International Journal of Education and Social Science (IJESS)

Social media platforms which are one of today’s most widely used communication platforms cause a transformation in users’ role by enabling them to become active contributors of the contents instead of just being passive consumers of information. In this context, exploring the motivations behind social media usage gains importance. The uses and the gratifications approach which focuses on the motivations related to the media usage and the factors that affect these motivations is highly directive in terms of explaining individuals’ social media usage motivations as well. In this study, the general views of individuals about social media usage were determined. Data were collected through an open-ended question which aimed to explore the general views of the participants about social media. In this context, 60 participants from the province of Eskişehir have answered the open-ended question. The encoding process has been performed via QSR-Nvivo 8 software program. The data has been classified as main themes based on the topics that highlighted by the participants. It is determined that the general views of the participants about social media have mainly focused on the advantages and disadvantages of social media and the participants’ opinions correspond to the basic motivational categories of uses and gratifications approach.