Social Media May Provide Escape In Some Countries
By Rick Nauert PhD Senior News Editor Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on February 10, 2014
New international research suggests participation in online social media can reduce suicide rates, especially in countries rife with corruption.
Researchers hypothesize that social media provides citizens an escape from the everyday problems that dominate corrupt countries.
In the new study, to be published in the International Journal of Web-based Communities, investigators determined that these two factors more corruption, more social networking also correlate with lower suicide rates.
Adam Acar, M.S., associate professor at Japans Kobe City University, reports that more than half the population of developed countries is now active on social networking sites, such as Facebook, Google Plus, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
The vast majority of users are English speakers, but research suggests that the adoption of so-called Web 2.0 of which these sites are part is widespread across the globe.
Indeed, it has been suggested that the use of social networking is almost culture-independent, partly because the interfaces to the online systems do not, on the whole, reflect cultural boundaries.
Culture is directly related to country-level social media use which may also be related with country-level self-esteem, pace-of-life, happiness, suicide rates, gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, median age, and corruption, Acar said.
In countries where people use social media heavily there is low suicide, high corruption, low GDP, high self-esteem, and high respect for traditions.
At the same time societies with low social media use rates tend to be older, less emotionally expressive, less happy, score low on openness and conscientiousness, have higher GDP, and higher social capital.
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Social Media May Provide Escape In Some Countries