Recruitment for Psychological Study about Social Media and psychological well-being

Hello everyone! I am a second year Psychology student at QUB that needs your help! I am recruiting for an online study on social media and well-being. I have attached the information sheets below for more detailed information. If you would like to participate, the experiment it should only take about 3-5 minutes and the questionnaire should only take about 5-7 minutes. I immensely appreciate your time and effort to take part - if you have any studies of your own I can do them in return or if you need any advice about anything I will try my best!

If you would like to participate, private message me to receive your unique, individual link.

Thanks again! :smile:

information for participants.docx95.5KB

Reply 1

slee551

Information in case the attachment does not work:

Information for Participants

Social media and psychology:

What is the purpose of the study?
This study is being undertaken by a group of Level 2 undergraduate Psychology students at Queen’s University Belfast. The research aims to develop a greater understanding of the use of social media and how this might link to psychological wellbeing. We use social media increasingly more often now, and we are keen to find out more about the role of psychology in using social media sites such as Facebook. If you are 18 or over and are able to understand basic written English then you are eligible to take part.

Why have I been chosen to take part?
You have been chosen as a participant of this study as are able to act as a representative of the population we are studying. This population is social media users and those are exposed to social networking on the internet.

Will I have to provide consent to take part?
Yes. You have been provided with this information sheet which will help you decide whether or not to take part. If you wish to take part you can click the link provided which will take you to the online experimental study. Before completing the questionnaire you will be asked if you wish to continue participating and can answer by selecting ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. If you click ‘Yes’ you will be able to continue with the questionnaire, however if you click ‘No’ then your participation in the study will cease and you can exit the screen. You can choose to discontinue participation at any point during the experiment or questionnaire simply by exiting the screen at any point before. Please note however that as your responses on the questionnaire are entirely anonymous, we will not be able to remove these after you submit your completed questionnaire. It is important you consider this when choosing to take part.

What will I be asked to do?
You will be asked to complete an experimental procedure online followed by a questionnaire. The experiment and questionnaire should take no longer than 20 minutes altogether. For the experimental procedure you will be asked to create a brief profile about yourself, which entails choosing a cartoon avatar to best represent yourself and to write a short description about you as a person (it is up to you what and how much detail you provide). Please note that this profile will only be used for the purposes of the task and will expire after the 3 minute timer for the task is up. You will then be taken to another screen where you will be able to view other people’s profiles who are taking part in the same task across different countries. You will get the chance to ‘like’ any profiles that you find interesting and other participants will have the chance to view and ‘like’ yours if they wish (the task is timed to last for 3 minutes). After the experiment you will be taken to another screen where you will complete a questionnaire. You will not be asked to enter your name or any other personally identifiable information. The questionnaire will last no longer than 10-15 minutes and will include questions about your gender, age, Facebook use, and will include questions about your emotional wellbeing and resilience. Following completion of the questionnaire you will be able to view/ download an additional debrief information sheet providing some more information about the study. At this point your participation will be complete.

What are the possible disadvantages/ risks to my taking part?
There are no profound disadvantages in taking part. However, participants may experience mild distress during the study, which explores social media and wellbeing. Participation is entirely voluntary. You can decide not to answer any questions and you can withdraw from the study at any time without any reason or penalty.

What are the possible benefits?
By taking part you will be contributing to a piece of research which is seeking to explore the way that we use social media and how this might be linked to emotional wellbeing. The results may therefore be important in developing policy and practice around social media use.

Will my participation be kept confidential?
All data is anonymized so nothing you provide in the questionnaire will be identifiable to you personally. As mentioned, the brief profile description you write in the first part of the experiment will only be used for the purposes of the task and will expire after the 3 minutes are finished. The anonymous information that you provide will be collated with other participants’ data and will be only be accessible to the project researchers. All anonymous information will be stored securely and destroyed after a set period of time in keeping with QUB research governance guidelines.

What will happen to the results of the study?
The results will also be used in an undergraduate level two research project which will be presented as an assessment contributing to grading their degree.

Who has reviewed the study?
The study has been peer reviewed by an independent member of staff at Queen’s University Belfast and granted ethical approval by the Research Ethics committee at Queen’s University Belfast.

What if there is a problem?
If you are unhappy about any aspect of your participation in the research you can raise these issues in confidence with a member of the research team (see contact details below).

Contact details: • Shannon Lee; [email protected]
Support links: Samaritans [email protected]

Reply 2

-Eirlys-

Debate & Current Affairs Helper

I'm a level 1 psychology undergraduate but I have an interest in cyperpsychology and how technology affects us. :smile:

Good topic to cover as I think it's quite a new area of research for psychology seeing as technology and the internet are fairly new and there's a lot of things to cover. Happy to help!

Reply 3

slee551

Original post by hannxm

I'm a level 1 psychology undergraduate but I have an interest in cyperpsychology and how technology affects us. :smile:

Good topic to cover as I think it's quite a new area of research for psychology seeing as technology and the internet are fairly new and there's a lot of things to cover. Happy to help!

Hey!

That's great, I hope you are enjoying your degree so far. Yes it is definitely a new area to look into and so fascinating - I can't wait to find out the result of this study.

Here is your personal link to the experiment:

http://smpo.github.io/preview/index.html?c=1&p=127&redirect=https%3A%2F%2Fqubpsych.eu.qualtrics.com%2Fjfe%2Fform%2FSV_1ZFFLkTO1cF5lK5

Thank you so much, I really appreciate your time :biggrin:

Reply 4

-Eirlys-

Debate & Current Affairs Helper

Original post by slee551

Hey!

The link isn't working. :frown:

Reply 5

slee551

Original post by hannxm

The link isn't working. :frown:

Aw I'm sorry about that. What internet browser are you using? Sometimes a mobile phone can work better. If it is to do with security, then there should be an option at the top of the screen near the URL to allow it to pop-up :smile:

Reply 6

slee551