An Analysis of Youth Behavior on Social Networks During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Evidence from Romania
An Analysis of Youth Behavior on Social Networks During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Evidence from Romania

Summary/Abstract: The year 2020 represents a year of balance for both the economic and the social environment. Since March 2020, when the World Health Organization declared a state of pandemic for COVID-19, everything has changed for people's personal or professional lives. Information about the new virus is spread globally, through the authorities, television, specialized websites, or even social networks. Given that social networks were heavily used even before the COVID-19 pandemic, it is interesting to investigate how they were used during the pandemic by users. The goal of this paper is to determine how young people used social networks during this period. In this sense, quantitative research has been developed based on a questionnaire that was addressed to the 4th year students specializing in Engineering and Business Management at the Polytechnic University of Bucharest. The pilot study presented in this paper investigates a sample of young people from Bucharest, Romania, analyzing the reasons why young people use social networks when it comes to the situation of the new virus, but also the reasons why they now use social networks, following their new behavior on these platforms during this period. Also, the paper analyses the time spent by respondents on social networks before the pandemic and after it started. According to this study, Twitter, Skype, and Facebook are the most used social networks during the quarantine days. Young people use the most of social networks for relaxation, while when they use Instagram, they often end up buying things that they see posted there.

• Details
• Contents