Social Media Usage and Social Isolation Among Pakistani Youth: A Survey-Based Analysis

Abstract

Nowadays, social media plays a key role in how individuals live day to day - shaping how young people connect, build bonds, even pass their time. Despite bringing people together despite the distances, many researches prove that overusing mediated interaction might be connected with experiencing loneliness. In this paper, the connection between the use of social media and social isolation among youth at the University of Sargodha will be analyzed. A quantitative methodology with the use of survey was utilized, and the Uses and Gratifications Framework, media dependency theory, as well as Social Information Processing Theory (SIPT) were employed to interpret the processes of perceiving relational cues among young users. Data from 200 participants aged 15-30 were collected with the help of Likert scale survey distributed by snowball sampling. The findings revealed a moderate, but positive correlation between social media usage and social isolation showing the presence of a statistically significant connection.