The Impact of Social Media Use on Students' Health Literacy in Facing the Corona Crisis

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 کارشناسی ارشد، گروه علم اطلاعات و دانش‌شناسی، دانشکده روانشناسی و علوم تربیتی، دانشگاه علامه طباطبائی، تهران، ایران

2 Associate Professor, Department of knowledge and Information Science, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Allameh Tabataba'i University, Tehran, Iran

3 Assistant Professor, Department of knowledge and Information Science, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Allameh Tabataba'i University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Purpose: The present study aimed to determine the relationship between social media usage and the components of students' health literacy. This includes the capacity to access, understand, process, evaluate information, and make informed decisions and behaviors in response to the COVID-19 crisis.
Method: The present study is applied in nature and was conducted using a survey-analytical method. The sample distribution, as proposed by Tabachnick and Fidell, was calculated to include 288 university students from various academic levels across the nation. The research tool was a researcher-developed questionnaire designed based on a review of existing literature and prior studies. This questionnaire comprised 60 questions, including 17 qualitative and 43 quantitative items, organized into four components: personal situation, hobbies and leisure, information search and exchange, and information acquisition, which encompasses reading, understanding, comprehension, evaluation, and decision-making behavior. The validity of this questionnaire was deemed satisfactory by experts, and its reliability was assessed using Cronbach's alpha, which yielded a value of 0.941. Following data collection, the information was analyzed with SPSS version 26, employing descriptive statistics, structural equation modeling, independent t-tests, one-sample t-tests, and one-way analysis of variance.
Findings: The findings from the data analysis indicate a strong positive correlation between
the extent of social media usage and health literacy regarding the coronavirus disease among students (P<0.001). Gender, age, marital status, education level, daily social media usage, and the experience of having contracted the coronavirus disease significantly influenced the relationship between social media use and students' health literacy in managing the coronavirus disease.
Conclusion: The analysis of variance test results indicates a positive and significant relationship between the use of preferred media for retrieving specialized information and the level of health literacy among students in their response to the coronavirus disease. The results also indicated that health literacy, along with the components of personal status, access, reading, understanding, evaluation, decision-making, and behavior, significantly influenced students' responses to the coronavirus disease.
 

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References

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Sciences and Techniques of Information Management
Volume 11, Issue 1
February 2025
Pages 187-206

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