Misleading Media Content on Social Media and Its Behavioral Effects on University Youth

Qualitative Study

Abstract

The main subject of this study’s discussion is to achieve the main goal of revealing the behavioral effects of the distorting media content on the social media websites on the universities’ youth, as a social stratum, who are users of such sites and are more exposed, and the interpretation of the effects obtained from their exposure. The study is based on a qualitative approach with the aim of reaching a deep and accurate understanding of the phenomenon and its interpretation of the behavioral effects on the universities’ youth, which were carried out through the use of in-depth interview tools in the form of non-random-purposed sampling with (20) students of the Sulaymaniyah Polytechnic University. The most important findings of the study: A large number of the universities’ youth are confused by the vast amount of information that is published on social media websites on a daily basis, which has led to doubts about the ability of young people to distinguish real media content from the misleading content. The misleading media content evokes feelings of anxiety, fear, and lack of will among the universities’ youth. This misleading content promotes low-quality cosmetics in the e-commerce process, thus influencing the purchasing decisions of the university youth, which has led to their detrimental health and financial well-being.