Social Media Use and Self-Esteem of First-Generation Secondary Students

AUTHOR(S)

RODRIGUEZ, ELBERT, JR. Q. SUASBA, PAULA C ESTELITA B. MADRIAGA, Ph.D.

ABSTRACT

— The study addressed the following objectives: to describe the social media use of firstgeneration secondary students, to determine the respondents’ level of self-esteem, and to determine the significant relationship between the respondents’ social media use and level of self-esteem. In this study, descriptive research design was employed through the use of the correlational method in order to address the primary aim of understanding the relationship between and among the variables of the study. Initially, the study took the descriptive aspect through survey method in order to collect information on respondents’ level of social media use and their level of self-esteem. Finally, it advanced to the correlation aspect in order to identify if significant relationship exist among the variables. The study considered first-generation secondary students from Nena National High School and San Julian National High School in the Division of Eastern Samar which is composed of eighty (80) students in all, forty from each school. Therefore, total enumeration was utilized to facilitate easy access with the respondents of this study. The researcher utilized an adapted survey questionnaire Social Networking Usage Questionnaire (SNUQ) by Gupta and Bashir (2018) to collect data relative to the first research question. Meanwhile, in order for the researcher to gather data in response to research question 2, Rosenberg Self -Esteem Scale questionnaire, a four-point scale, was used to showcase the level of student’s self-esteem. In addition, mean and standard deviation were employed to describe the data, whereas, Spearman’s rank correlation was utilized to determine the significant relationship between variables. In terms of findings, it was revealed that there was a high to very high level of social media use among the first-generation secondary students. It was also found out that the first-generation students exhibited “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree” levels of self-esteem. Lastly, it was discovered that there was a significant relationship between students’ level of social media use and level of self-esteem. Keywords — Social Media Use, Self-Esteem, First-Generation Secondary Students