AN INFLUENCE OF MULTIPLE SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS ON INDIVIDUAL DECISION MAKING

Abstract

Social media is the quite new but emerging phenomenon and it has started to influence individual decision making quite impressively in recent times. Hence, this study tries to understand how multiple social media platforms in Pakistan can influence on individual 
decision making (IDM) in terms of social, economic and political aspects. The study conducted was quantitative in nature and employed close ended questionnaire in order to collect data from 161 university students. The study concluded at the end that, there is a significant but moderate relationship between YouTube usage, Twitter usage, LinkedIn usage and individual decision making (IDM) as a whole. However, there is a significant but strong relationship between Facebook usage, WhatsApp Usage, Instagram usage and individual decision making as a whole. Subsequently, there is a significant but strong relationship between social media platforms and individual decision making with respect to its economic, social and political aspects. In addition to that, when the model fit was 
applied, it was found ultimately that, the value of SRMR (Standardized Root Mean Squared Residual) is less than 0.05 and NFI (Normed Fit Index) is also above 0.90, which indicates that, the model is closely fit. Hence, there is a significant relationship between independent variables (social media platforms) and dependent variable (individual decision making) of the study. Moreover, it can be concluded from the study that, social media platforms do play a vital role in economic and social decision making while, in terms of political decision making, their role is limited.