ONLINE SOCIALIZATION: IMPACT OF SOCIAL INTERACTION USING FACEBOOK MESSENGER ON COLLEGE STUDENTS OF MSEUF

This study sought to determine the perceived impact of social interaction using Facebook Messenger on college students of MSEUF. Specifically, the study aims to determine the respondents’ reason of adapting Facebook messenger as a medium for social interaction; to analyze the perception of the respondents on utilizing Facebook messenger for social interaction in terms of usage, convenience and satisfaction; to investigate the effectiveness of Facebook messenger in online communication and socialization among selected college students in terms of building connection, sharing information and maintaining social relationship; and its perceived impact to the social and communication skills of the college students. The study was quantitative in nature and descriptive research design was utilized. The respondents were the selected college students of MSEUF and random name generator has been used to randomly select one hundred (100) respondents. The questionnaire was in Google Forms format and it was sent via Facebook Messenger and email. The interpretation of data that gathered in the study began with the collection of all the data from the respondents, the formula for getting the general weighted mean was used as a statistical treatment and after tallying the findings, the researcher began to process all of the gathered data without bias. Results revealed that the convenience and features offered by the Facebook Messenger application are the primary reasons that most teenagers used it as a medium for social interaction. Meanwhile, the perception of the respondents on utilization of Facebook messenger for online socialization is most teenagers become more influenced by this communication platform, teenagers become influence by this platform because of its accessibility and Facebook messenger meets their needs and wants such as making them satisfied user. Likewise, they perceived Facebook Messenger as an effective tool for strengthening their connection, they can easily share information and get an update and it has become a means to keep in touch with people even from a distance. Moreover, researcher found that frequent use of this online platform for communication and socialization has a very significant impact on the user’s social and communication skills.