PREDICTION OF YOUTUBE ADDICTION AMONG UNIVERSITY STUDENTS FROM USES AND GRATIFICATIONS APPROACH

Abstract: Social networking sites (SNS) have become a trend nowadays and it was widely used by university students, however, the rapid expansion of the SNS has caused the time engaging with the technology to become excessive and lead to addiction and other negative consequences among the students. The purpose of this study was to test the motives of watching YouTube as predictors of students' addiction behavior through the Uses and Gratification (U&G) theory. This research adopts a quantitative method, through the online questionnaire. The study applied purposeful sampling, where the respondents who have watched YouTube and have a YouTube account were selected and generated 150 valid responses from the students at a private university in Klang Valley. The findings demonstrate that three motives (Passing Time, Enjoyment, and Information-seeking) are the predictors of YouTube addiction behavior among the students and different motives lead to different degrees of addiction. This study contributes to the U&G Theory as well as the literature on media consumption, for it benefits the parents, universities, and government in understanding the motives that influence media addiction among university students. Thus, strategies can be implemented to avoid excessive addiction which leads to negative social media outcomes. Keywords: Addiction behavior; Communication & media psychology; University students; Uses & Gratification Theory; YouTube