Factors Affecting Social Media Addiction Behaviors of Undergraduate Student in the Eastern Region: A Case Study of Using Facebook

Abstract

The purposes of this study were 1) to measure Facebook addiction level of undergraduate students in universities in the eastern region of Thailand, 2) to explore the factors affecting Facebook addiction behavior of the undergraduate students, and 3) to propose a Facebook-usage causal relationship model. The samples derived from simple random sampling were 400 undergraduate students in universities located in the eastern region of Thailand in academic year 2017. Data collection instrument was questionnaire. The data was analyzed using SPSS to see the correspondence between the proposed model and the empirical data, and the confirmatory analysis of the model was conducted using LISREL. The results were as follows. The overall level of Facebook addiction behavior of the undergraduate students was in level of common user. In the proposed Facebook Usage Model (FUM), the direct causes of Facebook usage were ease of Facebook usage, subjective norm, perceived Facebook usage behavior, perceived benefits of Facebook, attitude toward Facebook usage, and intention to use Facebook and the indirect causes of Facebook usage were attitude toward Facebook usage, intention to use Facebook, and Facebook addiction behavior. The proposed model was correspondent with the empirical data in acceptable level (2/df = 2.97, GFI = .93, and CFI = .97). The variables in the model could explain the variance of Facebook usage of the studied students by 52%.