Facebook usage of Sri Lankan consumers: an addictive consumption perspective of social media

The web has rapidly enhanced the capacity for people to interact with one another without the boundaries of their location. More specifically, social media has become one of the major latforms that enable people to interact with each other across geographical boundaries. Though, here are numerous social network sites, Facebook is considered to be the most popular social media platform. Facebook, being the second most visited website in the world and number one in Sri Lanka, could be identified as a special kind of addiction today where an average user browses Facebook at least for 30 minutes a day from computers or smart devices and getsexposed to diverse content on Facebook as a habit. Since the literature suggests that individuals deal with social media content in three ways; consumption, participation and production, it could be suspected that excessive usage of Facebook could lead to addictive consumption which may derive numerous social issues. It is an accepted fact that an addiction is known to destroy human beings and their relationships and Facebook addiction is no exception to this. Further, it is evident that there has been a significant lack of empirical research in this regard from social marketing perspective despite the fact that it has been examined in psychological viewpoint. Concerning the need of a study to examine the Facebook addiction from a social marketing perspective, this study aimed to examine the level of addictive consumption of Facebook among Sri Lankan consumers. Further, it attempted to examine variations of Facebook addiction among various demographical characteristic of consumers.
This study was predominantly guided by positivistic research paradigm; hence, the study was quantitative in nature. Overall research design was cross-sectional (survey) and data was collected using a structured questionnaire. Unit of analysis was Sri Lankan individual who engage with Facebook. Sample was drawn using convenience sampling method due to the unavailability of a sampling frame and data was collected from 254 individuals. Data analysis techniques included descriptive analysis, independent sample t test and one-way ANOVA. The results revealed that 70% of the respondents demonstrate addictive consumption of Facebook whereas 20% of respondents are seriously addicted. Further, it was evident that males are more addicted to use Facebook than females. Moreover, income and level of education seemed to have an impact on addictive consumption of Facebook. Findings of the study shed lights on social as well as policy implications. Policy makers in education sector could consider the possibility of students to be addictive in social media usage and educate students about negative consequences of such an addictive behaviour. Further, consultation and mentoring programmes could address the issue of addictive social media consumption and improve individuals’ self-control in social media usage. Moreover, effectively designed awareness campaigns may be useful in controlling addictive social media consumption.