social interaction. The study also found that a 71.1% of the respondents spent up to 5 hours in an average day interacting online, which encouraged isolation and formation of superficial social interactions. Further, 98% of the respondents reported to be aware of the various psychological effects that might result from the incessant online interactions. Some of the effects suggested were dependence, decreased face to face interaction, poor academic performance, stress discontentment. Equipped with that information, recommendations were presented to the parents, caregivers, universities, university counselors, policymakers for right interventional measures to assist the affected young people.
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Thesis
Keywords
Online interactions, Youth psychosocial well-being, Daystar University
Citation
Nicholas Kimaru Nyaga (2016) The effects of online interactions on the Youth's psychological well-being: A case study of Daystar University - Nairobi campus: Daystar University school of Human and social sciences: Thesis