Influence of Social Media Use on Young Adults and Their Behavioral Changes During The Covid-19 Period

Abstract

The coronavirus pandemic is still an ongoing issue. Social distancing is an essential factor in protecting against the Covid- 19 epidemic. Social distancing limits the chance of contact with infected people. A large part of the world's population will have to spend time alone at home; people are turning to social media to stay in touch with family, friends, and work. The adults between the ages of approximately 18 to 29 years are the most popular on social media. The behavior patterns of young adults have changed with the use of social media that involves communication. Young people with different behaviors also had to stay home, resulting in new patterns as well as unintentional changes. Mostly the young adults focus on social media within the new communication platforms. Long-term as well as short-term relationships with someone other than family members have developed through social media. Using in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, and studying the behavioral changes of young adults, this research focuses on how social media has influenced behavioral changes among young adults in an unstable social system within their private sphere. The objective of the research is to identify the impact of social media on young adults in changing their lifeworld-related behaviour when unstable social conditions are presented. Social constructivist epistemology has been applied to this research. The theoretical perspective that could be used for this research was symbolic interactionism. This mainly focuses on human behaviour and how people build self-image in society. The constructive grounded theory is used for this research. It is a qualitative approach and studies the behaviour of individuals looking at society, the theory is built at the same time as the data is collected. It was difficult to say the exact sample because the constructivist grounded theory was used. Data collection could be stopped once the data was large enough to be collected. At the end of the research, 15 respondents were used for this research by the researcher. There were some limitations of the research. Language issues arose during this research. Lack of research on Sri Lankan young adult’s behavioural changes during the Covid-19. Although the quarantine period is over, research is ongoing and people are reluctant to give their personal information.