Selçuk iletiŞİM

Instant Messaging Use Among University Students (81-96)
87
young users’ perspectives. The result showed
that young users correlated certain features of
IM with aspects of usefulness. The ability to
facilitate friendship development and personal-
ized communication was viewed as important
for social use. By contrast, information rich-
ness and information volume were assumed as
the most desirable features for work-related
use. Besides, the researchers reported that,
“ease of use is important for personal use, but
not important for work-related use”.
Debrand (2004: 70-72) in study within the
framework of a doctorate dissertation exam-
ined gender differences concerning the use and
perceived usefulness of email and instant mes-
saging software. This study indicated that male
and female college students use and perceive
email and instant messaging in a similar man-
ner. There was no supporting evidence to show
a statistically significant difference between
men and women perceptions of email or instant
messaging usefulness and frequency of use
when communicating with people who were
geographically close. There was also no sup-
porting evidence to show a statistically signifi-
cant difference of usefulness perceptions be-
tween men and women when using instant
messaging for communicating with people who
were geographically distant.
Flanagin (2005: 179-184) examined the uses
and gratifications of the IM in another research
which was conducted on college students. He
received answers from 271 volunteer students.
The researcher performed a factor analysis,
which yielded four motivations: (1) social
entertainment, (2) sociability gratifications, (3)
social usefulness, and (4) task accomplishment.
Findings indicated that respondents exhibited a
high capacity for multi-tasking in IM conversa-
tions, and results suggest displacement effects,
particularly of email by IM.
Hwang (2005: IV-V), in a study conducted in
the  United  States  within  the  framework  of  a
doctorate dissertation, examined 602 college
students’ motives for (GS: Gratifications
Sought) and benefits (GO: Gratifications Ob-
tained) from IM use. Findings of this study
showed that for college students, chatting on
IM  is  a  selective  behavior  in  which  they  at-
tempt to gratify the specific need of social
utility, interpersonal utility, convenience, enter-
tainment/relaxation, and information. Once
those attempts are successful (GO), the positive
experience with IM reinforces the college stu-
dents’ perception that IM gratifies their specific
needs and it turn leads to greater use of IM to
fulfill the needs (GS). Besides, results obtained
from this study indicated that IM use was nega-
tively and significantly related to TV viewing
and telephone use. Social presence was posi-
tively and significantly related GS and GO.
According to researcher, IM users who either
sought convenience and information gratifica-
tions or obtained them from IM use perceived
less social presence. Using IM in order to seek
social, interpersonal and entertain-
ment/relaxation gratifications, however, were
linked to a higher level of social presence. On
the other hand, stepwise regression results in
this study showed that the convenience motive,
followed by the entertainment/ relaxation mo-
tive and the convenience benefit were the
strongest predictors of IM use.
Lin et al. (2007: 417) surveyed a sample of 401
junior high school students on their patterns of
IM use. Factor analysis of the satisfaction with
virtual interpersonal relationship revealed four
factors: building friendship, getting recogni-
tion, interaction enhancement, and being un-
derstood. The researchers concluded that (1)
there is significant cause and effect on the
adolescents’ satisfaction with their interper-
sonal relationships between their real life and
virtual world (via IM); and (2) adolescents may
enhance their interpersonal behavior by using
IM, leading to an increase in satisfaction with
their interpersonal relationships in the virtual
world.
At the end of the literature review, following
research questions were written:
RQ1: What are the university student’s IM
usage motivations?
RQ2:  Is  there  any  relationship  between  IM
usage motivations?
RQ3:  What  are  the  predictors  of  IM  usage
frequency?
RQ4: Is there any relationship between predic-
tors of IM usage and its’ frequency?

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Selçuk İletişim, 5, 3, 2008
88
2. METHODS
This research was aimed to investigate motiva-
tions of instant messaging users among Selcuk
University students. In accordance with this
purpose a survey was performed in a student
sample which consisted of 547 university stu-
dents.
2.1. Procedure and Sample
The data for this study was collected from
Selcuk University/Turkey students who are IM
users. Purposive sampling technique was used
in field research. The sample included five
hundred and forty seven students who have
been attending to 17 faculties. The survey has
been conducted from March 1 to 15, 2008. The
sample included 267 (48.8 %) male and 280
(51.2 %) female respondents. Fifteen (2.8 %)
students have been attending prep class, one
hundred and seventy seven (32.5 %) first class,
one hundred and twenty six (23.2 %) second
class, eighty six (15.8 %) third class, and one
hundred and forty (25.7 %) fourth classes.
Participants’ mean of ages is 21.62, amount of
spending in one month is 404.5 Turkish Liras,
time  of  IM  using  are  3.9  years,  time  of  IM
daily are 80 minutes, time spent on each instant
messaging  session  are  49  minutes,  number  of
the session in one day are 2.2, number of saved
friends in IM account are 76.9, time of the
internet  usage  in  one  day  are  two  hours  and
thirteen minutes.
Frequency analysis indicated that 212 (38.8 %)
students have chatted mostly with ordinary
friends, 126 students (23.0 %) with girl/boy
friends, 121 students (22.1 %) with classmates,
and 88 students (16.1 %) have chatted mostly
with their family members. Also, 228 (41.7 %)
participants connected to the internet from their
homes, 173 participants (31.6 %) from internet
cafes, 55 participants (10.1 %) from home and
school, 49 participants (9.0 %) from dormitory,
and 42 participants (7.7 %) connected to the
internet from schools. On the other hand analy-
sis revealed that 187 (34.2 %) students have
used internet for e-mail and IM, 180 students
(32.9 %) for following news, 75 students (13.7
%) for home works, 68 (12.4 %) for hobby, and
37 (6.8 %) students have used internet for surf-
ing the web. In total, 532 (97.3 %) participants
have used MSN Messenger while only 15 (2.7
%) participants have used Yahoo Messenger
service.
2.2. Measurements
The questionnaire was designed to examine
motivations of IM users through 35 items.
Likert type categories ranging from 1 for
‘strongly disagree’ and 5 for ‘strongly agree’
were used to measure the standing of each
individual on each item. The questionnaire
designed was examined and combined with the
questionnaires’ of the researchers Hwang
(2005), Flanagin (2005), Song et al. (2004),
Koçak & Özcan (2002), Leung (2001), Pa-
pacharissi & Rubin (2000), Stafford et al.
(1999), Armstrong (1999).
For demonstrating questionnaires’ reliability,
Cronbach’s alpha analysis was performed. The
questionnaires’ internal consistency reliability
was quite high. The coefficient alphas ranged
from 62.9 for the relationship maintenance
dimension to 89.2 for the total instrument. Also
questionnaires’ validity was counted thorough
K.M.O Barletts. According to this analysis
validity of the questionnaire was 88.0.
2.3. Analytical Procedure
First, a principal components factor analysis
with varimax rotation was conducted to deter-
mine the potential groupings of 29 gratification
statements university students’ associate with
IM usage. Next, hierarchical regressions were
run to determine the relative influence of
demographics, gratifications sought from IM
usage, IM using behaviors and Internet using
behaviors in predicting IM usage. In this study
time spent on instant messaging daily and av-
erage number of minutes spent on an instant
messaging session were dependent variables.
3. RESULTS
To demonstrate motivations of IM users’ factor
analysis was performed. Also Pearson correla-
tion analysis revealed inter-factor correlations.
Lastly to find predictors of IM use hierarchical
regression and correlation analyses was per-
formed.

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