The Effect of the Amount of Time Spent on Social Media on Emotional Intelligence In High School Students

Elizabeth McCallum

School Name

Spring Valley High School

Grade Level

10th Grade

Presentation Topic

Psychology

Presentation Type

Non-Mentored

Abstract

The purpose of this experiment was to find a simple way to increase the emotional intelligence in high school students. It was hypothesized that less time spent on social media would correlate with a higher emotional intelligence. Students at Spring Valley and Blythewood High Schools were asked to complete a survey inquiring about the amount of time they spend on social media, which was documented by the Apple screen time tracker. The survey also contained the Schutte Emotional Intelligence Test, which was used to analyze the emotional intelligence of the participants. In this EI scale, a higher score represents a higher emotional intelligence. The average Emotional Intelligence score for the 0 hours group was 118 as well as 122 for the less than 4 hours, 127 for 4-7 hours, 107 for the 7-10 hours, and 121 for more than 10 hours. The results were analyzed using an Analysis of Variance Test or an ANOVA. This test was conducted with a 95% confidence interval. The critical value was 8.31, taken from the degrees of freedom 4/113, and an alpha value of 0.05, and F=2.28. Because the F value is much smaller than the critical value, there is insufficient evidence to reject the null hypothesis. Therefore, the hypothesis was not supported. The amount of time spent on social media does not have an effect on the emotional intelligence of high school students.

Location

Furman Hall 208

Start Date

3-28-2020 10:15 AM

Presentation Format

Oral and Written

Group Project

No

COinS
 
Mar 28th, 10:15 AM

The Effect of the Amount of Time Spent on Social Media on Emotional Intelligence In High School Students

Furman Hall 208

The purpose of this experiment was to find a simple way to increase the emotional intelligence in high school students. It was hypothesized that less time spent on social media would correlate with a higher emotional intelligence. Students at Spring Valley and Blythewood High Schools were asked to complete a survey inquiring about the amount of time they spend on social media, which was documented by the Apple screen time tracker. The survey also contained the Schutte Emotional Intelligence Test, which was used to analyze the emotional intelligence of the participants. In this EI scale, a higher score represents a higher emotional intelligence. The average Emotional Intelligence score for the 0 hours group was 118 as well as 122 for the less than 4 hours, 127 for 4-7 hours, 107 for the 7-10 hours, and 121 for more than 10 hours. The results were analyzed using an Analysis of Variance Test or an ANOVA. This test was conducted with a 95% confidence interval. The critical value was 8.31, taken from the degrees of freedom 4/113, and an alpha value of 0.05, and F=2.28. Because the F value is much smaller than the critical value, there is insufficient evidence to reject the null hypothesis. Therefore, the hypothesis was not supported. The amount of time spent on social media does not have an effect on the emotional intelligence of high school students.