Facebook Addiction among Youngsters of Kerala

In recent time, Social Networking has been a booming industry, especially in India. Facebook, in particular, has very broad participation amongst youngster. It is becoming more evident that social networking over the web is the new opium for today's youngsters. Apparently, many of them spend considerable time developing a favourable profile, status updates, posting photographs and so on. The use of social networking sites have been the focus of large number of research studies across the world. In the current study we look into the level of addiction towards facebook and contributing factors in Kerala. The study was done with a sample size of 85 (males 49, females 36). The tools administered were Facebook Addiction test, Personal data schedule and Facebook Usage checklist. From the mean and standard deviation no significant level of addiction was found, yet it did indicate an above average use [mean: 50.9412, SD: ±15.1393]. There is no significant difference between male and female usage (p>0.5). Post Hoc analysis indicate significantly high usage by school student (p<.05) with respect to college and professionals. From Crosstabulation it was found that people who where single had more number of friends. Users of facebook for more than 2 years seemingly spend more time on facebook. From the results it could be inferred that despite educational & technological exposure there has been no significant addiction in the sample obtained, this might be probably because of cultural influence.