Social Networking Sites (SNS) and Empathy Among Adolescents in Indonesia

Abstract

Social networking sites (SNSs) have increased in number and popularity for more than a decade especially for adolescents. Previous studies conducted in western countries have stated that using SNSs could exert positive and negative effects on various aspects of psychosocial development, one of which is empathy. Empathy is the ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes both emotionally and cognitively. Empathy is divided into 2 components, namely cognitive empathy described as a cognitive role-taking ability or the capacity to engage in the cognitive process of adopting another’s psychological point of view, and affective empathy referring to the recognition of other people's emotions or feelings. Empathy plays a vital role in developing social behavior in adolescents. It is frequently considered the social glue in peer interactions. During adolescence, at a time when developing intimate, meaningful relationships with peers is one of the critical developmental goals, empathy helps one to relate to other people, and learning to empathize is essential. The relationship between SNSs use and empathy has remained unclear, especially in Indonesia. Therefore, the present study aims to determine the relationship between SNSs and empathy on adolescents in Indonesia. This study recruited 1,638 students from junior and senior high school with ages ranging from 12 to 19 years randomly across several provinces in Indonesia. Data collection was carried out by administering online questionnaires to participants consists of four sections; the first section is the introductory page, informing participants about the study and informed consent. The second section asked about demographic data. The third section asked the intensity of SNSs use during the last week with the Social Networking Time Use Scale (SONTUS) method, and last section asked the questions about empathy with the Adolescent Measure of Empathy and Sympathy (AMES) method. In order to assess the associate of empathy with use of social networking sites (SNSs) and demographic data, the Censored Regression Model (censReg) analysis was applied. Our result showed that SNSs significantly positively correlated with cognitive empathy, affective empathy, and sympathy among adolescents in Indonesia, which is similar to previous studies, so this may be a general pattern in adolescence. The connections made by SNSs is believed to increase feelings of humanity (sympathy) and also empathy to other humans. The levels of empathy among female students were higher than those of male students. It may be that female students can better recognize emotions, understand, and share other people's feelings, which facilitates empathy.